Patrick has forecasted it in our staggeringly magnificent podcast, but how much do you want to bet that Vader will appear as DLC that 360 owners will have to buy (while PS3 owners will have to buy Yoda)? How is that fair? This is precisely the kind of thing that critics of the downloadable content business model feared from the beginning: game companies releasing partial-content games and charging players to provide what should have come in the box you bought at the store.
Of course, I could be jumping the gun on this one and Namco could prove me completely off-base should it decide to include Darth Vader in the 360 version either in the retail release or as a free download, but if this goes where I think it's going, I'm undoubtedly going to have to shell out additional Microsoft Points to play the Dark Lord of the Sith on my 360. I believe some random hostage from the intro movie to Rainbow Six Vegas said it best when he cried out in anguish, "Give them what they want!"
Gabe wants his Darth, damnit!
DIY DLC
As I'd mentioned in a previous column, I'd like to try my hand at designing games for Xbox Live Arcade using Microsoft's XNA software development kit. So far, the main hurdle has been figuring out what game to make, because while I love to play videogames, I don't really have a brilliant design document just aching to break out of my brain. Earlier this week, however, I stumbled upon something that I feel I need to explore.
It was late Monday night and I was just teetering in that bizarre nether-state between being awake and drifting into slumberland when I suddenly remembered a game from my younger days. The game was called Paradroid and I had played it on the Commodore 64C that my parents had bought our family near the beginning of the home computer revolution. This game put you in the shoes of a small, spherical droid capable of taking over the neural interfaces of other hapless droids and thus control the droid revolution occurring on a starship deep within the bowels of the expansive interstellar reaches.
Paradroid was designed by Andrew Braybrook, a developer that I admired even in those early years because of his skill at crafting unique and detailed experiences. Braybrook has long since left the gaming industry but his works persist. I even found a site that has retooled Paradroid for play on PCs (that version is available here, and I highly recommend that you download and install it to give it a whirl -- it's still good after all these years).
In any case, I think I've found my first project for bringing a game to the XBLA platform using the XNA software development kit. Over the course of the coming months, I'll keep you updated on my progress and perhaps even post downloadable versions provided that Microsoft and Andrew Braybrook don't mind.
New Posting Time
In an effort to include our beloved fans living on the East Coast of these fine United States, we at GameSpy (in conjunction with IGN) are going to shift our posting time from 6 p.m. PST to 4 p.m. PST. It's not that we don't love our neighbors here on the Left Coast, we just want to make sure everyone gets access to our content as soon as they bust out of work or school... and, really, can you complain about getting updates earlier than usual? I didn't think so.
Because of this shift, My So-Called Live is a little short this week (bi-week?) and so I'm going to excuse myself a little early so that I can attend to preparations for tonight's 'Spy-Hunter tournament on the PS3 (we're playing Unreal Tournament III, in case you hadn't heard) and to get content ready for the 4 p.m. push. Join me again in two short weeks when I'll hopefully have updates on my progress with the Paradroid XBLA project and more!
