I don’t understand the rational on the prices of digital downloads and now xbox comes in with the ultimate in pointless hard disk space – the downloadable game – on the face of it a good idea – I like the arcade games I don’t have to get off my arse to change disks and they are generally excellent value for money. So the idea of full games downloadable to my hard drive had me seriously thinking about an upgrade to a larger capacity drive. Then Microsoft revealed the games and the prices for there games on demand these included:

Battlefield: Bad Company, Bioshock, Oblivion and Call of Duty 2

Now lets take Call of Duty – it’s a whopping $29.99. A quick bit of research and you can find the game for $1.98 used on Amazon. So lets compare like to like – a new copy? Thats minimum effort just looking on amazon resellers. So what do I get fir my $29.99 errrr lets face it less. No manual, no box – heh no disc just 5gb worth of bandwith from Microsoft. Surely Infinity Ward dont care – this game will soon be two issues old for the company I’m sure hard copies aren’t exactly flying off the shelves? So why not offer these games at $10 or so?

It’s the same argument for mp3’s why buy an album off itunes for £0.79? I get go buy the cd for the same price and make a digital copy for my ipod and still have the hard copy, in many cases you can get the album cheaper. Why not turn the tide – artists at least get something for your effort, time and talent – sell your music direct for £0.25 a track £2.50 and album – then I’ll buy more downloads until then I’ll stick with cd’s and shop bought games.

Wow I’m officially excited now, I’ve been looking forward to this game since I heard about it but last night I downloaded the demo and how good does this game look.

Initially I was a little bit worried that the game could be very samey in the same way that Wolverine was . Wolverine was a good game but ultimately disappointing in the the lack of variation in the action. Batman seems to combat this with a great mix of stealth and all out combat.

It uses similar dynamics to Wolverine with the detective mood of Batmans hood allowing you to highlight key areas of the room to find exits or Gargoyles to grapple onto, but from the demo it just looks like it will have much more interest to keep you going during game play.

Cannot wait for the full version in August.

http://www.batmanarkhamasylum.com/