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Finally played through the Undead Nightmare DLC for Red Dead Redemption.

Not bad, not bad at all. In fact, one of the better DLC releases if you ask me.

Firstly, because of the zombie content, it’s sufficiently different enough from the main game that I’m certain it was not denied inclusion to make more money. Many other devs put out DLC that really seems as though it should have been on the disk in the first place (That’s right Assassins Creed 2, I’m looking at you here with your missing ‘chapters’). Not only that, but a lot of developers start talking about how much the ‘day one’ DLC is going to cost before the damn game even ships these days!

I’m sorry, but even if you have a legitimate reason for not including that DLC as part of the retail package, you do yourself no favours in gamers eyes by talking about how much it’s going to cost on launch day before the game has even shipped. Delay it a month, give gamers a chance to sink their teeth into the game before you start the squeezing extra cash from them maybe?

Anyway, back on topic. The Undead Nightmare pack was perhaps some of the best value I’ve seen in a DLC pack outside of the recent Battlefield Vietnam addon. A new 6 hour single player campaign (albeit with some issues), some new weapons, new enemy types (or at least some reskinned ones that act a little differently), and some good use of the existing game mechanics in a fresh way.

I think I actually sank about 16 hours in total in to the DLC storyline. That’s not far off what I actually spent playing the full game if memory serves me right. Now that’s value in my opinion.

If that weren’t enough , the standalone DLC disk doesn’t even require Red Dead Redemption. I could be wrong on this, but as far as I’m aware you can grab the retail version and play it as a standalone game. It costs a little more than the marketplace version, but still. A stand alone DLC release? You can’t argue with that really.

The singleplayer campaign of the Undead pack begins with Marston protecting his family from a zombie attack, unsuccessfully as it turns out. You are then tasked to try and find the cause of, and cure to, the undead plague sweeping the land. Many people believe Seth and his glass eye to be the cause, some think West Dickens and his tonic are responsible, others believe the infection was brought over the border by the mexicans.

Along the way you will encounter several characters from the main game, alive and undead as it happens, and complete various themed missions for each in an attempt to discover the true reasons surrounding these events.

Missions include burning graveyards to ensure no more dead rise from the graves, securing towns from zombie attacks (enabling you to save in a safehouse), and many other undead related malarky.

Missions still have a ‘same old, same old’  feel about them. Once you secure one town, every other town is more of the same. In addition, towns only stay secure for a few days before another attack. Once the town is overrun you have limited time to secure the location before the survivors are killed. If all survivors are killed you lose that location as a savepoint. Not really that big of a deal as they tend to stay secure long enough for you to get a lot done without it being an annoyance. Quick travel helps immensely here and securing a town never takes too long. Either wipe out the zombie invasion or provide the survivors with ammo to take care of the issue themselves. If you give the survivors ammo, you will have to clear up any remaining zombies to secure the town, so either way, you’ll be fighting a lot of the undead.

The undead provided me with some issues. Specifically some of the smaller animals at first. Headshots are the only way to down enemies as you would expect, but the smaller the target, the more frustrating it is to headshot. Especially if bushes are obstructing your view. I gave up killing undead animals and elected to speed past them all on my horse in the end. There is an achievement to kill one of every undead animal in the DLC but I lack the patience to deal with that right now.

Combat against the normal undead zombies is fine and you soon get into a headshot rythm. Occasionally the control system will fight you at exactly the wrong time, but nothing too bad.

The new weapons are great and I especially appreciated the ‘boomstick’ of sorts you eventually get for the authentic Army of Darkness vibe. The new enemies are a bit… meh. Well the normal zombies are fine, the ‘special’ types are really just copies of Left4Dead2 special zombies without any tongue in cheek reference to why they are like that. Something I found a little odd given R*’s tendency to reference things for a joke.

Other than that, the usual Rockstar humour is at work here. Seth can be found hosting an undead party of sorts, West Dickens is still attempting to peddle his wares as zombie repellent when actually it attracts them (yeah, boomer bile). The film director spots the opportunity present and asks you to bring him live zombies for a film he is planning. As you can imagine, this does not end well.

Ahh yes, and for all the San Andreas fans, there is finally a Sasquatch in the game. It’s actually quite a sad mission really, but I wont ruin it for you.

Conclusion?

Great DLC, well worth the price of admission and a great example of how to implement paid content.

After reading a recent post about DLC over at fantopro.com, I got to talking with the author, Steven Savage, via email and agreed to try my hand at a guest post about the recent history of DLC in gaming.

You can read it here

Ahh, this one is good.

EA Canada senior producer Jason DeLong believes that pretty soon publishers will have to start thinking of new ways to deliver and charge for their content.

In a Game Informer article, Jason has this to say,

I think that we’re going to start to see – maybe not in the next year, but in the near future – games go down the route of smaller up-front experiences and lower prices at the beginning and then the ability to extend the game through episodic material or future feature material. I think that’s a direction we’re probably heading in.

Fair enough, Valve have shown how well episodic gaming can be done and several other companies are adopting this method of distribution already. Monkey Island, Sam & Max, Half Life 2 are just a small selection of games that have taken the episodic route with varying success.

What interests me is the following quote,

Games are getting more expensive, and times are tough, and it’s getting harder to purchase every game you want. So, how can we keep people playing and offer them more but not have to make them break the bank to do it? It’s going to be an interesting creative problem for us to solve

Now, call me cynical, but if this was coming from anyone but an EA employee, I’d be more willing to accept it at face value… But this is EA after all, and old habits die hard in my opinion. There is every chance I’m wrong, but if I were a betting man, I’d lay down some serious cash on the possibility of EA moving towards releasing stripped down versions of games with the option to add the bulk of normal content via DLC.

About 3 years ago there was a rumour that Sony planned to ship Gran Turismo without cars or tracks, but make them available via the PSN Store as paid DLC packs. Now imagine that but with a Madden release, or Tiger Woods. You can buy the game, but it only comes with one golfer and one PGA course on the disk. If you want more, the Live Marketplace is over there…

This is all speculation of course but I would not be at all surprised to see a tiered content/pricing structure appear from EA within the next 5 years. This could actually work pretty well if the prices are reasonable and gamers pay no more for a complete game via DLC packs than it would cost to buy the equivalent amount of content on a DVD. The sceptic in me however, is pretty sure that this will not be the case.

In conclusion, to paraphrase a classic quote, “beware of EA bearing gifts”

I’ve talked about digital distribution in another post but I recently read that Logitech may be working on a UMD attachment for the PSPGo which if true interests me a great deal.

Assuming this attachment is real, there must be significant demand for such a product in order for it to be made. This is the last thing Sony needs if its experiment into digital distribution with the PSPGo is to be a success. They are already on shaky ground with some games still only releasing on UMD, digital PSN titles not always available alongside the UMD release, and most importantly, to the best of my knowledge there isn’t a complete digital catalogue available (as promised) for gamers to exchange physical UMD’s for to use on the new system yet.

The PSP has already been suffering from low sales compared to other handhelds and consoles on the market, and piracy is all over the device like white on rice. Now Sony has split the PSP user base in half and PSPGo adopters cannot use software they may have already bought for the system. Not a great state of affairs for anybody. Throw in a UMD attachment and any future plans Sony had for digital content are swirling around the toilet bowl ready to be flushed.

So is it a failed experiment? Well perhaps, but more importantly it was a failed experiment in an already failed area of Sony’s product line. If the PSPGo fails in digital distribution it will be less of a problem than it would have been trying this out with the PS3 slim. You could say this is a smart move by Sony enabling them to test the digital distribution waters without crippling the flagship product.

It will be interesting to see how other companies pay attention to this. There is a very strong chance that should the PSPGo fail (and if pushed I’d bet it will), other companies may become wary of attempting a move into the digital distribution model. Sony’s failure will underline the concern that perhaps the market is not ready for digital distribution just yet.

Personally I do not feel that pushing digital only devices such as the PSPGo is the way forward. Good implementation and value for money in DLC will do more towards converting people to a microtransaction/digital only model in my opinion.