On Monday, Left 4 Dead 2 was announced during Microsoft's E3 press conference, which is still more than a little surprising given Valve's history. Some have been complaining about L4D2 being released just under a year apart from the original. I can understand why some folks would be worried about that, even though I myself do not. But what I really don't understand is how people are saying that the contents of L4D2 should be released as DLC for L4D1 instead of a on a retail disc. Anyone who says this is being highly unrealistic for a number of reasons.

First off, lets make a list of all the new content and features in L4D2:
   
    * 5 new campaigns(all playable in co-op and versus out of the box.)
    * 4 new survivors
    * AI Director 2.0
    * Dynamic weather patterns
    * New guns, as well as new melee weapons
    * New special and regular infected
    * An additional, unannounced game mode

First off, all this new content is by far enough to warrant a new retail release. If all this stuff was released as DLC, it wouldn't be free DLC either. There would be no way to justify the production costs of DLC that had more content than the retail version of the L4D1. So even if Valve made 5 more campaigns and released them as DLC, those campaigns would probably be released at a rate of one every month or so, and you'd probably be paying close to $10 dollars for each of them. There's $50 right there, without the additional survivors, infected, weapons, etc.

The people driving the DLC debate also like to bring up Team Fortress 2. While it is true that Valve has generously supported TF2 with loads of free content, it's irrelevant. TF2 is a completely different IP, and the post-release support Valve is giving it is unique unto itself. Just because Valve puts that kind of time and money to put free updates in one of their games, doesn't mean they have to for all of them. When they release Half-Life 2: Episode 3, I highly doubt people are going to argue that it should have been free. Plus, the class updates Valve has been rolling out for TF2 is in an attempt to bring greater variety and balance to the game.

I bought L4D1 right after Christmas, and am still running through campaigns with friends multiple times a week. I'm still finding new situations, hearing new dialog,  and  just having a lot of fun. There's no question in my mind as to whether I've gotten my $60 dollars worth. I'll be surprised if I'm not saying the same thing 6 months after L4D2 is released.

What I'm saying is, if you feel L4D2 isn't worth your money, don't buy it. But just realize that it's ridiculous to think you should be getting it for anything less than a full priced game.

Picked up MadWorld this weekend, and I have to say that I'm somewhat underwhelmed. The game does many things right, but I feel that for every step forward, the game takes a few steps back.


Things I liked

• The art style and character design are great. The Sin City-esque art style is an excellent way to get around the technical limitations of the Wii.
  
• So much violence. Seeing guys get chopped in half by closing dumpster lids, tossed in meat grinders, or halved with a chainsaw, is pretty awesome.
  

• The soundtrack is excellent, and oddly fits the game perfectly. On the default setting it's hard to hear the commentary though.
• Man Golf. This is by far the best Bloodbath Challenge.
  

Things I didn't like

• The camera is terrible. I've read some reviews that referred to it as problematic, but that's giving it too much credit. The camera can't be rotated around Jack, it can only be centered behind him using the C button, and it follows way to closely. Holding down the C button will lock-on to an enemy, but outside of boss fights, it's pretty useless. Sometimes it doesn't even work, forcing you to repeatedly hold down the C button to get a lock on an enemy.
• The commentary(done by Greg Proops and John DiMaggio) is humorous at first, but takes less than an hour before getting stale. Expect to hear about how health pills are better when crushed up and injected into the folds of your scrotum every couple of minutes. This could have easily been remedied by not having comments played after every single goddammed thing you do. Every time you shove a street sign through a guy's neck, they will comment on it, and with a small bank of comments about impaling a guy, you will hear the same ones over and over, and it really started to get on my nerves.
  
• Quick Time Events. I'm ready for these to go away. Forever. QTE's take a lot of punch out of the boss fights in MadWorld. Almost every boss fight in the game boils down to waiting until you get a prompt for the boss' QTE, waggling your Wiimote along with the screen, rinse, repeat.
  
• The motorcycle sections suck. plain and simple. The only good part about them is that they don't last very long.
• Most of the Bloodbath Challenges invole nothing more than grouping guys together, and throwing one into the group, and knocking them all into a Jet Engine, the Death Press, a giant hand, etc.
  
• Lack of co-op story mode. I'm not one of those people that complains anytime a game doesn't have co-op. I'm a firm believer of the single-player experiences that games can provide. But co-op is a staple of the beat-em-up genre. And to put in co-op support just for the Bloodbath Challenge mini-games is just not cutting it. This game's replayability could have been exponentially increased with the ability to play with a friend.
  

Even with all those complaints, MadWorld is a very fun game, and I feel it is definately worth a rental. After my first couple hours with the game, however, I started to just get tired of all the repitition. The visual style and over-the-top gore is MadWorld's main selling point, but in my opinion, that's about all it's packing.

This just about sums it up:

Burnout: Paradise

I bought Burnout: Paradise last January, and really enjoyed the game, but ended up selling it. The reason being is that I honestly could not tell what the hell was going on on my crappy 24" television. So when I recently ditched the old set in favor of a 42" HDTV, my first order of business was getting back to Paradise City.

Holy hell. I can't find enough good things to say about this game. Addicting single and multiplayer gameplay, beautiful graphics(especially in HD), and ridiculous amounts of replayability. Best of all, Criterion has set a new bar for post-release support for a console game.

I guess there wasn't really a point to that, besides saying Burnout rules, which I'm actually OK with.


Fallout 3

I'm taking a break from Fallout. I was pleased with the Anchorage DLC, but am glad that Bethesda has hinted that the next 2 will have more content. While I started a character with the intent of maxing out all of my skills, I started to lose interest and figured I'd be better suited to do that stuff after all the DLC is out.

Speaking of DLC, did anyone hear Todd Howard on OXM's podcast? It was a little dissapointing to hear about how the level cap being raised is going to work. Mainly that you will have to grind to hell and back to hit 30. I really like the low cap in Fallout, it's easy to hit about 3/4ths of the way through the game without grinding, and that was really fun for me. Being an ex-WoW junkie probably had something to do with that. Does anyone else agree?

I'm glad there's a lull in releases right now, cause I still have stuff to get through from last year.

• Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts
• GTA IV (Stupid bank mission!)
• Left 4 Dead (acheivements)
• Civilization Revolution (acheivements)

• Fallout 3 (Doing an evil/max skills playthrough)