Thoughts Upon Bone

My latest IGN Insider column (subscription required) is about episodic content and how it could affect the future of console games:

Indeed, one of the most immediately apparent benefits to this model is that players don't have to wait nearly as long to begin playing an anticipated game. Designers can concentrate on getting the first episode done, and ship it before the rest of the game is even close to ready. Second, it's cheaper to try out a game -- rather than spending $60 on the full deal, players can drop $10 to experience the first one-sixth of the adventure. If you like it, you can buy the rest -- if not, you're only out ten bucks. With industry types always complaining that game rental stores are having a negative impact on their business, this would be a potentially win-win alternative to the current rental model.

This column is timely for two reasons: Ken Kutaragi talked up the PS3 as "a platform made for e-distribution" last week, and Half-Life 2 Episode 1 shipped on the 1st. But for me, the episodic content games I'm most excited about are coming from Telltale Games.

This is of course mostly because they're going to be making Sam and Max games starting this fall -- in the meantime you can check out Sam and Max webcomics or make your own with comic strip creator. Look at the one I made in just minutes!

Anyway, I digress. My main point here was to talk about the Telltale games that are out, namely the first two episodes of Bone, based on the cult classic graphic novels by Jeff Smith. The first episode, Out From Boneville, wasn't really that fantastic -- though we were promised an adventure game in the classic PC style, what we mostly ended up with was some really easy puzzles and a lot of crappo mini-games.

But they're on the right track with The Great Cow Race, which is exactly the sort of non-linear, hey-I-have-all-these-items-in-my-inventory-what-do-I-do brain-scratcher of an adventure game that everyone was hoping for. There are a few mini-games, but they're not as dominant or as frustrating. The whole thing's still over in a couple of hours, meaning it's really just a little slice of an adventure game. But more's coming.

The price is a little high, honestly. At $24.99 for digital downloads of both episodes, you're already paying about as much as a comparable PC title, and for just two little slices of game. Let's say there are four more episodes -- is the whole thing really gonna be worth $75? I'm looking forward to episode three, but I'd like to see these games go under $9.99 each before I could heartily recommend them to my adventure-game loving brethren with no reservations.