THQ has released the PC demo of Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights. The 1.63GB download includes two tracks, Solo Drift, Drift King and Circuit Race goals, and four cars: the Nissan 350Z, BMW M3, Holden Monaro and Saleen Mustang.
See download mirrors below.
Major Nelson's Blog writes:
"Content: TC’s H.A.W.X
Availability: All Xbox LIVE regions except India and Japan
Content: Juiced 2: HIN
Availability: All Xbox LIVE regions except India and Japan
Content: Disney Sing It HSM3
Availability: All Xbox LIVE regions except Austria, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea"
That's one features of Live that I really enjoy. Sure, in some cases, the prices are ridiculous (see: Oblivion, in which a digital version of the original game is priced higher than the disc GOTY edition), but there is something to be said for the convenience of just having something ready to play on your hard-drive. Especially now that both Sony and MS are shipping their consoles with 200+ gigs of storage.
That's plenty of room for games.
The PlayStation Portable’s (PSP) Essentials Range of software, originally revealed by Electronic Theatre last month, has received a number of new additions courtesy of THQ. Revealed early this morning, the likes of Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights, MX Vs ATV Untamed, Avatar: The Legend of Aang and Marvel Super Hero Squad are joining LocoRoco, Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters and Patapon 2 in the budget line-up of PSP software known as the Essentials Range.
The Games for Windows – LIVE client is available to download now, and uses the same user-orientated properties as the Xbox 360. Players will have a unique GamerTag which operates on both Xbox 360 and Games for Windows systems, linked to a Windows LIVE ID account that also grants features such as a free Hotmail based e-mail account and soon personalised search engine results through the recently launched Bing, and can maintain a consolidated GamerScore of the Achievements earned through playing games on either format. The Games for Windows – LIVE service already offered Downloadable Content (DLC) for existing retail games, as well as trailers, demos and other associated content, and now offers full games for direct download.
It's an improvement over what it was, but here in Canada at least, most, not all, but most of the games are priced higher then they are at retail (well, futureshop at least), by around 5-20 bucks depending on the game (Fallout 3, for instance, is only 35 bucks at futureshop, but it is $60 online. That's the biggest one, the rest have less of a descrepency in pricing, but still around 10 dollars more. Why???). It leaves me very little insentive to buy anything off of the service at this point.
Hopefully, we start seeing more games arriving on the service, and at fair prices (Microsoft is notorious for their odd pricing schemes, they can be all over the map). Get some indie titles on here, some ports (or upgraded ports) of XBLA titles, some remakes of older PC games, and some more original content, and I think the service will have a chance. And the UI needs a lot of work, still no universal in-game/out of game client yet.
They really should have just merged services with Xbox Live, at least for xbla and indie games, if they want to set themselves apart from the competition. They should start letting us use these games connected to our gamertag on WHATEVER platform that has LIVE. Otherwise it is going to be confusing mess between zune, 360, PC.
£7.49 is a good price for any "full" game (as in, worthy of disc-based retail release), and if the range continues to expand in this way I could see some people investing in the service. Right now though, it's a nice addition to an average service, not a frontrunner in the field.
