One of the most exasperating things about being a Canadian gamer has been the drastic change in value between the Canadian and American dollar. With the currencies due to reach parity any minute now, having to pay a $10 to $20 premium on any game purchased at retail (and that's not even including provincial and government taxes) starts to sting pretty hard. Unsurprisingly, despite the distinct lack of physical constraints such as importing, shelf space, etc. downloadable titles also require that Canadian gamers pay a premium, generally costing roughly 20-25% more than they do for American gamers.
Aside from the unbalanced pricing, downloadable games can still offer some of the best value to Canadian gamers looking for their next gaming fix, with a regular release list ensuring there's almost always something available worth purchasing.
XBOX LIVE ARCADE
Pac-Man C.E. (800 Microsoft Points) — Of course, in certain cases, developers and publishers don't help themselves. At 800 points (about $12.50) Pac-Man C.E. is unfortunately over-priced for what you get, and it smells, sadly, of nothing but greed from Microsoft and Namco, because they must have known they had a good thing on their hands. Pac-Man C.E. is possibly one of the best titles released on Xbox Live Arcade yet and is similarly likely the best Pac-Man title since the little-known Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures for SNES.
A redesigned version of Pac-Man in which players play on a widescreen board, clearing each side of the board of pills before regenerating each side (with a different pill layout and sometimes a different maze layout) by eating fruit, the main game is a five minute championship mode, but there are five other (fun and different) challenge modes well worth playing through for the achievement points.
Despite being amazingly fun, Pac-Man C.E. isn't as long lived as a piece of entertainment that costs $12.50 should be. As a score challenge most gamers' scores tend to level out at 300,000 points in the main championship mode, and once that point is reached Pac-Man C.E. probably won't be returned to. As a slightly flawed but still brilliant title, this would be essential at 400 points, but at 800 points I'd argue you have to already love Pac-Man.
Carcassonne (800 Microsoft Points) — In a similar respect, you have to already be sure that you like German board games before you think about picking up Carcassonne. A tile-based landscape building game for 2-5 players, gamers build a landscape by connecting tiles to create castles, monasteries, roads and fields, and claim them by placing a limited number of followers upon them.
Ensuring the game is more than a collaborative jigsaw puzzle, players can "steal" features from each other by outnumbering their followers and a point total is added up at the end of the game. A quick-paced and fun non-violent game, developer Sierra Online should be commended for including a local multiplayer mode, but unfortunately the single-player mode is nearly non-existent.
The short game length and puzzle-like aspects gives Carcassonne a strangely addictive quality, but despite being a better adaptation, Carcassonne isn't based on a board game quite as good as the one Catan is, which remains the best German board game on Xbox Live.
WII VIRTUAL CONSOLE
F-Zero X (1000 Wii Points) — Though arguably the system on which the prices are generally set too high to begin with (500 points is far too much for many NES titles) F-Zero X is a literal bargain at 1000 Wii Points (roughly $12.00.) The best title in Nintendo's F-Zero series, F-Zero X has graphics that could be considered simplistic even for the original N64 hardware, but makes up for it with glorious speed, running at 60 FPS with a still remarkable 30 other vehicles on the track to race against.
A futuristic racer that's better realized than Sony's competing Wipeout series, F-Zero X features five extensive cups with six tracks each, 29 vehicles to chose from, solid controls, and is arguably one of the most challenging and fun racing titles to play in time-trial mode. Multiplayer isn't particularly fun, sadly, making this largely a solo racer and it's unfortunate that Nintendo doesn't do anything to improve on their Virtual Console titles from their original release (including the Japan-only 64DD F-Zero X Expansion Kit would have been wonderful.) This is still a strong title well worth 1000 Wii Points to anyone with a love of speed.
PLAYSTATION NETWORK
Super Stardust ($8.99) — The first really interesting retro remake to hit the Playstation Network, this updated take on the Amiga original (itself an updated take on Asteroids) is literally the first game on the PS3 that makes us wish we had one. As we don't, we can't talk much more about it, but it's certainly worth $8.99 — only a buck more than it is in the US. Whether it's worth the price of a new PS3 is another matter!
