Wolfenstein Xbox Map - Downloaded Or Unlocked?

Thanks to EvilAvatar for pointing to a Boomtown.net article discussing whether the new Xbox Live-exclusive Return To Castle Wolfenstein maps released a couple of days ago were actually downloaded. It seems the size of the files downloaded from Xbox Live were way too small to have been an actual level, despite the official press release indicating it was a "downloadable map", so it's possible the maps were on the game disc all along, and all that was downloaded was an 'unlock levels' message. The Boomtown article puts its own spin on this: "Providing these levels as a sweetener for Live Subscribers would be all very well, if extra development - over and above that of the game itself - is involved. But if the levels are already developed and present on the disk, then the publishers are inviting flak from the many Xbox gamers who don't have broadband."

Comments

Invite to hacking

[Torgo's Pizza]

This is just a plain invitation to hacking if I ever saw one. Any bets on how long it will take to figure out a way to "patch" the game to unlock the levels already on disk (assuming this is true)? Even better yet, if there are already levels hiding on the game disc, will it take very long to figure out a way to "unlock" these extra levels?

Anybody else feel like..

[NanoGator]

... this is just another blatant tar and feathering for MS? I might have taken this article more seriously if it was made out like the game felt incomplete without those levels.

Sorry, no sympathy here. Non XBOX-Live subscribers wouldn't have gotten the levels anyway if the maps weren't on the disc. Pardon them for saving you the download time.

Dreamcast did the same thing

[ragingmime]

I remember Sonic Adventure 2 for Dreamcast doing the same thing... there were costumes and menu themes that you could unlock by downloading files from the game's website, but each file was only 1k and so they must've been just "unlock this" messages. I think there were some new go-kart courses that you could download, too, but those weren't actually included with the game... you really did download those. Granted, there's a lot more space on the Xbox's hard drive than there is on a Dreamcast VMU... Sega at least had an excuse to offer files like that.