If you know me, you know I don’t like paying more for downloadable content. About the only stuff I’ve bought so far are Rock Band tracks. For shooters, the pricing policy of charging 10 bucks for a few more maps never sat well with me, especially since on the PC we’ve been getting maps for free since gaming began.

But if you’re a Call of Duty junkie, like so many many people, you might definitely want to take a wack at the Variety Map Pack.

If you’re an Xbox 360 gamer, chances are you’ve already purchased and played the hell out of these maps since it was released a few weeks ago, so feel free to skip the rest of this and leave comments in the talkbacks about how late I am. PS3 gamers have had to wait a little longer- but your time to shine is coming tomorrow. Along with that you’ll enjoy a weekend of double XP, which means that now’s the time to play to level up your guy. Here’s what you get for your hard-earned cash.
 
“Killhouse” – a warehouse map that’s set up for training. It’s a small
map, good for small teams and fast and furious fighting. Get a large
group together like the messageboard Chewers did one night and you’re in for
chaos. Equip shotguns and have fun.

“Creek”- a heaven for snipers. An outdoors environment with plenty of
grass, trees, and even a cave to hide in. Taking this one nice and slow
and using the cover is really the only way to do it. This board’s great for big team games since there’s so many ways to go at it. My favorite of the bunch.

“Chinatown” – a remake of ‘Carentan’ from COD, a nice pristine urban environment for once. Wish it were as destructable and pretty as the one Stranglehold, but there’s plenty of buildings to hide out in, and more than a couple of mounted guns to man.

“Broadcast” – a bigger map than it seems, based on the level from the campaign
that has you infiltrating a TV station. It’s got plenty of different
levels, and is a fairly frenzied map. You never know where someone’s
going to come at you from- especially inside the station’s office. That place is a death trap. Watch out for snipers near the windows in the lobby… they love that spot.

Note that anyone who doesn’t have the game should really be picking up the Call of Duty 4: Game of the Year Edition, which comes with a download code for the map pack. (Well, not actually a download code. It’s a code that you have to enter on the COD website to get the real download code which you have to enter on your console. Pain in the ass…)

So all in all, while it still irks me that they charge so much money for so few maps, it sure makes sense for them. Over one million people have downloaded the pack for the Xbox 360 in the first 9 days of release. That’s ONE MILLION. At 10 bucks a pop. Is it any wonder why they continue pricing them like this?

But issues with pricing aside, this is definitely one of the better map packs to be released for a console game. There’s such a nice diverse group here that it’s got something for everyone, and they’re all very cleverly designed to hold up to lots of different game types. Let’s hope they keep up the quality of this in the future… I can’t wait to keep completing new challenges for the game. See you online.