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| My ass has a combover. |
Downloadable content has had an interesting journey over the past couple of years. It's taken for granted now; games are expected to have DLC. Just a game alone isn't good enough for today's consumer! But while add-ons and expansion packs have been around on PC for a long time, the ability to download and add on new material for a console game is actually fairly new. It has been pretty much exclusive to the 7th generation of gaming. Some companies have tried everything they could think of to get those couple extra dollars out of your wallet, while others genuinely added to and refined the experience.
As developers have refined their techniques, we notice that available DLC has gone from scattershot techniques to clumping into a few major categories. As an opinionated bastard, I have my thoughts on the validity of each one, in the order of my likelihood to buy them.
New Areas & Quests - My favorite, and usually the only ones that get my money*. These are what PC gamers used to call "expansion packs". These expansions actually expand on the game's length, adding new areas and new quests and missions. Bethesda and Gearbox in particular are known for this, as you will see on my list later on.
*Caveat - Unless it's an arena/horde/survival/siege mode. Whether blatant like Gears Of War, or masked as new content like Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot, fuck arena modes. It's not fun, and it's lazy game design. Why design whole new areas to quest in, when we can just design one arena and turn the ol' enemy faucet on high?
Alternate Endings - Usually can be cool, but they have potential to suck. These are more of a subset of Expansion Packs, but I feel they deserve their own heading. Sometimes, they can be cool, like Fallout 3's Broken Steel, or The Force Unleashed's bizarre "What If" alternate ending where Starkiller defeats Vader and goes on to conquer the universe. There was a wave of fan outcry over Mass Effect 3's DLC that didn't exactly change the controversial ending, so much as flesh it out and show you the impacts. Of course then there are the games that actually don't give you the ending of the game until you buy the DLC. I'm looking at YOU, Asura's Wrath. Fuck you.
New Playable Characters - I'm 50/50 on this one. If it's a fully fleshed out character with their own abilities, like Gaige The Mechromancer from Borderlands 2, or even with their own set of quests like Catwoman and Robin from Batman: Arkham City? Awesome. If it's just a glorified reskin with one or two new abilities? Weak and insulting. If it's a fighting game with characters on-disc that I have to pay to unlock? Fuck you, Capcom. You can go to hell.
New Weapons & Items - They'd better be some DAMN good weapons for me to pay extra for them. Making something overpowered doesn't do it for me; it just makes the game less fun. If I'm going to pay extra cash for a new weapon or item, it had better be something cool that makes everything fresh and new, and changes up my play style. A key example? The "dual parachute thrusters" from Just Cause 2. For $1.99, I get an item that (while ridiculously expensive in-game) actually changes the core mechanic of how my character interacts with the world. But if you're asking me to pay 99 cents for Horse Armor? No. Just...no.
Skins & Outfits - I am not a 12 year old girl playing with Barbies, so I do not want to dress my characters up
like pretty pretty princesses.
Multiplayer Content Of Any Kind - I don't do any kind of multiplayer, so I'm completely ambivalent towards this. Definitely not getting my money. I will say though, I'm really glad I didn't buy the Max Payne 3 DLC "Season Pass", because there was no warning that it would be entirely multiplayer maps.
So, out of all of that, which ones are my favorites? Well, since you ask so nicely, I'll go ahead and fill you in on my Top Five. The only restriction I've set on this is that I only allowed one DLC per game series, otherwise this would be almost all Fallout.
NUMBER FIVE
Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare
This is low on the list because as we all know, I am sick to death of zombies, and even more, I hate it when companies add zombies insert zombie content where it doesn't belong. But dammit...this is done SO well. Rockstar knocked it out of the park with Red Dead Redemption in the first place, and they did it again with Undead Nightmare. It's actually scary at points. Plus how many other games let you accept missions from Bigfoot?
NUMBER FOUR
Borderlands 2: Captain Scarlett's Pirate Booty
This one will definitely raise eyebrows from Borderlands fans. Yes, I chose this one, out of all the Borderlands 1 and 2 content. I liked it more, sue me! General Knoxx was kind of boring, and the uber-macho Torgue's Campaign Of Carnage just made me roll my eyes. Scarlett on the other hand, was funny as hell all the way through. The character of Shade and his....um...."friends" in the town of Oasis cracked me up. I liked the creepy old man that was in love with Scarlett. I liked the blatant Bioshock reference. I liked the new harpoon and anchor enemies. I still do not understand why this DLC pack got so much hate; it was my favorite of the two games. Then again, my favorite for the original game was Claptrap's Robot Revolution, and everyone seemed to hate that one. Fuck em.
Number Three
Fallout 3: Point Lookout
Okay, picking a favorite DLC out of the buffet of amazing in the Fallout games is tough. Really tough. Well, except for Operation: Anchorage...no one liked that. But between Fallout 3 and New Vegas, how could I pick a favorite? Ultimately I settled on Point Lookout because of the sheer size. I'm a whore for exploration, and Point Lookout gives you a new map that is almost half the size of the Capital Wasteland. That's huge. And it adds tons of new items, weapons and enemies. Hell, Point Lookout could almost be a whole game unto itself, if it weren't only 8-10 hours long.
If nothing else, I picked it for the quest where you are tripping balls, lost in the swamp, hallucinating things like exploding babies falling from the sky and floating bloody bonesaws carving into everything. And it gets weirder from there.
Number Two
The Elder Scrolls V - Skyrim: Dragonborn
Fuck. Yes.
If I had to pick a favorite game of all time, my knee jerk reaction would be Morrowind. But let's face it, even with amazing visual mods like the Morrowind Overhaul, the game is pretty dated. Okay, really dated. Morrowind did not age well at all.
Enter Dragonborn, the third DLC pack for Skyrim. Dawnguard was a serious letdown, Hearthfire was a little piddly Sims add-on, but Dragonborn made up for all of it. It brought us back to the island of Solstheim, which lies nestled in the Sea Of Ghosts, between the countries of Skyrim and Morrowind. Not only did it give us 15-20 hours worth of quests, but those quests were actually better than anything the core game had to offer. Dragonborn also gave us a huge island to explore, with beautiful scenery, tons of new creatures, hundreds of new items, new shouts, and several new types of weapons and armor to craft.
It's amazing how emotionally tied I am to Morrowind, and Dragonborn proved it. Stepping off the boat into the town of Raven Rock and seeing the huge Redoran crabshell buildings was breathtaking. I got this massive feeling of "home" that got me a little choked up the first time I heard that Silt Strider's cry echo across the southern plains. I couldn't control the grin on my face when I saw a family of majestic Netches floating over the landscape.
Yeah. Dragonborn did it for me. But, it's still not my #1.
NUMBER ONE
Bioshock 2: Minerva's Den
I love Bioshock. While I don't have the emotional attachment that I do with Morrowind, it's still one of my favorite games of all time. And yet, despite this, I loathed Bioshock 2. I consider it to be a steaming pile of shit; a cockslap in the face of fans of the first game, as it takes everything that was good about the first one and fucks it up. I think the only good thing about Bioshock 2 was the ability to dual-wield weapons and plasmids. But Bioshock 2 is a different rant, for another day.
So when 2K announced Minerva's Den, I didn't have high hopes, given my feelings for the core game. Instead what I got was a 10 hour campaign that, while built in Bioshock 2, had thankfully nothing to do with the core game's ridiculous plot, taking place in a whole different area of Rapture. It adds tons of new areas, but not a whole lot new in terms of weapons or plasmids. However, the story alone makes Minerva's Den infinitely better than its core game, and it packs a more emotional punch than even the first game.
Why is Minerva's Den #1 on my list? Because it fucking made me cry at the end. I'm man enough to admit it. I cried. Not like, blubbering sobs, but I got a wibbly bottom lip and shed a manly tear at the ending. The story holds that much emotional impact. Minerva's Den really shows you what kind of things were going on in Rapture during its fall from glory, and it's heartwrenching. This DLC is long enough to keep you engrossed and tell a phenomenal story, and short enough to never overstay its welcome or feel drawn out.
I would say "if you have Bioshock 2, play this", but frankly this game is worth going and buying a copy of Bioshock 2 solely for the purpose of playing Minerva's Den.
I would say "if you have Bioshock 2, play this", but frankly this game is worth going and buying a copy of Bioshock 2 solely for the purpose of playing Minerva's Den.
Honorable Mention
Rock Band....all of it.
Rock Band has finally ended its five year run on weekly song releases, and I just wanted to take the time to acknowledge it. Seriously, since the release of the first Rock Band all the way up through the third game, I have spent easily over $100 in tiny increments on this game. One song here, three there, a ten-song splurge one week. And it's been totally worth it. I don't play nearly as much as I did in this game's heyday, but I still enjoy picking up the ol' plastic guitar and shredding out some good tunes now and then. So here's to you, Rock Band...we'll miss you.
So there you have it folks, my personal favorites, and this site's FIRST "Top X" list. Did I forget anything? Do you disagree with me? Feel free to comment below and let me know what you think!
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