Forbidden

From Red Dead Redemption to Alan Wake; Call of Duty to Halo, downloadable content can be quite irritating. Map-packs and weapon upgrades are a bit understandable, but are extra story missions necessary? Story missions are classified as extra content that tells a part of the story that was originally left out or added to lengthen the main campaign. It seems quite unnecessary, as well as costly. How many gamers have purchased a game and find that they are paying extra just to fill in the gaps? How many times have we been subjected to a full-price game that hasn’t been completed?

Any Assassin’s Creed title after the first one has at least a few story missions that are released after the actual game. Take AC: 2 for instance. They tell the story of how Ezio Auditore was involved in some influential events in history with Chapters 12 and 13. They also fill in the gaps between Chapters 11 and 14 in the main campaign.

My problem with this is that Ubisoft clearly had an idea as to what they wanted to do with the story, yet they couldn’t add those two campaign chapters until later on. Wouldn’t that mean that the game is incomplete? If I buy a game at full price (games usually sell at $59.99), and play through the entire story mode only to realize that there are pieces missing…

For example, if a new book came out, and the author chose to withhold three chapters in the hopes that readers will buy the next book just to see what happens; it doesn’t seem very cost effective for the reader, especially when the reader has to pay $30 for the initial book. Does that mean that they now have to pay an additional $15 just to flesh out the plot? I’ll continue for those of you who still don’t get it.

As many of you know, I love Mass Effect! I live and die by my decked out, level 60 Commander Shepard, whom is now a level 30 in Mass Effect 2. But when I play Mass Effect 2, there is something that bothers me all to hell. On Illium, you reunite with Liara T’soni, your squad mate from the first game. Romantic relationship or not, she needs your help getting information pertinent to finding a spy working for the Shadow Broker.

I don’t know about everybody else, but I absolutely despised that terminal-hacking mission. The strategy guide says that whomever Liara kills isn’t the spy reporting back to the Shadow Broker. It’s her assistant! While I think it’s an interesting twist for Liara’s part in the game, but there was no closure on it until the DLC pack was released almost seven months after the actual game. This lets you actually join Liara on her journey to get revenge on her enemy and rescue a long-lost friend. It was a great addition to the game, and it definitely filled in some holes in Liara’s plotline. But did it have to be left out?

And don’t even get me started on how the Arrival DLC pack should have been included in the game from the start. It plays a gigantic part in the unraveling plot, and takes place smack in the middle of the game. Not to mention the fact that the repercussions from the DLC pack serve as the baseline for the opening of Mass Effect 3.

How can you honestly say that it’s right to release a DLC pack that has a direct tie-in to the next game after the title has already been release? What if you didn’t play the Arrival DLC pack? Bioware is known for their outstanding stories, but players won’t know what’s happening in the beginning of Mass Effect 3 if they haven’t played it. Let’s just say that it’s pretty bad, and it’s all your fault!

The same goes for Batman: Arkham City, as well. If you buy the game brand new, the code for the playable character, Catwoman, is included in the box. This means that if you want to play as Catwoman, you either need to buy the game new or pay $10 to download it. Throw in Nightwing and Robin for $7 a piece and that’s $24 if you buy Batman: AC used. It’d be one thing if they weren’t involved in the main story, but Robin IS involved. How difficult would it have been to just put them into the game for launch?

Here’s the kicker. Depending on the size and length of the downloadable content, the price can range anywhere from $2-25. I paid a total of $9 for both DLC packs for Assassin’s Creed 2. The Mass Effect 2 packs cost me a little over $30, including the appearance packs. That’s a decent amount of extra dough on top of the full price I paid for the game.

With all that said, if developers need to take extra time to polish the game with all of its story elements intact, I will gladly wait the few extra months it might take to do so. Actually, if all the content is ready by the game’s release date, they should package it altogether and charge the total amount. For example, if a game costs $60 at release, and the DLC costs $30, I would rather pay the $90 upfront. I know the developers have to make their money somehow, but there is no sense in making us jump through hoops just to see what Ezio did in the ten years between Chapters 11 and 14. I realize that this is more of a rant than an intellectual discussion piece, but I’d like to hear what you all think about it!