Weekly
Rant
August 14, 2001
By: Blood
Well
this is the beginning of my weekly articles aimed
at...you guessed it food! No seriously I’m going
to write about gaming. Luckee asked me if I would
be willing to write about different things that
are going on in the gaming industry and about
current news events. Looking around the web today
I didn’t see much of note. So in honor of me, I
shall fall back on one of my good ol’ stand by
rants. I think right now with my completion of the
Elite Force Expansion Pack, I’ll gripe a bit
about expansion packs. First I must say that the
Elite Force expansion pack was actually good.
You
may be saying to yourself right now, "Blood
what is your deep inner hatred of expansion packs
all about?" Well in response to that all I
can say is shut up and I will tell you.
The
biggest flaw I have seen in the area of expansion
packs is content. Game designers realize that for
some odd reason people have actually purchased and
liked their game. So what do they do? They’ve
already got your $50 from when you bought it. Well
in the spirit of capitalism they each grab one end
of your wallet and twist until they can’t
possibly squeeze another penny out of it. Now
you’re probably saying to yourself, "Was
that who those two guys were who I caught in my
house last night"? In response all I
can say is most likely.
On
a more serious note I have been deeply
disappointed by the content offered in most
expansion packs. One of my favorite games is Rogue
Spear. I loved the game, I could play it for
hours. The company who released it offered an
expansion pack with some new levels and missions.
It was actually rather good. The company then did
a double whammy on themselves and released yet
another expansion pack. The last expansion pack,
contained one large map and four or five small
pathetic maps. If this was a one time thing it
wouldn’t be worth my time to write about it.
However this seems to be an ongoing trend in the
gaming industry. Give them something to buy but
not much. I can see in the not-too-distant future
when an expansion pack is going to be an empty box
with a note inside saying, "Here is a new box
to put all your old stuff in, thanks for buying
our expansion pack." (This one will probably
be released soon by Microsoft.)
The
lack of content offered in most expansion packs is
disappointing, however, even more disturbing is
the price companies want us to pay for these
expansion packs. I’ve seen ranges from $20 to
$40 dollars. Getting ripped off for $20 doesn’t
hurt nearly as bad as it does for $40. In my many
years as a gamer I have come to the conclusion
that there really are no good expansion packs,
however there are a few things you can do to
protect yourself. My first recommendation is to go
out and buy the wallet version of The Club. My
second recommendation is to do some research. Ya I
know you really think Quake 7 Kill 'Em Some More
is a ground breaking game with a compelling lack
of story line, but check around the internet
before you go out and buy More of Kill 'Em More
Quake 7 the Expansion Pack. Read some reviews and
see what other gamers are saying about it. If you
have that dumb friend (and we all do) who goes out
and buys the expansion pack the day the game is
released, go over to his house and look at it
first hand. If it sucks don’t buy it, save your
money for Quake 9 I Can’t Believe This Is Still
Fun Part 2.
Take
the time to go out and look at the quality if an
expansion pack, if we refuse to buy the crumby
ones, and buy only the good ones, we force the
gaming industry to work to produce quality for us.
If we go out and buy expansion packs because they
are there, we encourage the gaming industry to
continue releasing garbage. If you were sucked
into buying an expansion pack that's the pits, do
what I do and sell it to your dumb friend.
Sometimes you can come out ahead
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