Downloadable Content, or DLC for short, has to be one of the most insidious items ever created for human entertainment. Take, for instance, a game like Fallout 3. If you aren't satisfied with the 20+ hours of game time already built in, why not spend $10 on DLC that will extend the game's life to 25? It'll add a bunch of new weapons, armor, and perks! Yeehaw!
Those of you who've purchased DLC know the deadly truth, though, that the first purchase is only a gateway. Once you've gotten those few extra perks and quests, you just can't live without getting every single DLC pack that exists. I'd make some vague reference to Pokemon, about having to catch 'em all, but I'm just not in the mood. We all try to rationalize this with vague excuses like, "You can't have all of these new weapons without new quests to try them on! And with all of these new quests, I'm going to need this other pack so that I can make my own ammo!" Pretty soon you're looking at credit card debt of $3000 and a potentially serious psychological disorder. As far as I'm aware, there's no cure.
My trek through the wasteland has been delayed until next week, so expect some more random gaming thoughts until then. I have to compile more data before I have anything to say that anyone will actually give two shits about.
The other thing on my mind today is Magic Sword. From what I can tell, the game is an arcade port to the SNES. I've been playing it a bit on my phone and though the controls are lacking, which isn't the fault of the game, I'm happy to say that it's a good waste of my time when it's needed. It kind of reminds me of a horrible, nightmarish cross between Golden Axe and Zelda 2. You climb a tower as some kind of Fabio reject and fight enemies, gather items, and defeat bosses to earn points. Along the way you gather approximately a million keys to open random doors. Seriously, every fucking enemy seems to have a key... which makes total sense to me. What skeleton or minotaur doesn't want their own room with a lock? Anyway, so the points you earn really don't do diddly squat. I think that you're able to get some extra lives, but really it's just the old arcade gimmick: Earn more points then your friends and show off your nerdy power. Of course today these scores mean absolutely nothing. Back then they meant very little as well. Who in their right mind bought a game for the Super Nintendo whose main goal was to earn points? After Atari, gamers were looking for an experience where you could conquer your enemies and overcome obstacles. A scoring system just no longer works like it used to, besides, what kind of sense does that make in real life? If we were all scored on a system like Magic Sword, I guarantee we wouldn't have any extra lives.
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