It seems that nowadays there’s always someone charging you for every game, especially on XBL. It’s a jungle out there and you might find yourself bombarded by all the extra crap to “enhance you gaming experience.” Luckily, Sarcastic Gamer is here to help you make the smart choices that both you and your wallet will find favorable.
Get a pen and paper, you might want to write this down, or just turn on you printer, you cheap ass.
In Game Weapons: You might have noticed we have a little boycott going against Battlefield: Bad Company (click one of the Bad Company banners if you haven’t noticed) for trying to sell us guns as soon as we get the game home. So the answer to this one would be that YOU NEVER F***ING PAY FOR WEAPONS, especially if you bought it on launch day and you just popped it in you console. It’s the cardinal sin for gamers. That goes for all weapons, even cars and planes.
Why in the wide world of sports would you pay for such a thing? More importantly, why would they charge for this?
Extra Levels or Maps: This depends on the price tag attached, but I’ve never seen high prices in the category. Online or single player maps just extend the experience. This one really depends on your love for a particular game. For me, the CoD4 maps were a must buy, but I wasn’t interested in the Ace Combat 6 DLC.
Themes: You should never, ever, never, ever pay for themes. Besides that fact that no one else but you and people in the proximity of you TV can see this, it’s a total waste of money. There are hundreds of free cool ones out there, be happy with those and shut up!
Music: If you have Guitar Hero, or Rock Band, or both, you may get tired of rocking out to the same songs over and over again. If a song comes out as DLC and you want it and can afford it, I say go for it. You better not pay for a damn cover either. It needs to be the original to warrant a purchase. Extra music for Rock Band, just extends the experience, and since they’re not trying to screw you, like Guitar Hero, by charging you per song, instead of coming out with a new retail game every six months, you’ve got to support what Rock Band is doing.
Try to stay away from song packs. A lot of them are one great song squeezed between two pieces of s***.
Gamer Pics: No need to pay for these either. Your console provides you with an assortment and those should keep you happy. If you must have something other than the generic ones, there are free ones out there, enough to keep you from paying. As a matter of fact the Sarcastic Gamer pic (available on XBL) is the coolest, most bad ass one you’ll find.
And it’s free.
I rest my case.
Downloadable Games: This is on a game to game basis. Play the demo before you buy. I do have to say that if you paid for Undertow before or after it was free, you need to turn in your gamer card.
I hope this little guide has been helpful and has removed some of the clutter and temptation of the DLC world. If you have commited some if the actions deemed unbecoming of a gamer, it’s not too late to repent and save your gamer card. Unless you bought Undertow, then you’re f***ed.
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13 responses so far ↓
1 jonathan // Apr 8, 2008 at 5:04 pm
xbox dlc is genearlly a ripp off yep i sed it
2 photomaster94 // Apr 8, 2008 at 5:23 pm
what would you say about the omega dawn or broken mirror (coming out the 17th) on warhwak because it has new maps and a vehicle
3 Dave // Apr 8, 2008 at 5:30 pm
That’s different, because the vehicle is included.
4 Sean "Rothbart" Workman // Apr 8, 2008 at 5:40 pm
@photomaster94: ironically, I didn’t like the Omega Factory map from Omega Dawn yet I _still_ felt it was worth the $8 to get the dropship (and have it retroactively worked into the existing maps). Would I have liked it to have been cheaper? Sure. I’ll be getting Broken Mirror as soon as it’s available as well. But that’s PSN and this article was about XBL.
That said, where are the hundreds of free themes available from? How do you get them on your 360? Also, am I the only one that thinks (in general) the themes on the 360’s are inherently “teh suck”? You can’t really _do_ a whole lot with your theme… and the marketplace is completely devoid of any theme so they can keep their precious ad-space (ie. “sold” screenspace) intact. Not intending a flame war on consoles, but the PS3’s theming is _so_ much more customizable.
I could smack someone at Microsoft for charging for Gamerpics though. I guess it was an ENORMOUS hassle to get the GCN and Sarcastic Gamerpics to be “free”. I can’t believe people would EVER buy something like a gamerpic. They need to be free, customizable, and viewable by friends… none of this “Vision cam for custom gamerpics” crap…
5 LJ // Apr 8, 2008 at 7:16 pm
You can still get Undertow for free. Or even recieve a refund if you bought it. Call online support and they’ll help you out.
6 refinedsugar // Apr 8, 2008 at 7:33 pm
You could have skipped saying all of that and just went with caveat emptor. Skips down on all the bias and consumer confusion.
7 krossmojination // Apr 8, 2008 at 7:45 pm
Re: paying for weapons. I have no problem with it if it’s going to be your “one game” that you play. Yeah, sure, charging for weapons on day 1 is sh*t. I get it. But if that’s going to be your big game for the next 6, 12, 24 months and you have disposable income (which xbox owners CLEARLY have in abundance), go for it.
I bought the Chromehounds weapons (which did not come out on day one, BTW), because that was one crazy addicting game at the time.
8 Lord Butters I // Apr 8, 2008 at 7:49 pm
I refuse to pay $10 for a map pack in a multiplayer game. I guess I’m just cheap. Only DLC I ever bought was a bunch of Oblivion stuff (god I loved that game) the Arcade game Marathon Durandal, and some songs for Rock Band.
9 kman571 // Apr 8, 2008 at 8:07 pm
@jonathan
“xbox dlc is genearlly a ripp off yep i sed it”
Damn right
10 Ivan Takillya // Apr 8, 2008 at 8:12 pm
this is setting a really poor precedent. I beg everyone not to buy this crap. I’m with most of you on this. Map packs are, in general, a great addition to a game that you already enjoy. Gamerpics…….f***ing stupid. But again, selling extra weapons is just plain grEAdy.
Love the podcast. cheers.
11 DemonicDerek // Apr 8, 2008 at 9:49 pm
Reads the Themes comment… F*CK!, I SORTA bought every single theme for Halo 3 up until launch… and one Halo wars theme… but I’m using my free COD4 theme right now so I screwed up there….
12 Dadditude // Apr 8, 2008 at 10:56 pm
I wholeheartedly agree with most of this, even though I am guilty of having bought some themes and gamerpics when I first got my 360. The one gamerpic that I bought that I don’t regret, though, is the one that I use currently, as it is perfectly suited to me, even though I have no plans to play the game that it is associated with. I bought it because it was a cool-looking Number 13, and 13 has always been my lucky number. If there had been a free number 13 that looked cool, I would have used that instead, but since there wasn’t, I spent my $1 or $1.25 or whatever it was to pick this one up. And for anyone that cares (which there probably aren’t any), it’s from a pack for Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway, and my gamertag (if you want to see the pic in question) is dadditude1994.
13 Pakorn1 // Apr 9, 2008 at 11:41 am
@ Rothbart -
As far as free themes go, I just use custom pics from my PC. I have a badass Punisher theme going on right now that I love and made myself. I do agree with you though, about PS3 - even though I don’t have one myself, from what I’ve seen their customizability and media integration are phenomenal.
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