As I stated in my previous article, I hate DLC, but if it is done correctly then I have no issues with spending that little extra to enhance my experience. That said, the DLC offered by many companies is just, well, bad. It is obvious to anyone out there that some of this stuff is just a tool used by developers to try and reap back a little more profit on their newest release. So with that in mind, here are 10 games with some appalling DLC.
10. THE ELDER SCROLLS IV OBLIVION – HORSE ARMOUR
PRICE: £1.70
As a rule, Bethesda seem to have DLC narrowed down to a fine art (not counting Elder Scrolls Online, of course) so when I came across this one, I genuinely couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
For just shy of two pounds, you can buy some fancy armour for your in-game horse that offers no additional bonuses and doesn’t add a single boost to the horse’s stats. This really aggravates me because as anyone who has played Oblivion knows, your horse tends to disappear during the game and I couldn’t find him for the life of me, which makes this DLC rubbish.
Plus, when you look at the armour for the horse, it doesn’t even look that good!
9. THE SIMS – VARIOUS ADD ON PACKS
PRICE: VARIES ON THE ADD ON PACK
I have personally never seen the attraction to the Sims, yet it still manages to sell a high number of copies whenever a new edition is released. I can remember going into a game shop back before the time of an online stores and seeing the add-on packs for this game on sale with a massive sign alerting customers to the fact that they need a copy of the original Sims to run it.
At the time each of these add-ons were around the £25 mark. That is a lot of money for just a few new costumes and some items of clothing. Okay, Hot Date was heavily marketed for letting your Sims ‘get down with it’ (which was blurred out anyway, if I remember correctly), but it is when we get down to the Katy Perry DLC that this really does start to upset me.
People bought that DLC anyway because they wanted to add new items to their already bulging in-game houses. but for those people who didn’t really have an interest in Katy Perry turning up to one of their parties, it seemed pointless.
There are so many DLC and add-on packs for The Sims that I have lost count on what some of them even include. I just don’t understand how they can think of that much furniture to include in a game.
8. ASURA’s WRATH FINAL EPISODES
PRICE: £4.69
Okay, this one just takes the piss. When the publisher references ‘The Final Episodes’, what they actually mean is it is the true ending of the game. That means you have slogged through a pretty rough and intense game, only to finish it, and not even get an ending. What the hell?
The ending of the original Mass Effect series was panned right across the board by both reviewers and gamers, so EA did the right thing and released an additional ending for free. That is okay, in my opinion, but to make you pay for an ending to a game you have already spent £30+ on is just daylight robbery. It is DLC like this that should be banned right across the board.
You could argue that the developers didn’t have enough time to finish it before release, but if you ask me, they just cut the original ending out just to make you pay that little bit extra to see its conclusion.
7. FAR CRY PRIMAL – LEGEND OF THE MAMMOTH
PRICE: £11.99
Far Cry Primal is a little gem of a game that allows you to take a leap back in time and reap havoc as a primitive man. One aspect of the game is you drink some weird, gooey liquid given to you by the tribe shaman and you fly off in the body of an animal. This was alright in the first instance, but it quickly became boring. For some reason, however, Ubisoft released some DLC based around that aspect of the game.
They could have done so much in the way of DLC, from adding in an additional map with new tribes to conquer to some really cool hunting missions. Legend of the Mammoth puts you in the body of one of the massive creatures and requires you to fight some sort of rabid rhino over three missions. That’s it.
When you look at some of the other DLC for Ubisoft, such as Bad Blood for Watch Dogs and Freedom Cry for Assassin’s Creed Black Flag, it is plain to see that when they put their minds to it ,they can really give us something good.
6. MORTAL KOMBAT X – Horror Character Pack
PRICE: £11.99
I thought Mortal Kombat X was a good game for about three hours before I quickly got bored of doing the same moves with each character and gave up on the pretty poor single player campaign. Even though it is maybe one of the best MK games in recent years for some players, this game does also offer a lot DLC that is a just a waste of money.
One of these is the ability to unlock Jason Voorhees, Leatherface, Predator and The Alien as playable characters. For the small price of £11.99, what you are effectively buying is a code to unlock these characters as they are already present in the game. Even when you do unlock them they are basically just skins superimposed over characters that are already in the game. All the standard moves are identical to other characters already in the game; it is just the fatalities that are different. You can also pay to unlock the ability to perform your fatalities without having to learn the combos.
Again, it feels like the developers are trying to capture some of the money they lost whilst developing this game, and let’s be honest, paying for fatalities is just a crappy way of playing Mortal Kombat.
NEXT PAGE
Some of the coverage you find on Cultured Vultures contains affiliate links, which provide us with small commissions based on purchases made from visiting our site. We cover gaming news, movie reviews, wrestling and much more.
