Sheepo
The Freeman
- Joined
- Apr 9, 2007
- Messages
- 10,578
- Reaction score
- 79
Gather round children, I have a rant!
So I don't know whether I just somehow got some strange idea what the phrase 'expansion pack' meant as a kid, but these days in seems to mean something entirely different than what I thought. I consider an expansion pack something that takes the game you already have and adds something to it, whether it be a small campaign, weapons, characters, maps, whatever. But these days the terms seems to be for the most part almost completely dropped, in favor of DLC, in the official sense and become almost exclusively used as an insult for disappointing full fledged games.
Now, I can understand being upset if you think you didn't get your money's worth, or if you expected certain things and they weren't quite delivered, but there is a huge difference between a sequel and an expansion pack. There are three STALKER games and I've never heard any of them referred to as EP's, and why should they be? They offer an entirely new, independent story, with new characters, that takes place in new places and you do different things. However other games instantly fall into this trap: New Vegas, a game vastly superior to FO3, gets almost unanimously criticized because it doesn't offer enough new gameplay. Now, I'm well aware that part of what's expected in a sequel is a certain expansion upon and refinement of the core gameplay, but at the end of the day, if you buy a game with the same name as another but a different number on it or a different subtitle, the game's gonna play roughly the same ****ing way. If a formula works, it should be stuck to and improved. New Vegas has provided me with over 50 hours of entertainment (which will certainly not be the last time I play it), a dollar an hour of entertainment, yet because Fallout New Vegas has the same core as the previous Fallout game, it is for some reason rage inducing to some.
Now, I'd like to think this is just random isolated feelings about particular games, but I honestly think it's because STALKER is the much lesser known game and, as such, played by people with taste (and consequently, a bit of sense accompanied by reasonable expectations) who discover it, rather than every one with an XBox and $60. L4D2 is probably the perfect example of this wave of entitlement. I don't care how you feel about the franchise or either game, you're delusional if you can't except that L4D2 is a fully fledged sequel worth atleast as much as the original. I has an absurdly greater amount of content, and yet there is a huge backlash because the game is roughly the same as the original in that, there are four people and they are left for dead.
I really don't know what to attribute this sudden obsession with complete and immediate gameplay novelty as the rule to quality. Certainly it's important to innovate, but can't we please just have some consistency? COD is built off of a deceptive novelty model: there are X things in this game, play till Y, until we can create a DLC that has Z, none of which offer anything really new, but it's shiny enough to keep you going long enough for us to create another game where the exact same thing happens.
Well anyway, I have no idea what that was about. I seem to remember it started with me listening to a Yatzeeh review, which is never a good idea. Good night!
So I don't know whether I just somehow got some strange idea what the phrase 'expansion pack' meant as a kid, but these days in seems to mean something entirely different than what I thought. I consider an expansion pack something that takes the game you already have and adds something to it, whether it be a small campaign, weapons, characters, maps, whatever. But these days the terms seems to be for the most part almost completely dropped, in favor of DLC, in the official sense and become almost exclusively used as an insult for disappointing full fledged games.
Now, I can understand being upset if you think you didn't get your money's worth, or if you expected certain things and they weren't quite delivered, but there is a huge difference between a sequel and an expansion pack. There are three STALKER games and I've never heard any of them referred to as EP's, and why should they be? They offer an entirely new, independent story, with new characters, that takes place in new places and you do different things. However other games instantly fall into this trap: New Vegas, a game vastly superior to FO3, gets almost unanimously criticized because it doesn't offer enough new gameplay. Now, I'm well aware that part of what's expected in a sequel is a certain expansion upon and refinement of the core gameplay, but at the end of the day, if you buy a game with the same name as another but a different number on it or a different subtitle, the game's gonna play roughly the same ****ing way. If a formula works, it should be stuck to and improved. New Vegas has provided me with over 50 hours of entertainment (which will certainly not be the last time I play it), a dollar an hour of entertainment, yet because Fallout New Vegas has the same core as the previous Fallout game, it is for some reason rage inducing to some.
Now, I'd like to think this is just random isolated feelings about particular games, but I honestly think it's because STALKER is the much lesser known game and, as such, played by people with taste (and consequently, a bit of sense accompanied by reasonable expectations) who discover it, rather than every one with an XBox and $60. L4D2 is probably the perfect example of this wave of entitlement. I don't care how you feel about the franchise or either game, you're delusional if you can't except that L4D2 is a fully fledged sequel worth atleast as much as the original. I has an absurdly greater amount of content, and yet there is a huge backlash because the game is roughly the same as the original in that, there are four people and they are left for dead.
I really don't know what to attribute this sudden obsession with complete and immediate gameplay novelty as the rule to quality. Certainly it's important to innovate, but can't we please just have some consistency? COD is built off of a deceptive novelty model: there are X things in this game, play till Y, until we can create a DLC that has Z, none of which offer anything really new, but it's shiny enough to keep you going long enough for us to create another game where the exact same thing happens.
Well anyway, I have no idea what that was about. I seem to remember it started with me listening to a Yatzeeh review, which is never a good idea. Good night!
