It’s a topic that’s been debated on numerous gaming podcasts on the interwebs (including the two I co-host) but my purpose today is to examine this phenomenon in depth and see whether it’s actually worth your money.

Like many great ideas in the gaming industry it started as something small and innocuous that is growing into a behemoth. Most people don’t realize one of the biggest gaming trends of 2011 actually started in Nov. 2010. The game: WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2011 by THQ.

A month before the game launched THQ laid out its plans for post-launch additional content, its cost, and a bulk price to buy all of this content at, in what it called “Fan Axxess,” named after the mini-fair the WWE throws outside of its venue for Wrestlemania each Spring. You got over $16 worth of content; including the unlock all extras key, extra wrestlers, and extra outfits, for $10.

Given the limited appeal of a wrestling simulation to the mass market the idea, and the credit, fell into the annals of history. THQ only put the pack on sale 1 time (on PSN only) to try to stimulate sales of the package. Other publishers though saw potential in the idea, and it was tried by games that were two of the biggest sellers of early 2011: Mortal Kombat from WB Interactive and L.A. Noire from 2K Games via its Rockstar Games label.

The Mortal Kombat Season Pass granted access to four downloadable characters

Mortal Kombat developers saw the mixed reaction to Capcom’s sometimes disk, sometimes DLC approach to adding new characters and decided to go with the Season Pass model of offering the 4 characters (to be revealed just shortly before their release) at $15, which could also have been seen by customers as buy 3, get 1 free. But this program had its problems also as, for some unknown reason, the pass was 360 exclusive for the first few months after MK’s release. Then suddenly sometime in the summer after two or three characters had been released, and PS3 owners thought they would have to buy each characters separately, the pass appeared with little fanfare on the PlayStation Network.

Rockstar Games looked at the season pass option to silence critics of publishers giving exclusive DLC to various retailers for pre-order incentives by making its Rockstar Pass have all of the pre-order DLC (which included 2 extra cases, 2 extra detective suits that buffed certain abilities, and a collection quest that yielded a third suit when finished) and the two extra cases saved/cut for post-launch release for an almost 50% savings at $12. It even rewarded people who bought the pass in the first 3 weeks after the games’ launch (before any of the pass content was available) for $10. The pass was also put on sale 1 time on the Xbox Marketplace for a 1-week period in mid-Sept. for $8.

This version of a pass had the least amount of issues, except for a clamoring for more content. These issues were with the developer, Team Bondi, in that it went bankrupt just a few months after the game’s release. Despite its big sales, demand for the game flamed out as it was sold away in mass quantities and Rockstar, in order to get one last push of sales for the year, is putting out an ultimate edition of the game including the DLC a mere six months after its initial release. This will also coincide with the release of the game on the PC for the first time (which has all of the same content as the ultimate edition.)

Fast forward to the big fall gaming season and the exclusive games from two console makers and the biggest 3rd party behemoth title, Call of Duty from Activision, are going to try their hands at the season pass.

Much like the previous versions of this DLC system, it’s available for customers to purchase at the game launch, but this time, the customer is not told what exactly it is they’re buying. Just a brief description of the type of content, how many packs the pass will cover, and how much the pass costs vs. buying the content separately. Not only that, but these passes are more expensive, anywhere from $25-$50 instead of the $10-$15 the previous ones have been. Time will tell if these season passes will be either embraced or shunned by the games’ respective communities, but so far it’s not looking so kind for two of the four passes.

The first part of the Gears of War Season Pass has had... issues.

Gears of War 3 (released on Sept. 20) just had the first of its four DLC packs launch this week, and to say there were issues would be an understatement bigger than there may still be some issues with the worldwide economy. First off it didn’t show up as a free download for Season Pass owners and Microsoft had to take it down for several hours before fixing the coding and people were actually able to download the 1.5 MB file. That’s right kiddies, you paid for an unlock key that was content already on the disk!

Forums and blogs all over the Internet sprang up with outrage as Epic pulled a similar excuse as Bioware did with Dragon Age Origins as to why it had two extra DLC quests available when the game came out. Since the game was delayed from spring to an autumn release, they had a team working on the maps and, since they were done before the game came out, Epic decided to have the content put on the disk. However, as they still had plans for periodic DLC’s to keep the game relevant vs. all the other shooting games competing for Modern Warfare 3’s leftovers they hid this content behind an unlock key. At least Epic didn’t have a natural disaster to blame like Capcom did for Marvel vs. Capcom 3.

But like classic 1980’s Mike Tyson the first hit was not the knockout punch, it was the second one. Epic announced that the meat of the content, the extra maps for the game’s online modes, would be available for free in 3 weeks. So all the paying customers got was the few extra weapons for the online co-op Horde mode, extra weapon skins (the other weasely way Epic was making more money from the game,) and the extra achievement points.

Microsoft’s other big title to offer the season pass this fall, Forza 4, came and went without much press, but I think that’s because a lot of casual fans of the game know it’s idiotic to buy a Forza game within the first year of the game’s release. That’s because both Forza 2 and 3 had a Greatest Hits version come out about a year after the initial release that put all the extra cars that were available for download since release on an extra disk. Even if you buy the car packs ala carte when on sale, you get a much better deal waiting for a year then buying the game. Forza 3 saved the pretense of initially charging $60 for the P.H. copy of the game because it had extra content and made it $30 to start with, screwing over anyone who had bought Forza 3 to begin with (like this writer.)

Sony, who is just now starting to accept the trends of online passes and more DLC, hastily before launch announced a season pass for Uncharted 3 (entitled The Fortune Hunters’ Club) at $25 that would save $20 over the 7 downloadable packs planned for Uncharted 3. Well three of those packs were out for the game’s release, and they were just the exact same premium skins from Uncharted 2’s MP, costing $2.50 per pack. Even those who had these from Uncharted 2 would have to pay for them again. So now early adopters have to see if the 4 competitive/cooperative focused packs are worth paying $25 for instead of $37.50.

Call of Duty Elite, more than just a season pass? Only time will tell.

The biggest question though will be if the mass market adopts Activision’s Call of Duty Elite program in the same way that CoD MP map packs at $15 a pop were adopted. Being the most expensive package at $50, Activision has positioned this as more than just a season pass. They tout the extra space available for video uploads, expanded clan options, map and weapon analysis from developers and pros, premium video content, and other things in addition to getting maps monthly instead of bi-monthly and sooner than non-subscribers.

While one can argue this has the most value of the 7 season passes that have come out in the last 13 months, I think it’s not going to sell like the CoD map packs have sold since the original Modern Warfare. Malistre of the Powcast has often had to critique my point of view in that while I’m always looking for game deals via www.cheapassgamer.com, Joe Gamer doesn’t think that way and can’t understand that $50 upfront is going to be cheaper than $60 or more over the course of the next 9 months.

Unlike the other big trend from 2010, the online pass, the future of the season pass is a murky one as while each program has had benefits, the detractions of them have slowed its adoption across all games. As an owner of the Uncharted 3 and Call of Duty passes I hope I don’t regret these purchases this time next year.

- Jason Billingsley

“This is the greatest console ever!”

Personally I vividly recall spending my teen years religiously playing Phantasy Star Online and thinking to myself “things cannot get any better than this!”. And yet, so few others shared my views. I have lost count of the number of times in which casual conversation amongst friends, about our favourite consoles of all time, have descended into shouting matches as people tell me that the Dreamcast was crap, or that the Snes was waaay better than the Mega Drive.

Of course, as a cultured, well travelled man of the world, I am not too proud to admit when I am wrong. Looking back on it, Phantasy Star Online was a sluggish game that made you play through the same four environments over and over again, and the ‘revolutionary’ online lobbies were mostly populated by overly enthusiastic Germans. Certainly there was a lot of room for improvement.

Similar arguments exist to this day, with many hardcore gamers arguing about which is better, PS3 or 360 (sorry Wii!). However, there are still those out there that cling to their long standing views and refuse to acknowledge any advances made with this latest generation of console. Yes, the Super Nintendo  was a great console in its day, and yes games were far simpler back then, but, quite frankly, there has never ever been a better time to be a gamer.

One of the most immediately obvious benefits of this day and age is the overwhelming mass appeal of games. When I was a youngster you could only get games from dedicated shops, like Electronics Boutique, or from overly expensive mail order catalogues. These days you can pretty much get your games from anywhere. Ten years ago who would have dreamt of a future in which you could wander over to your local 24 hour Supermarket and pick up a (usually heavily discounted) game at 4am?

The ease of access to games makes this one of the best times to be a gamer

Speaking of cheap games, games generally cost a lot less than they used to. Case in point, I have just ordered a new copy of DeBlob 2 on Xbox 360 for a mere £9. In contrast, I vividly remember my parents paying nearly £80 for a copy of Street Fighter 2 Turbo Edition on the Mega Drive. Last year I bought a new copy of Super Street Fighter 4 for just under £20 shortly after its release. I know that the average price of games may seem higher, especially when you consider that during the PS2/Xbox/Gamecube era games were about £10 cheaper, but these days games rarely stay at full price for very long.

Thanks to the digital distribution outlets, such as Steam, the Xbox Live Marketplace, and the Playstation Network, games are easily available at any time of the day or night and never go out of stock. The days of venturing in to town to purchase a specific game only to find that no store had any in stock are over. This also takes impulse buying to a new level, which may or may not be a good thing depending on your point of view. I have lost count of the number of times that I have downloaded a game off of Xbox Marketplace simply because it was there and at a reasonable price, and to me that is a great thing.

Of course, in the old days if you saw a game that you were partially interested in and wanted to give it a try before you bought it you had to buy magazines to get your hands on a demo disk. One of the biggest annoyances was the fact that most of the time there was only one demo you wanted on the entire disk. These days game demos are available to download for free on PSN or XBLA, and they are available indefinitely. Hooray!

Mario's Daddy may be a bit biased in his choice of best console ever

One of the biggest issues I have with those that disregard this generation of consoles, and look back on days gone by, is the fact that they ignore just how diverse gaming is these days. Back in the old days the majority of games were platformers or fighting games. I know it may feel like almost every game released these days is a generic shooter about totally-not-gay burly space marines, but in reality games have never been so diverse. Now we get photography games, RPGs, shooters, platformers, music action games, motion controlled games, erotic horror titles, as well as the classic puzzlers, platformers, and fighting games. And that is before you even take in to account the esoteric downloadable titles, such as Limbo or Flower, which may never have reached the heights that they have in any other generation.

Finally, these days our games consoles are usually so much more than just games machines. Our home consoles now come with a variety of different media outlets such as the BBC iPlayer, 4OD, the Sky Player, Netflix, Love Film, and LastFM, as well as the Playstation and Xbox music and video stores, which allow us to purchase digital copies of the latest movies and songs. Our consoles have gone from simple devices that cluttered up boys’ bedrooms to the centrepiece of the front room.

Having said all this, I do not mean to suggest that the release of a new generation of consoles renders all previous consoles worthless. However nostalgia is a powerful force that has the potential to blind people to the passage of time. Yes, the consoles you played in your childhood were great in their day, but you would be a fool to ignore the significant advances in technology that have contributed towards making this the best generation of consoles the best yet. It may sound fickle, but as much as I love my 360, PS3, and Wii at the moment, I am more than open to the idea that the next generation of consoles will be better.

- Luke Mears

These days, playing all the way through a game and being completely let down by a half- hearted end boss and ending is becoming more and more common. What with developers being pressured into producing milkable cash cows rather than good games, what do you expect? Sequels, prequels, downloadable add-ons and expansions; you name it, they are in development and they are all being made at the expense of a damn good ending!

But things weren’t always like this…

Back in the late 80′s – early 90′s (or as I like to call it…”The Golden Age” of computer games) the main emphasis was solely on the end boss. This lead to some truly epic encounters. There wasn’t a need for silly achievements, points or trophies; we had all the motivation we needed. We just had to beat the game. That was enough for gamers because back then games were much harder.

Games felt like an epic journey as you battled your way through, offing tough end-of-level bosses that crossed your path until finally reaching the absolute pinnacle: the end of game boss. Auto-saving checkpoints? Pahaha! Don’t make me laugh! Helpful in-game tutorials? Not a chance: read the f*cking manual! That was the kind of time we lived in and that’s what made games so special. It’s such a shame that this “retro aesthetic” is lacking from games of new. However as long as franchises like the Mega Man franchise continue to exist, it will live on.

No other series personifies the “retro aesthetic” more than the Mega Man franchise. Not only is every Mega Man game extremely tough (FACT!) but they also serve as the perfect reminder of how awesome retro game bosses could be. Take Mega Man 2 for example. The game itself follows the traditional Mega Man formula: Mega Man must defeat an array of robots created by an evil scientist, collecting some of their various traits along the way, before the final showdown with the anonymous scientist himself.

The whole journey you must take as Mega Man is one of epic proportions. Battling your way through the various themed levels (which is no mean feat itself considering how tough some of them can be) and defeating the end of level bosses (such as Bubble Man and Heat Man), builds for a truly epic final battle with Dr Wily. This is just something you don’t see in games anymore.

Haha...his name is Wily....that looks like Willy...which is another word for penis...teehee!

And Dr Wily, whilst anonymous until you actually get the chance to fight him, is utterly memorable. Again, this is something you don’t really see in modern gaming anymore. I mean, when was the last time you fought someone as memorable and as iconic as Bowser, Dr Robotnik or even Mecha Hitler from Wolfenstein 3D? That’s right, it was a while ago. Well, that’s if you can even remember any at all. They just don’t make end of game bosses like they used to.

Quite possibly the boss of all end bosses, Mecha Hitler!

It seems modern day gaming is all about style over substance. So much effort is poured into graphical trickery and what a boss looks like rather than actually making the final fight enjoyable. After all, the perfect end boss should not only look incredible, but also have character, instill emotion, be fun and unique to fight, be difficult but not too difficult and provide perfect closure (I don’t ask for much do I?).

This point is possibly best demonstrated by Epic’s Gears of War 2. Don’t get me wrong, Gears of War 2 is a brilliant and incredible looking game. However it has quite possibly one of the worst end of game bosses I’ve ever had the misfortune of encountering. The Mutated Brumak boss sure does look splendidly grotesque (all in 1080p, HD awesomeness), but it’s also extremely boring, weak and disappointing: a bitter end to a brilliant game. Epic got it so right in Gears of War 1 with General RAMM, it’s just a shame that they couldn’t deliver “the goods” in it’s otherwise improved sequel.

Another trend that I’ve noticed, and this really bugs me, is that quite often than not developers will just ramp up the difficulty right at the end in order to make the end boss seem far more powerful (Killzone f*cking 2). Again, this harks back to retro games, because old games are renowned for being notoriously hard. The difference is that they were extremely tough to play all the way through. They didn’t have a huge difficulty spike right at the end like a lot of modern games do.

Killzone 2's Radec is one hard motherfudger!

A game should have a finely balanced difficulty curve. Because retro games were consistently hard it meant that whilst the games were tough, they were consistently tough. This created a finely balanced, progressive difficulty. It seems developers these days neglect all of this. By just making the last boss extremely hard, all difficulty balance goes out of the window. What you’re left with is a player who gets frustrated, having to try and try again until eventually they just give up.

This all culminates in the player wasting countless hours playing and never sees the end. Where is the logic in that?! At this rate developers won’t even bother with endings. They’ll all start making end bosses that no one could ever beat, that way they wouldn’t have to waste time thinking up a proper ending because no one would ever see it. This may sound crazy but I guarantee in a few years I’ll be proven right.

In fact, creating even a passable end boss is such a fine art that some of the gaming worlds most influential, famous and highly regarded pieces of work are guilty of muffing it all up. Case in point, widely accredited as being one of the best games of all time; Final Fantasy 7. Whilst gamers are more often than not recalling all their favourite moments that made the game so memorable, they often forget how truly awful the last boss actually was. Final Fantasy 7 did the exact polar opposite of what I have just been talking about. Rather than making their last boss crushingly hard, beating Sephiroth was far too easy. Rewarding players with Cloud’s final limit break, even if they hadn’t previously unlocked it, made the battle essentially a one hit kill. Not very clever considering you’ve built up to this epic battle over three bloody discs!

And that’s not all, what about the dedicated players? What about people like me that played the game for hours… and hours… and hours… and hours… and… well, you get the picture. We unlocked every limit break, found every summon, maxed-out levels, collected all the materia and beat every enemy. And for what? I’ll tell you; absolutely nothing.

Even the mightiest fall...

But I’m sad to say that Final Fantasy 7 is only the start. What about gaming’s most iconic character? What about Mario? That’s right, even the Super Mario Bros. franchise is guilty of dropping a stinker from time to time. Proof that retro games also suffered from the curse of rubbish end of game bosses is Super Mario Bros 1.

Whilst Bowser may be memorable, your first encounter with him in Super Mario Bros 1 is extremely brief. Much like Final Fantasy 7, an epic battle is built up as you go from castle to castle in search of Princess Peach, who is being held by Bowser. However, once you come face to face with the monster it becomes far too easy, quite literally a hop, skip and a jump actually. You simply wait for him to walk onto the bridge, jump over him and walk into the axe to chop the bridge down and send Bowser to a fiery death. Talk about underwhelming.

It’s not all doom and gloom though folks. Thankfully there are developers out there who still care about what matters the most; the final encounters. The Zelda series has always had great end bosses. However, at the end of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, we’re shown that modern games can get end of game bosses right sometimes. Ganon represents a truly epic battle built over the entire course of the game that requires some skill to prevail. The difficulty is just right and ends fittingly with a beautiful stab to the head. This is the stuff that dreams are made of.

Wind Waker's showdown with Ganon is nothing short of brilliant.

It’s just unfortunate that quite often, these are nothing more than dreams. What we actually have to play is more like a nightmare.

- Kieran Roycroft

It’s a phenomenon that has existed for years, but is becoming more and more common as the games market expands. I am of course talking about expensive Collector’s Edition copies of the latest new release.

It seems every developer these days is releasing a high priced “limited edition” complete with in-game bonus items, books, soundtracks, short making of DVDs, and little action figures.

Until recently I loved them; my home is littered with all sorts of crap that I have picked up over the years through purchasing limited editions. In my Bedroom you could find Bayonetta’s Gun, a plastic Batarang, and a pewter Big Daddy statue (to name a few examples) cluttering up the place.

It is clear that publishers and developers have realised there is a very strong demand for Collector’s Editions, especially if they come with “exclusive” content. I don’t think it would be too unfair to say that the average hardcore gamer, the sort of person that jumps at the chance of buying the latest games on release day, has some geeky tendencies in him/her.

Average game. Below average Collector's Edition.

The words “limited” and “exclusive” are banded about when describing these products, and are probably enough to get any fanboy’s pulse racing, fearing that this rare treasure may soon disappear. Deep down that’s exactly how I feel when I read the details of the latest Collector’s Edition version of a game I’ve had my eyes on.

However, more often than not, these collector’s editions are released at a premium price, but come in exceptionally poor quality packaging with mediocre additional content at best.

Of course, every now and then a collector’s edition comes along and makes everything better again; take for instance the recent Alan Wake Collector’s Edition. The package included the game, a 100 odd page book that filled in some of the back story behind the events of the game (including samples of Alan Wake’s own writing), a making of DVD that also unlocks developer commentary mode in the game, two premium themes for your dashboard, Avatar awards, and the soundtrack, all wrapped in a hollowed out book. For the price I paid, a mere £40, it was completely worth it.

A Fantastic Bargain at £40

And yet, for every Alan Wake Collector’s Edition there are about half a dozen Red Dead Redemption Collector’s Editions. Now don’t get me wrong, I love the game as much as anyone else out there, but the Collector’s Edition, which I foolishly purchased, was the text book definition of a waste of money.

For £50, it shipped with a download code that entitled you to three pieces of downloadable content: Golden Guns, which increase your fame slightly, the War Horse, a steed that has better stamina regeneration, and the Deadly Assassin outfit, which refills your Dead Eye Metre a little bit faster.

Also included is a download code for the game’s Soundtrack. Let me reiterate; a download code. They couldn’t even be bothered to put it on a CD and slip it in the case. And yet it cost £10 more than the plain old regular version of the game.

If that wasn’t bad enough, I discovered that half of my downloadable content is not available right from the get go; in fact, in order to unlock the Deadly Assassin outfit you have to meet a number of in-game goals, and progress through the story beyond a certain point. It’s not the end of the world, but it is an irritation.

I don’t mean to single Red Dead Redemption out, they are not the only ones releasing crappy Collector’s Editions that fools such as myself keep buying; who can forget the “special edition” Dead Rising, with the only special feature being that it came in a tin case at a £10 premium, or the infamous Batman Arkham Asylum special edition that came with a bonus challenge map, a 10 minute DVD, a short book with character designs in it, and a cheap plastic Batarang on a stand.

To make matters worse, the copy of the game itself was packaged in a flimsy cardboard box, with a faux wooden finish, almost as if they wanted to emphasise how cheap it looked.

A Fantastic Game, But An AWFUL Collector's Edition

Of course no one is forcing people to buy these Collector’s Editions – it’s not like burley men in black kicked down my door and dragged me to my local retailer, forcing me to hand over my hard earned cash for some rubbish downloadable content. But at the same time I have to wonder, how long can this last? How long can Publishers, Developers and Retailers expect to rip people off before they start getting wise to what constitutes a good deal?

To play devil’s advocate for just a brief moment, it cannot be easy for Publishers and Developers trying to find good content for their Collector’s Editions. I would imagine that most game developers are too busy working hard to get the game out on time to spend time sitting in front of a camera talking about how wonderful their game is going to be.

When you take in to account things like Electronic Arts’ Project $10, which offers everybody that buys a new copy of one of their games about $10 worth of free downloadable content, what else do they have the time to make and cram in to the special editions? These DVDs and books don’t just magically turn up out of nowhere, they cost money, and people have put in time and effort in order to craft these bonus items.

A Very Good Collector's Edition For A Not So Great Game

Calling for a blanket boycott of all Collector’s Editions will do little else but deprive Publishers of much needed extra income. Having said that, however, there are a number of ways in which things could go in the future if we stopped buying the bad Collector’s Editions. The best case scenario is that the involved parties take a good hard look at their product and strive to put out better Collector’s Editions.

On the other hand, the involved parties may decide that Collector’s Editions are not profitable and they stop producing them all together. It’s not going to happen overnight, but one day maybe we won’t even have the option of buying expensive variants of our games that come with a load of old tosh. And that would be a real shame.

–Luke Mears–

As a child I distinctly remember becoming conditioned to stay away from blue Smarties because of an ITV news report. In this news report, a child mistook his parent’s medication for blue Smarties, consumed the whole lot, and subsequently wound up dead. Thanks to the ITV reporter warning parents about the dangers of blue Smarties, my mother told me in no uncertain terms that I was never to consume blue Smarties ever again. Being but four years old I simply listened to my mother, as all good children should, as she was acting on the advice of the man on television.

Not once did it cross my mind that perhaps blue Smarties were not to blame, nor were the pills in question. Perhaps the blame should lie at the feet of the parents who did not take proper care to keep dangerous medication out of the reach of their young child. However, it would seem that this specific leap in logic is beyond these journalists, or perhaps it is a less financially viable reporting avenue to go down; who would want to read a story about sloppy parenting when they could instead be worked up in to a fury over some external threat?

Careful now!

“But what has this got to do with videogames?” I hear you cry. As we all know, The Newb Review is a well respected website, dedicated to the coverage of all things video game related, not some weepy blog of a rampant Emo-saur. Being the newest and most popular kid on the entertainment block (the games industry is barely 30 years old after all) video games are a prime target for these journalists who, for the most part, have next to no knowledge on the subject, and are all to quick to condemn. Just look at the recent debate on The Alan Titchmarsh show.

Enough has already been written about the fiasco that looked at the effect violent video games are having on children, such as our very own Tom’s satirical response to the “debate”, so I won’t go in to too much depth here. But it is safe to say that it was a prime example of a bunch of old fuddy-duddies gathering together with their burning torches and pitchforks, looking for someone or something to blame for the state of the world. These are the kind of people who display their ignorance on their lapels.

Another example of this “Fuddy Duddy syndrome” can be found in the pages of The Daily Mail, a reactionary UK Tabloid newspaper. Following the United Kingdom’s 2008 Byron Report, a study funded by the UK Government to look at the effect violent video games have on people, The Daily Mail, Britain’s Moral Defender, asked writer and presenter Anne Diamond to review some adult rated games she picked up on the high street. Normally I would say that writing an article criticising the Daily Mail is as futile as writing an article criticising Nazi Germany’s policy towards ethnic minorities, but there are some real gems contained in her paragraph long reviews.

'Ban this sick filth'

Highlights include calling Scarface: The World is Yours “mindless garbage”, and Dead or Alive 4 “mindless and stupid”. When reviewing the multiple Game of the Year award winning Resident Evil 4, she had this to offer “This game shouldn’t be allowed to be sold, even to adults… This kind of violence can only be bad for you”. Compare this to the highly respected Edge Magazine’s multipage feature about the same game in the latest issue , number 214, detailing the creation of what it calls a contender for “game of the decade”. This is clearly a case of someone who has no idea what they are talking about (Anne Diamond) offering their opinion and looking very foolish in the process (so much so that the Daily Mail refuses to accept comments on her online version of the article, and blocks access to past comments).

It probably won’t surprise you, but this is nothing new. Video games are one of many in a long line of entertainment mediums that have been attacked by the press. Throughout history, writers have criticised what they see as the faults of the young and speculated what has caused this terrible behaviour. In the early 1900s, the Chicago Tribune published articles concerning the corruption of the nation’s youth by the vile art of dancing. That’s right, dancing. Even simple everyday things like television and mobile phones have been blamed for the degradation of society by these journalists.

Those of us that are old enough should cast out minds back to the late 1980s and 1990s. Back then, the focus of the moral outrage in certain parts of the media was aimed squarely at controversial films such as Natural Born Killers and Child’s Play 3, both of which were tenuously linked to high profile murder cases; The Columbine Shooting and the Jamie Bulger murder respectively. While those films are very clearly of an adult nature, the link between these films and the specific murder cases have been feeble at best. It is reassuring that the debate against violent movies has quietened in recent years, thanks primarily to the fact that the current generation of Journalists grew up watching violent movies. Yet the media is always quick to lay the blame at some external influence that has “corrupted” the perpetrators of the crime, rather than face up to the fact that we as a species are absolutely fucking horrible.

'Won't someone think of the children?!'

How else do you explain atrocities that have happened throughout history before the invention of video games, Television, Mobile Phones, or Cinema? How do we explain the enslavement of innocent Africans, or the decimation of the Native American and Native Australian populations at the hands of European settlers? Can we expect the Daily Mail to reveal that Adolf Hitler was a big Command and Conquer player in his day? In general, and to be less flippant, the older generation has always looked at the young and criticised their behaviour. A quotation attributed to Socrates, the Greek Philosopher that lived over 2,000 years ago, discusses the problem with the youth of the day:

“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”

Sound familiar? My own personal message to Alan Titchmarsh, The Daily Mail, ITV, scaremongering journalists, and all of their readers is this: You want to blame something for the state of your children and the world around you? Look in the mirror. Stop blaming new toys that you can’t figure out how to play and take a good, hard look at yourselves. And while you’re at it, read some of the articles Journalists of the past have written about the corrupting power of Dancing, Telephones, Books, Movies, and Cartoons, to name but a few. Maybe, just maybe, it might change the way you think about new forms of entertainment.

The epic war of the consoles between Sony and Microsoft (the Wii isn’t made for gamers; see ‘iRate: Wii never play it really’) seems to have descended into a tit-for-tat squabble; each company sinking to new lows by securing the exclusivity of relatively minute amounts of individual titles. Sure, the Joker maps from Batman: Arkham Asylum are only available to PS3 customers, but does Sony really think that this pathetic half-step is going to incense XBox owners into purchasing the rival console?

The PS3 exclusive Joker Maps are no laughing matter for XBox owners

Don’t get me wrong, I use Sony only as an example here; Microsoft is by far the worst offender. Since launch there have been a number of DLC exclusivity deals struck by Microsoft, but here are perhaps the two biggest: Grand Theft Auto IV and Fallout 3.

What makes this worse is the overall quality of this exclusive content. The DLC for Fallout 3 in particular has been met with some mixed reactions. It’s difficult to argue that Mothership Zeta and Operation: Anchorage achieve anything other than detracting from the overall quality of the Fallout experience. Also, our very own Luke ‘Mightyles’ Mears didn’t think much of The Ballad of Gay Tony.

The Ballad of Gay Tony? More like the Ballad of Gypped PS3 Owners!

The word “exclusive” is also something of a misnomer in this context. With the exception of the Joker maps for Batman: Arkham Asylum (although time will tell on that one), almost every piece of exclusive DLC has been a timed exclusive. So after a period of time the DLC is launched on the rival console anyway, usually to the complete disinterest of gamers everywhere. Only the most hardcore fans of Fallout 3, for example, are going to shell out an extra £30 to get their hands on the five packs of new content. The majority will leave it on the shop shelf where it belongs.

Bad DLC in itself isn’t a massive issue, but when the companies we rely on to produce quality products that are worth our time and money begin to shell out large amounts to secure bad content, you know that something is awry. The global gaming industry has become so concerned with rivalry and getting one up (intentional cheeky Mario reference) on each other that it has completely forgotten the people in the middle, the people that really matter, us bloody gamers! And exclusive DLC is living proof of this.

A prime example of timed exclusive DLC not worth the wait

Games developers should be committed to producing titles that deliver the complete experience for anyone that digs into their wallets to purchase a game. It doesn’t matter what format, gamers should be afforded the courtesy of this complete experience.

DLC exclusivity is a corruption of this. Not only are developers selling off parts of the “experience” to the highest bidder, but by doing so they are segregating their audience, causing increasing disillusionment with the developer. We shouldn’t be punished for choosing one console over another. The only kind of exclusivity The Newb Review can endorse is for a full title. Furthermore, by selling off the rights to portions of games through DLC, developers are not only showing a lack of backbone, they are also telling the world that they are driven solely by profit and that they don’t respect the very people to which their products are aimed.

Developers aren’t the only ones at fault though. The tit-for-tat rivalry between Sony and Microsoft, expressed through DLC, is nothing short of childish, playground bullsh*t. If they weren’t so willing to throw away cash carelessly, just to ensure exclusivity rights on the latest and greatest game ad-ons, the thought of exclusive DLC for consoles wouldn’t be so imprinted on the minds of developers, and perhaps us gamers would be treated a little less like mindless sheep.

This is a call to arms: gamers of the world unite. We need to tell the corporations to cease this petty battle for DLC exclusivity. From now on it’s full exclusivity for a title or nothing at all. No more of these petty half-steps to nudge people towards choosing your console.

I’m sure it was a great idea to buy it at the time, and I know you had every intention of using it daily “as part of a healthy lifestyle”. But let’s face it: you’d rather crack on the PS3 or 360 for some real gaming, rather than breaking into a sweat in front of your pixelated sprite whilst some obnoxious virtual Wii board berates you about how fat you are.

I must admit, I’m one of the few people in the UK who doesn’t own a Wii. Would I like one? Sure. But, being a lowly student I couldn’t warrant shelling out the money for a piece of kit that would essentially become my second or third console, and the ‘adult’ games currently available, whilst tempting, haven’t moved me to the point where I must have one. Resi 5, Ghostbusters and Call of Duty: World at War all look to be fantastic on the Wii; but I think I’m not alone in thinking that I’d rather play them in Hi-Def… on a proper console.

I can’t argue against the fact that the Wii has expanded the gaming market to include non-gamers. But am I the only one that sees this trend as unsustainable? Everyone and their mother has bought a Wii; usually as a fun little flight of fancy to crack out at Christmas or parties. But I have a box filled with board games in my loft that we only play at Christmas, and they’re just as much fun and cost even less than a Wii.

The Wii motion control was novel, even if it didn’t always work that well, and having played with the Wii motion+ briefly, it seems that the system really works well now. But who has the room to play even a two-player game on the Wii? I appreciate the Redknapp family can do it; but I’m not a millionaire ex-footballer with a multi-platinum selling singer wife, and my sitting room can only fit about four people in it, and only if they don’t flail around trying to hit a virtual tennis ball.

So what exactly is my argument here? Do I think the Wii is rubbish? Hell no! Mario Galaxy, Smash Bros. and Mario Kart, not to mention the Zelda series, are fantastic games that everyone should play. And certainly the Wii does things that other consoles don’t (yet!); but when you look at the number of games being released across all the consoles, Nintendo seem to be lacking the quality titles that would make their console a must have, rather than a nice-to-have-as-well.

This is indeed my first reason why online play is a bad thing: the little joy garnered from playing online is stifled by the shit-storm of unintelligible language that is, in most cases, unnecessary (how much harder is it to type pwn than kill / beat / maim!?), combined with a heady mix of xenophobic, toothless buffoons and twelve year olds that populate many online communities. It baffles me that so many prepubescent boys litter online worlds; how is it that I get owned by some snotty-nosed kid in an 18 certificate game?

Forgive me for cheating a little here, but my second and third reasons are interrelated and so I’ll rant about them at the same time. One thing that really gets my goat is when developers choose online content over that which should be considered standard within most multiplayer games. You’ll most probably notice this in two ways: firstly, the smoke screen of hours of online content that covers the lack of an offline experience.

This doesn’t necessarily concern games that are online only, like Battlefield 1943 (a great game, even if we won’t be able to play it in a few years – see below), but titles such as Killzone 2 and, perhaps the greatest offender, Call of Duty 4. The enjoyment of the many levels available online and the high production quality in terms of graphics and gameplay don’t help alleviate the feeling of being gypped by having to pay £45 for a fifteen minute single player experience (okay, I’m exaggerating, but only slightly).

Surely it serves games companies to provide the best product they possibly can? Why can’t we link up two consoles and play four against four Call Of Duty 5? You could do it in Call Of Duty 3!? Whatever happened to AI in multiplayer? Remember how fun it was to face off against a computer team in Perfect Dark? All these questions, I fear, will remain unanswered as companies seek to provide the most modern gaming experience, often at the expense of less impressive features.

Online gaming is slowly but surely destroying gamers’ ability to reminisce about the games they played as a child. As a child of the ’80s, I can remember, with fondness, my experiences of loading up my first game of Monkey Island, Lemmings or Soccer Kid. I even, on occasion, venture into the loft, wipe off the dust and load up these antecedents of modern gaming for a trip down memory lane. But the shift to online gaming will make this impossible; as people stop playing games in favour of their newer versions, developers will stop supporting older titles. It’s upsetting that in years to come we won’t be able to fire up the Playstation to compare the newest incarnation of established series like Call of Duty or Battlefield to the games of yesteryear.

So I apologise if I come across as an online gaming hater. I enjoy online gaming as much as the next guy, but I don’t see why us humble gamers should get a raw deal when it comes to the games we so love.