Rockstar San Diego released a big chunk of downloadable content (DLC) for their hit game Red Dead Redemption (RDR) this week. The DLC is called the "Undead Nightmare" and is a campaign extension of the original game. Its kinda funny to me that they released this, because who would really think of adding zombies to an old west style game, but I was intrigued about it and I really enjoyed the original game so how odd could it be?
First off, I want to rant on Microsoft for a minute, which will take away from the game discussion. The DLC was released 10/25, and I was eager to check out reviews and grab it because Microsoft is offering an 800 point rebate this month if you spend 2400 points in the month of October. So, once the reviews looked solid I jumped over to the Xbox.com marketplace, looked up the game, and BAM, bought the Undead pack and had it queued up to download to my Xbox. Whoa, wait, what is this? As I feel excited about the purchase I just made, I see there is an item on the webpage that looks just like "Undead Nightmare" but it has the word Bundle next to it. WTH! 1600 points and you can buy this bundle which will give you all the games past DLC. Dammit! So, anyway, yeah I tried every avenue I could think of to reach Microsoft about this bundle and see if I could refund my money so I would then go buy the bundle. Microsoft just pushed their Xbox Live policy on DLC and said "sorry, no way." It is a bit odd and unfortunate to me that no one, Microsoft, Rockstar, nor the media had announced anything about this bundle. In the end, I wanted all that content (to play and for achievements) so I ended up getting the bundle anyway. I now have an extra Undead Nightmare pack I'm not using and haven't downloaded.
That was a bit longer than I expected, so back to the game. I really enjoy RDR for a number of reasons, which I won't really dive into on this blog post. For me though, if you want to game and just kinda waste time but not totally be bored, why not play the free roam? Free roam offers quite a lot, but the real benefit and enjoyment is forming a posse with friend, or randoms in the game, and doing adventures, or going hunting, etc.
A number of my friends who bought this game didn't really even utilize the online free roam. They bought the game for the campaign, finished it and then sold it off. Most of them did this within a month or two after the game was released. I really think they should have held onto it because after trying out all the content in the bundle I think it adds a lot more to the experience, plus my posse of 10 is now, at best, likely to be a posse of 4 if everyone is online together!
I must say though, the DLC that was released for this game is both genius and yet also not cool. For instance, the first DLC released was free for all users and included new coop game modes where up to 4 people could play together. The next pack released was $10 and included a new weapon and just a bunch of character outfits. Why would I pay for that? The 2nd DLC pack that came out added more character outfits but also added new game types and free roam adventures. This is definitely worth $10 to anyone who is a fan of the game and will continue to play it, so I see value there. Finally we have this campaign expansion of the undead. This was also $10 as a standalone pack, and it is well worth the cost for the quantity of gameplay plus a few multiplayer additions. Comparing this expansion add on to the GTA IV series though, this pack comes cheaper and offers just as much content. I guess I'm just confused at how Rockstar figured their DLC pricing vs what the gamers were really getting. The bundle for 1600 and all the DLC is genius and a nice treat, but it had been announced prior to the day of release.
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