Have you ever been sitting at your computer and thought “I would totally pay 250 coins for armor for my pack horse.”? If you have, then you’re part of the future. The DLC future. And DLC Quest might just be the game for you.
Everything Costs You
So, first of all, spoiler alert: the princess gets kidnapped by the villain. Your job is to go save her. You’re motivated. Get to it. So you buy the game, you install it and you’re ready to save her, right?
Wrong. DLC Quest has eagerly adopted the Freemium model, where if you want something, you need to drop some coins*. This includes everything from music, to animations in the game… to moving left on the screen.
Back in my day, those features used to come standard. (Don’t worry, there’s an Awardment for that in-game.) But if you want to crush your enemies and see them driven before you, you’ll need to shell out some precious, precious coins*. Or just keep moving right all the time. But nobody’s got time for that.
As time goes on you’ll unlock the option to purchase more DLC packs from your friendly neighborhood merchant brothers, Nickel and Dime. You’ll need what they have to offer in order to get things done.
(That’s Dime on the right. Yes, I bought the Sexy Outfits DLC. Don’t judge me. I mean, just look at those pixels… and it was only five coins*! Also, I have a top hat. Because top hat.)
So you go through, you get the DLC you need and hopefully can save your beloved princess from the nefarious villain. But once you’ve done that and ridden off into the sunset with your trusty pack horse, what else could you possibly do?
But Wait, There’s More (DLC)?
You can Live Freemium or Die. There’s an expansion/sequel included (unless you’re on XBox, which amusingly has the second installment as a separate entity that you have to spend another 80 Microsoft points for) with new content, new features and even some of the basics included at launch! …Sort of!
Now you need to find out what is happening in the local town – NPCs are disappearing and it is up to you, noble hero, to find them. And save them. Or something. As long as you’re spending coins*, really you can do whatever you’d like.
Why This Is So Awesome
The game a clever parody, poking fun at an industry intent on gouging lovingly appropriating more money from their player base. It has a distinctly tongue-in-cheek feel to it, with retro graphics that make me vaguely nostalgic.
I even got to say ‘Back in my day’ in the review of it. Come on. Classic.
It may not have much replay value, but if you’re looking for a good laugh, you can’t go wrong with DLC Quest.
*Note: All coins are in-game only. You do not need to pay real life currency to buy coins. It’s a parody of the ‘free-to-play’ model.
Steamrolled Score: 9/10
This has been an installment of Steamrolled, a semi-regular column about impulse buys on Steam that turn out either very impressive or very… not.
