DLC Quest

a very "funny in 2011" type of commentary on the games industry. the fact that it actually plays ok is impressive itself; it might be a bit outdated, but for 2 bucks on steam (which is what i got it for in 2015) it's a fun little time-waster

DLC Quest is a satirical take on modern gaming trends where features are stripped out of the game and resold as downloadable content. You are a hero called 'Player' who sees the Princess get kidnapped and obviously it is up to you to save the day. Straight away you are told you cannot move left, because.... it is DLC! So you begin moving right to find your character isn't even animated, and you cannot jump. There's no music too.

After collecting a couple of coins, you meet the shopkeeper who sells DLC which you use your in-game coins to buy. The more expensive items are items you need to progress the game, but the cheap items you can do without. After purchasing the movement pack, your journey begins and one of the first things to do is find a weapon. This weapon takes 10,000 grinds of the stone grinding wheel and it's up to you if you want to do the long painstaking task yourself, or purchase the DLC to speed up the process.

The game world is fairly sparse and mainly contains platforms and coins. Signs scattered around and the occasional person will chip in with more parodies and satirical humour. In the first part of the game, the game-play is simply platforming, finding the coins and backtracking to the shop to get the next DLC to progress the game and it will be all over in 20 mins. The second part of the game, “Live Freemium Or Die” adds the ability to die, although there are checkpoints in all the right areas. The level is much more complex and larger, so will take 40 mins or so to get through.

It is a difficult game to review in some ways. It is a budget title (I picked it up for £0.67) and for good reason; it is very short with simple graphics and aims to provide humour rather than game-play. It meets its aims well though, but you still feel it could have been even better on a larger scale; more levels and therefore more laughs.

This is okay. I like the overall satirical intent and a few of the jokes are funny. A lot of the humor is really basic though, the whole "we're breaking the fourth wall!" concept on its face gets pretty boring. Unexpected references to other games did get a small chuckle.

The gameplay is really basic, but because the whole thing (counting the second episode) is over in like 90 minutes, that's fine. The second episode, Live Freemium or Die, is improved in gameplay and has more good jokes than the rather standard first part.

Its a satire game on the reliance of nowadays games to cut out essencial gameplay/story aspects of the game and sell them as stand alone DLC. This one is a 2d action adventure, in which you will get money slowly by doing quests, and eventually buy the core game mechanics needed in order to move forward with the story.

Its a neat idea, unfortunatly this sort of game should take 5 minutes to get its point across and be done with it. DLC quests takes noticably more than that, i think it took 20 minutes. Its got a lot of backtracking, and the gameplay of the actual game is very simple and archaic. It gets boring way before it gets done.

And the thing is, its not even that good as satire. DLC can be an excellent addition to the game, im not agains the concept. The humour of the game is pretty juvenile and only offers a few chuckles at the very best.