With the recent release of the new Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, I wanted to touch on the DLC and how developers treat it.

I haven’t been a big proponent of DLC in the past or numerous reasons. My main gripe with DLC is that it comes out a few months after a game is release and more in some cases and it attempts to build on the central story line. No matter how good it is, it always falls flat for the simple reason is that you haven’t played the game in a few months and you aren’t engrossed into the story. Playing a single player game isn’t just about the gameplay in most cases. It’s about the story, the characters and it’s about the experience. Removing yourself from that experience for a few months and going back into it expected to remember everything that has happened on that virgin playthrough as you play the DLC just doesn’t work in most cases. You feel detached from this world that you once knew very well, but now it just feels like bumping into an ex-girlfriend you once loved. The fire is still there, it’s just dim and you stumble trying to remember the past.

What Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon does right is that it doesn’t attempt to add onto the story of Far Cry 3 and this works so well. This is what DLC should be. It shouldn’t try onto the main story because chances are, you’ll end up struggling to remember key points in the story structure and the plot will just feel blah. Blood Dragon ends up just being a silly, fun game independent from Far Cry 3 itself.

DLC is a very viable way for game companies to create more income and keep their product in the minds of gamers. In saying that, there is a right and a way wrong to do this, they could either create a new experience taking risks that they couldn’t take in a full retail product, or they could attempt to add onto a story that has already been wrapped up. Developers should keep this in mind when they plan on making DLC for their games.

Rockstar Games has just released five new screenshots for their upcoming Grand Theft Auto 5, and they continue to impress. This collection is all about travel, and more specifically - vehicles. Cars, motorcycles, submarines oh my! The images also show off some of the more scenic locations in the game including the hills of Los Santos, small rural towns and even the friggin' ocean. Check out the images below:

The scope and scale of GTA V keeps getting bigger, and it looks promising enough to fulfill the expectations of fans of the series who felt that GTA IV fell flat in a lot of areas. It's fitting that the game will take players back to San Andreas because, judging from the trailers and screenshots, this will evoke the same feelings and response as the massiveness of that setting did for GTA: San Andreas.

Is GTA V setting itself up to be the magnum opus of the franchise?

(photos courtesy of Rockstargames.com)

This week's Xbox Live Marketplace "Deal of the Week" is for Battlefield 3, and it's a Hell of a deal. All five of the game's map packs are now half price (making them 600 Microsoft Points each), or if you've skipped on most of them up until now you can also snag a Battlefield 3 Premium subscription for 2800 MS Points, which will give you all of the maps, some unique weapon camos and a nifty, albeit somewhat pretentious, in game dog tog to use.

If you haven't previously purchased any of the map packs the best deal is clearly the Premium option, but for 600 MS Points apiece this is a great deal for those that would rather pick and choose the content that they add. The appeal of bigger maps is a bit lost on the console versions of Battlefield, due to the limitation of 32 players instead of 64, so maybe you want to skip Armored Kill. Back to Karkland might not interest you due to the maps being remakes of previous ones in the BF series, as well as a widely available free add on during launch. Whatever your preference, if you haven't bought any of the game's map packs and want to add some longevity to the title to tide you over until Battlefield 4 - now is the a great time to do so.

On Tuesday NetherRealm Studios released their first batch of DLC for their newest fighting game, Injustice: Gods Among Us. The content included the first of four new fighters planned, and two new skin packs. Fans who had already purchased the game's "Season Pass" were less than pleased when they found out that they would have to pay an additional cost to download the skin packs, having previously been under the impression that all of the game's DLC was included in the season pass.

Those who were outraged wasted no time letting the Injustice team know about it, and profanity laced cries of, "False advertising!" were all over the game's Facebook updates for the rest of the day. Conventionally, a season pass is the cheapest way to get all of a game's future downloadable content for a discounted price. It's been utilized by virtually every franchise since it's inception. Battlefield, Call of Duty, Assassin's Creed, Gears of War and Bioshock are some of the more well known games to include this feature; and all use a pretty unilateral definition to set the parameter's of what the season pass will include.

Injustice: Gods Among Us gave players the option of downloading the season pass, but never stated that they would be getting all of the game's content. What the information says when reading the description is that, if you choose to buy the season pass instead of each additional character, you will be getting four characters for the price of three. The point of confusion might be that included in the purchase of the season pass is a set of "Flashpoint" skins, leading players to believe that further skin packs would be included as they are released simultaneously with new characters, but at no point does it say that the season pass will include new skins. In fact, it doesn't mention including anything but new characters. Therein lies the problem.

NetherRealm Studios has just released the latest character reveal/DLC trailer for Injustice: Gods Among Us, featuring its newest fighter - Batgirl. Yes, just what everyone wanted from this game - more Batman characters. Also on display in the new footage is an appropriate new skin for The Joker - his "Killing Joke" attire from that fateful night when he shot, and paralyzed Barbara Gordon. Check it out below:

It is still unconfirmed at this point whether or not the new Joker skin will be part of the Batgirl DLC like the Batman "Flashpoint" skin was with Lobo, or is going to be included as a new skin pack - which, much to dismay of many who bought it, are not included in the season pass.