The whole download-able/unlock-able content format seems to be all the rage with games now.

Paying for content, is now bordering between nice additions to bastards charging for stuff they just cut out of retail product.

But there is something far more annoying to me as a gamer these days; which has been going on unchecked for far too long. That is making us work for shit, or as designers put it "Unlocking." Think about it, you just brought a brand new game home and you pop it in to find that over 50% of the game is unavailible to you from the start

I actually had a case of this today were I was over at a friends house and he was showing me the new Advance Wars game on the DS. So we tried to fire up a game and play it together with Him, his' Girlfriend and Me. Then we get to the Character select screen where we can only choose 4 of them, the other 8! are locked. And I'm thinking "God dammit, just ****ing let us play as them." I really don't see why 2/3rds of the cast have to be unavailable from the start.

So you could spend all this playing the game so you and friends can use all the shiny golden characters in multiplayer only to lose your friends because your so much better at the game, from playing it for so long. It just really ruins casual moments like that were you can introduce games to friends without slogging in a certain amount of time.

This leads me to Team Fortress 2, a game I never really got into hardcore but played like once a week for a change of pace. Now Valve is putting out new weapons for all the classes. I'm very thankful that Valve is blessing us with great new content. On the other I really don't care for how we go about obtaining them. Completing achievements for weapons seems like a ****ing chore list to be honest. I think Valve could have just given us the guns from the start and it wouldn't have been a problem. When i see "{MEDIC ACHIEVEMENT}" severs it may be a sign that people rather just this shit out of the way and enjoy the game for what it is.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind getting rewarded for doing something once in a while, but having to do that again and again with each monetary reward gets to be a pain. I feel like I have to work to get to enjoy my game to it's fullest.