Expansion packs?

[Kosmo]

I think expansion packs rock!

/pets Frozen Throne

[mikezilla]

Wow that aftermath preview is underwhelming.

and my favorite expansion (minus opfor which I can't pick for obvious reasons) is Frozen Throne. Totally killer.

[Campaignjunkie]

fuck you curman, i though blueshift was great, i enjoyed every moment of it

Yeah, Blue Shift is actually my favorite one - great level design and puzzles, plus scientists that would live longer than a few minutes. If only it would find its way on Steam, but I guess that's an impossibility.

[PhilipK]

I thought both blueshift and op4 were great. They had the good hl feeling to them, and blueshift did also look a bit better.

Really good stuff.

[TomWithTheWeather]

Wow that aftermath preview is underwhelming.

*Cough* HL2 was a little underwhelming compared to it's hype. *Cough*

[|FRITZ|]

at least it wasn't as bad as doom3

[Kosmo]

Frozen Throne. Totally killer.

Yay! I'm twisting your words, Frosen Throne for teh win

My cousin roots for Opposing forces over Blue Shift even if BS had longer campaings and more content, he just thinks it was better. Hehe, BS what a great acronym.

[JynxDaddy]

Blue Shift ... If only it would find its way on Steam, but I guess that's an impossibility.

Yeh, I haven't played Blue Shift, but it should be included in the HL + expansions dealio.

Opposing Force was totally awsome.

[ginsengavenger]

Soley depends on the developer.

quoted for truth. how come nobody else has said this.

[Kosmo]

Soley depends on the developer.

quoted for truth. how come nobody else has said this.

Nah, I don't think so, Valve fucked HL2 up when compared to HL1. So devs don't always hit the gold, it's around 50% of skill and 50% of luck.

[Bluestrike]

I liked blue shift because it has the ending I wanted in HL

In HL I got obsessed with making it to the surface and escape, but it never really hapened, or not the way I tought it be.

Further it just depends on the quality, and sometimes you just need the expansion because it brings new maps and stuff for online games that you can;t find games without having it (Total Annihilation:CC, mmorpg,...)

[Mazy]

carmageddon splat pack

bst evr!

but yeah, depends on the developer and on the original game

[Kosmo]

I actually think that expansions are great when the game itself is really story driven like Warcraft 3, it's like a sequel to a awesome movie or next issue of some comic novel, that is why most people here list HL expansions, HL was one of the greatest story driven games ever.

But expansions like the Quake 3: Team Arena expansion sucked ass.

But then again, there are games like Carmageddon what Mazle said that are just so great that even without massive story you are just happy with some amount of new content. Oh man, I better install Carmageddon right now.

[Thrik]

It's a pretty moot question really since it's totally relative. I mean, it's like asking "are games good?". It depends 100% on the quality of the expansion pack, how much it expands the original title, how much new content is added, if it's a SP expansion then is it equally immersive and lengthy, if it's an MP expansion does it offer lots of new content that is genuinely awesome to have, etc.

An example of a really shit expansion pack is "Core Combat" for PlanetSide, which added some new content to the 100% multiplayer game, but you could easily get along without it -- it was so much of a pain in the arse to go get the new content from the expansion pack owners only caves (which were usually really quiet and no fun to play in) that most just didn't bother. The new content also seemed kind of rushed.

On the other hand, an example of a really awesome expansion pack is Opposing Forces. It felt really well thought out and developed with regards to the storyline and the situations + scripted sequences presented, the art and design of the whole thing was really nice for the time (that chopper into was very cool back then imo), and it was really, really polished, with lots of new content and characters introduced. It also lasted a long time.

So yeah, as others have said, it's totally down to how good the expansion itself is. There's no reason that purchasing an expansion cannot be just as worthwhile and provide as fresh an experience as purchasing the original game if it's done well. A lot of developers end up rushing expansion packs just to squeeze some extra cash out of the players, and it's generally those that end up sucking. When the developer has an actual passion for extending the storyline of the original, or telling it from a different perspective a la Opposing Forces, then it's usually good.

[hamst3r]

Diablo 2's expansion rocked. It had only one new act and still I played it for another 2 years, if not more.

I could not agree more. In fact I'm still playing it. It only added one act though because if people were to play it singleplayer and not online it would porbally take longer than act 1 and 3 combined. Frozen Throne was the beta eva also, I could not put that game down until I beat it

One expansion pack that I really wish I never bought though was call of duty united offensive. The single player was great, but the multiplayer was exacty the same since the vechicals were so scarace, which made it quite boring and repetitive.

Bwt: If you play diablo 2 you must play hardcore or your not a man....your just a manly looking girl.