Conspiracy week

So, for this week in my English class, we have to direct our blogs in a conspiracy-themed way. Anyone who's ever been in party chat knows that my incessant jabber is one step away from wearing a tinfoil hat and calling into radio talk shows at 2AM with my Project MKULTRA stories. So, it's not really that much of a stretch for me.

Before I dedicate the week to full appeasement of my English professor, I thought I'd rant about Microsoft's near-conspiracy in their shaky DLC practices.

DISCLAIMER: THESE EVENTS PROBABLY AREN'T IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER. I'M TIRED AND THIS IS A RANT, LIVE WITH IT

So, way back when, gamerscore was cut and defined, right? You got a retail game and it offered about 1000 points for you to earn. Some were impossible and some were child's play, but whatever. Arcades gave you 200. Shortly after, Microsoft came out with set rules that stated all retail games must have an available 1000 points, arcade, 200. Ubisoft went back and put G.R.A.W. up to a round but still stupidly impossible 1000, but other companies like EA decided to flaunt noncompliance by never patching their games up, and coming out with shit like Tiger Woods 06, which had something like 250 glitched points out of the box. But whatever, they're EA, they can have and shut down their own servers, and do whatever they want because they make Madden, the best-selling yearly franchise on the 360.

That worked pretty well for a while, as EA and 2k continued to make an ass out of themselves by releasing full-budget games with glitched achievements they never bothered to patch, as well as the odd shovelware like Rayman or Smash TV. Then, Bethesda thought it would be a great idea to add extra achievements onto DLC for its game Oblivion. Great idea, as the DLC pack, Shivering Isles, was good, lengthy, and well worth the $30 it cost to download. But wait, doesn't that kind of mess with people who care about completing every game they play? In theory, yes, but these are fair deals and a fun experience.

So games like Gears joined in with 6 new solid maps and a decent set of achievements mirroring its new online gametype. Cool. The Godfather brought its original 835 up to 1250 with a mission mode. Nice. Crackdown brought its 900 up to 1250 with more vehicles, more sidemissions, and more weapons. Awesome. Stranglehold came out with a bunch of half-asses maps ripped right off of single-player for its tacked-on and horrible multiplayer, and charged 20 bucks for it. Wait, what? Okay, a good system had its first little hiccup, but that's okay because, hey, the 250 extra points for that are REALLY easy.

So, we continue for a while and some weirder stuff starts to happen. Ninja Gaiden II comes out with DLC not only a few weeks after release, but with a mode that's way harder than the original 1000. But anyone who's going to 1000 NGII is a masochistic and extremely talented freak, so they'll enjoy the extra 250. Beautiful Katamari is released with the DLC that's encoded on the disc and the 20-dollar download just unlocks it. Okay, I guess, because the game was only $40 when it was released. Phantasy Star Universe comes out with 250 extra points, but it's almost 2 years and you still can't earn one of the achievements. Naturo comes out with glitched ones that the developers never fix. Hellboy is released with unattainable achievements and the promise of DLC, but it's been over a year now and nothing. Okay, shit's starting to go down, but you could always wait for a game to get its 250 points and then it'd be safe to play, right?

TO BE CONTINUED...