Deciding whether or not you should buy DLC is easy, and we at D+PAD reply to dissenters of such content delivery with a light headshake whilst avoiding eye contact and crossing to the other side of the street. What you tend to find is that the haters always moan about getting ‘burned before, never again’ and suchlike after buying, but what they need to understand is that the release of expansions, add-ons and extensions to a particular piece of videogame software are getting bigger and bigger by the month. Fortunately, Guerrilla are all too familiar with having it large – their explosions are big, their guns are big, and the hype machine (along with a certain multi-million dollar budget) to thrust it all into the faces of gamers everywhere was big.

The two new maps, then? Not so big, really. Although they initially appear to be of a more intimate nature due to their size, this heightens the tension, ramps up the atmosphere, and increases the sense of panic and urgency. The half a minute sprints back into the action every time you die are at an end, making matches feel all the more immediate. What also pleases is that the new environments genuinely try to offer something new, rather than just another uninspiring effort that any teen modder could create in an evening. It’s undeniably difficult to keep FPS online gaming fresh and the radical evolutions of ranks, perks, unlockable weapons and armour, badges, ribbons and everything else seen in recent years are a testament to that. Alongside the latest patch which added ranks and fixed numerous niggles, these two new maps are, by large, an admirable attempt at keeping players in the Warzone.

The two maps are heavily influenced by locales from the single player mode – Wasteland Bullet is a re-enactment of the train carrying you from Pyrrhus to the Wastelands, whereas Vekta Cruiser reminds us of the ISA ship section in the latter part of the campaign. Such remarkable similarities could quite easily lead to accusations of self-plagiarism, but the strength of these maps is that the joypad-clenchingly tense firefights between factions and the frantic dash to cover of the single player translates brilliantly into the multiplayer arena. If you don’t believe us, try taking a leap of faith between the speeding trains of Wasteland Bullet while under heavy fire, running the risk of becoming puree by connecting with concrete posts that zip by at regular intervals. Campers seeking high ground for some sniping goodness will need to watch their head – lights and other obstructions hanging from the tunnel roof will definitely remove it for you. Billowing dust and sparks dancing from the steel tracks, along with the constant risk of self-inflicted death make Wasteland Bullet a surprisingly atmospheric track, considering the sheer velocity going on around you.

Vekta Cruiser, meanwhile, is a much different affair for two main reasons – the colour palette and the multi-tiered fashion of the level’s design. We’ll be the first to admit that life on Helghan can get rather grim, with so much fire, steel and…well, shades of brown. The ISA ship, in startling contrast, is a refreshing change – clean, crisp shades of blue and shimmering surfaces almost feel like cold water splashed into your eyes, washing away the earthy and downright grubby locales we’ve grown so accustomed too. It has the desired effect, injecting aesthetic variety into a heavy online session, and it also features a lot more ‘vertical play’. With so many levels to place objectives, it’s easy to get the drop on an unsuspecting opponent. Of course, it’s just as easy to get hopelessly lost looking for those darn speakers.

So the new maps are another shot in the arm for an online experience gaining huge popularity, but why is the score not higher? We’re pretty sure we’re not mistaken here, but charging £4.79 for two maps is generally not economically viable in this day and age. Your PlayStation 3 cost a lot of money to design and manufacture and your PlayStation 3 software, particularly Killzone 2, cost a lot of money to make – no prizes for guessing who has to pay the bills. On the other hand is the old mantra of “getting what you pay for”, and the quality of the two maps are clearly apparent in terms of their visual fidelity as well as their potential to stage some fantastic online dust ups. Regular players of the game online will buy the maps regardless of what we say here, but for those who don’t play as regularly as the more dedicated we’d still recommend it – if your pockets are deep enough, that is.

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