When used responsibly and approached in good faith, DLC can add a lot to a game, building on an already stellar experience until it feels . But, at the other end of the spectrum, DLC can be all about the baubles, where you throw down cash for digital costumes alone. They don't actually affect the game in any measureable way, but seriously, doesn't Hitomi look fierce in that ninja getup? And while a few digital outfits here and there won't a money-suck make, some games take it too far. Way too far. "You could have put a down payment on a new car with the money you just spent on digital outfits" too far.

Recently I've fostered a morbid fascination with the shamelessness of DLC cosmetics, and the desire to find out just how much you can spend on imaginary clothes has been burning inside my heart like an overlarge pile of money. In my search for the game with the most expensive cosmetic DLC, I have made some fascinating and terrible discoveries, and here I present them to you. Horse armor's got nothing on these boudoirs.

Total cost: $45/£30/43€

I can already feel you giving me a weird look, readers, and it's true that you can't dress Dom up as Princess Peach or buy Marcus a festive Christmas hat. But there is a cosmetic feature you can shell out way too much money for in Gears of War 3 to show off your creative fashion sense: weapon skins. The comprehensive Weapon Skin Launch Collection pack comes with 22 different skins to make any weapon in the multiplayer look like a .

You're going to pay a shocking price for that sweet weapon wardrobe though, because the Launch Collection costs more than the actual game regardless of what region you're in. And don't go thinking you'll save some cash by buying separately: grabbing the four weapon-specific packs will run you $60 (£40/57€), and going through the Xbox Marketplace buying each skin individually is an assault on sanity that no living being should have to face.

Total cost: $62/£53/64€

Dynasty Warriors is all about being big and brassy, whether in combat or the cost of its warriors' wear. However, one region gets a better deal: though the US PlayStation Store boasts three costume packs totaling up to $62 worth of virtual outfits, the PAL region only gets the DW8XLCE - DW7 Original Costume Pack Sets 1 and 2 (really rolls off the tongue), and the four DW8XLCE - Original Costume Packs separately, which adds up to a slightly higher price tag. Not sure who made that call, but I have a sneaking suspicion it was whoever decided only Americans would ever buy a $10 wallpaper pack, too.

Granted, the price tag at least gets you a decent amount of digital cloth, since you can snag a full 207 different costumes across armies no matter where you live. That's 30¢ per costume, or 26p / 0,31€. That's way cheaper than the cost of real clothes, so that kind of makes it worth it, right?

Total cost: $78/£50/70€

It's not exactly shocking to see Hatsune Miku on this list, as much of what the Vocaloid diva does while you're playing the game is dance in the background and look cute. Why not throw in some adorable costumes to make her job easier? Surprisingly, Hatsune Miku Project Diva F didn't do much of that, offering only six DLC costumes for fashion-hungry players to purchase. Diva F 2nd makes up for that obvious error in judgment, with $78 worth of costume content to Diva F's $6.00. Quite the wardrobe upgrade.

All told, that nets you 45 different outfits in the Costume Club pack, which will run you a cool $70 from the get-go. But oddly enough, that isn't a complete collection of all the game's costumes, so you have to purchase the Extra Characters Extended Pack and the Americana module by themselves to get the full set. Hopefully that extra $8 doesn't break the bank.

Total cost: $90/£58.50/85.50€

In an effort to prove that it's more than a cheesecake game that also has some wrestling in it (or maybe reinforce the idea?), Rumble Roses XX beefed up its costume closet with an extra 90 outfits between 15 of the fighters to add on an extra dress up element. Which, of course, you have to pay for. Dearly. For the same price as , you can purchase every Rumble Roses XX for a cool $1 per.

That might still sound reasonable to some super fans, but keep in mind that many of those costumes are just basic recolors, like the egregious example shown above. Plus, any outfit with SS attached to the title (a full 36 of the 90) isn't new, but a version of that character's outfit that can be worn by any of the other girls. Seems like a rip-off, but if you subscribe to the school of fashion, it might be worth the money.

Total cost: $142/£109/135€

Poor Evolve. After a strong showing leading up to the game's release and plenty of kind words on launch day, its player count has since dwindled significantly after only a few months. While its dogpile-style gameplay , it's hard to ignore how DLC played a part, with a lot of content being walled off until players coughed up the cash for new monsters and hunters. One of the most egregious examples is Evolve's hunter and monster skin sets. They're separate from any other packs, so you really are just buying skins, and you're set to spend three times the cost of the game itself if you want to poach them all.

Individual skins have at least been grouped together into sets based on theme, so for instance, any pack labeled 'Medic' will work for any base-game Medic character you want to want toting a cooler-looking weapon. Unfortunately, that means each set offers only one costume per character, and oddly, they don't work for any DLC comrades or beasts you want to bring online. So if you only intend to play as Lennox or don the flesh of the Behemoth, save your money. These grounds are fallow.

Total cost: $162/£124/161€

In a bid to get DLC-happy fans interested in the second Xillia game, Namco made sure all the downloadable costumes for Xillia 1 would also be accessible in Xillia 2, and vice versa. In the US, the combined price tag for both Xillia costume sets will push you into shop-a-holic territory, with $160 worth of outfits available between the two. But in the UK and the rest of Europe, the first Xillia only has a single costume pack to its name, so the combined price is… even more somehow?

That gets even more confusing when you get into a discussion of packs: in the US you have to buy each outfit individually, and while there are packs available in the UK and Europe, you'll still have to buy the majority individually if you want the full set. Wherever you live, that should give you plenty of time to consider your life choices as you go. Of course, if the announcement of is anything to go by, Namco is betting you won't.

Total cost: $279/£222/90€

Talk about sticker shock. When fans first learned that Last Round would feature two launch day costume packs coming in at $93 (£74/90€) a piece, the idea wasn't exactly met with enthusiasm, and that was before a third pack was announced in the months that followed. But, while fan reaction can be summed up in a narrow-eyed stare, the Last Round costume situation actually could be worse. No, really. Total up the individual cost of the costumes in just one of those packs, and the resulting price tag lands in the $750 range.

That isn't to say that any of these bundles are a good deal (those $93 real dollars will get you as little as 78 costumes if you look at Season Pass 1), just that it's collectively cheaper to buy them than compile every costume piecemeal. If you're really into DoA, you might benefit from the , which features all 237 DLC costumes available for DoA 5 pre-Last Round. But the two season passes, which feature significantly fewer outfits and mock you with one exclusive costume each, seem tantamount to highway robbery. Plus, if you really like DoA you've probably already bought most of those old costumes, in which case I am so, so sorry.

Total cost: $470+/£350+/367€+

This is where things start getting hard to parse, as games replete with costume options throw out mini-packs and individual outfits in lieu of all-encompassing bundles, so its hard to tell whether you really got everything. Case in point is LittlebigPlanet 3, which combines the offerings of every LBP into its inventory and organizes them about as neatly as a tornado. There are thankfully comprehensive packs for different franchises, so you can at least be assured you're getting every BioShock Infinite or Muppets costume if you buy the associated pack. But if you desperately want every single outfit available, get ready to pay $470 for the packs alone, plus extra for any individuals that slip through the cracks.

Credit where credit is due, this setup at least gives you options if you only want one or two costumes, so you don't have to buy the entire Frozen collection just to get that adorable moose ensemble. But the absence of bundles for each LBP game makes gathering them all a rough job for any collector, especially when it gets into those individual items. If you're seriously planning on taking the plunge, at least let someone know your plans. At some point you might need a rescue party.

Total cost: $950/£609/858€

IdolM@ster 2, a "raising sim" where you raise up teen idols to become superstars, is notoriously difficult to navigate outside its country of origin, and you'll have to scramble through quite a few technical loopholes to be able to download its DLC idol outfits on anything but a Japanese system. But it can be done, and many who get that far go the distance when it comes to collecting DLC costumes, to the tune of almost a grand.

Costumes aren't the only thing you can download from IdolM@ster's DLC collection, or even the most ridiculous - you can also pay real money to download emails from the idols, because the developers are clearly screwing with people at this point. But the vast majority of what's available are costumes of different types, from cutesy to "luxury", and they just keep stacking up. In a way, the fact that it's so hard for many to get ahold of these outfits is a blessing in disguise: it makes it that much harder for you to do this to yourself. A built-in intervention, in a way.

Total cost: $3195/£2324/2577€

Between the 126 champions it has on the roster, League has tossed out over 500 different skins at different price points, so just tallying them is a behemoth task. Thankfully reddit user Perezthe1st and got a result that will make any collector queasy: buying every League skin at full price will run you upwards of $3000.

Now, there's a case to be made that no one will actually drop that much cash on character attire. But keep in mind that this is LOL, where players are known to spend . It may not be common, but Riot put those skins out there, and now the temptation is real. Someone, somewhere has them all.

Total cost: $3315/£2127/2992€

"I didn't choose the train life," murmurs a diehard Train Simulator fan as they buy ten new locomotive skins, a tear sliding down their cheek, heavy with the weight of their eternal burden. That's how I imagine it would go anyway, because I know I'd be holding back tears if I committed to buying every DLC for Train Simulator, or even just the train skins. Of the $5322.55 worth of downloadable content that Train Simulator is hauling, a gut-wrenching $3315.17 is exclusively for what I can best sum up as "train clothes" for your fleet of iron horses.

Part of the reason the price is so high is because you have to pay out the nose for each individual pack, which contain about two skins each and cost an average of $20. With nearly 200 packs on the market right now and more constantly on the way - like a surging river of DLC that will crush our feeble mortal bodies beneath its mighty swell - the price is set to keep climbing into perpetuity. And according to developers themselves? Someone out there probably . The train life chose them.

It hasn’t even opened to the public yet, and the Black Ops 3 Beta is already an intimidating place to be. I’ve already played against folk who are in excess of level 20, so they’ve been going at the game hard and already know the layout of the three maps currently available. They’ve been getting used to the new movement system too, which does take a little acclimatising to. However, there’s plenty of room for newcomers too, and even raw recruits have a chance to nail the killstreaks and top the leaderboards. With that in mind, here is some advice if you’re joining up for the first time.

Click through for more, and check out our exclusive Beta footage below.

It was a well-known console franchise - Super Monkey Ball - that first showcased the iPhone's gaming capabilities, back in 2007. But the iPhone certainly didn't become the home of console conversions. After several early attempts tried (and mostly failed) to emulate the console experience on mobile, the two platforms went their separate ways.

The touch-screen controls, lack of a universal (and cheap) controller and totally different attitude towards purchases have proven... 'problematic'. But even so, I sincerely believe the following console games would nonetheless be even better on iPhone. Yes, I do feel OK, thank you - why do you ask?

It's almost as though Animal Crossing was designed for a mobile phone. The hardware has a consistent clock for real-world calendar functionality. It's always connected so friends can visit easily. It is intended to be played every day when you have a few minutes, and opens and closes easily.

The game's cute, colourful graphics would perfectly suit iPhone. The multi-touch interface would be even better than 3DS' stylus control for inventory management, minigames and rearranging furniture. DLC could be provided automatically, there could be cross-save functionality with an iPad edition (which would also be fantastic)… basically this is an iPhone game ON THE WRONG PLATFORM.

Back in the halcyon days of 1997, I tried playing Wipeout 2097 with my Sega Saturn's Arcade Racer steering wheel. The wheel has no pedals, and no rumble, let alone Force Feedback. But you know what? It felt amazing with Wipeout. That sensation of not being in contact with anything that made Sega Rally Championship feel so detached was instantly a bonus. It felt like I was piloting an anti-gravity machine.

So the floaty, gyroscopic control of an iPhone would surely feel amazing with Wipeout. You could dive or pull the nose up through subtle tilting, and this ease of motion would leave your thumbs free for braking and firing your weapons. AG Drive has proven that iPhone can handle beautiful anti-gravity race tracks, but Wipeout is a volved and driveable experience. iPhone would feel better than analogue sticks in this instance, I'm sure of it.

Flying games don't always feel as good as perhaps they should on the iPhone, but Pilotwings' more nuanced, deliberate controls would suits gentle titling far better than coaxing your glider through the skies using a thumbstick or circle pad.

The beauty of the environments would benefit massively from the retina display, too, and the pick-up-and-play nature of its short challenges would also be perfect for those 'I've got six more minutes until the past's cooked' moments.

This may sound like an odd choice, but it's actually very similar to several iOS concepts that worked well. Prope Discoverer and Epic Citadel that focused on creating a beautiful, explorable environment that pushed the platform's graphical capabilities while providing a slow-paced, interaction-light experience. Even so, they were fascinating.

Those concepts share many features with Everybody's Gone to the Rapture. Recreating The Cinese Room's beautiful and startlingly naturalistic visuals on mobile would be a tricky task, but iPhone 6 is certainly capable of giving it a good go. And the slow-paced, observation-heavy gameplay is perfect for the touch screen's interface. A gyroscopic 'look' function would also add to the experience.

OK, so this isn't even out yet, but the premise arguably suits a multitouch display better than Wii U's single-touch input. Sure, the iPhone's screen is small, but imagine using the pinch to zoom in and out of your created level, then drag blocks and enemies onto the scene. It would work so smoothly.

And if you're concerned about the controls of actually playing the game being imprecise, don't forget there are game pads available for iPhones. You could enjoy the pixel-perfect 2D platforming experience anywhere, make levels anywhere and upload them for your friends to enjoy – you guessed it – anywhere.

OK, this isn't even a thing on consoles any more, let alone iPhone. But imagine the terror if using an iPhone's gyroscoping motion sensing control to look around the hallway and bathroom in real-time. You literally wouldn't want to turn around for fear of Lisa waiting to scream at you.

Imagine doing that in the dark, with headphones on. Seeing as the game was always free anyway, acting as a teaser for the now-never-to-be-release Silent Hills, that would have been the cheapest laxative available. Such a pity it'll never happen.

It was a well-known console franchise - Super Monkey Ball - that first showcased the iPhone's gaming capabilities, back in 2007. But the iPhone certainly didn't become the home of console conversions. After several early attempts tried (and mostly failed) to emulate the console experience on mobile, the two platforms went their separate ways.

The touch-screen controls, lack of a universal (and cheap) controller and totally different attitude towards purchases have proven... 'problematic'. But even so, I sincerely believe the following console games would nonetheless be even better on iPhone. Yes, I do feel OK, thank you - why do you ask?

It's almost as though Animal Crossing was designed for a mobile phone. The hardware has a consistent clock for real-world calendar functionality. It's always connected so friends can visit easily. It is intended to be played every day when you have a few minutes, and opens and closes easily.

The game's cute, colourful graphics would perfectly suit iPhone. The multi-touch interface would be even better than 3DS' stylus control for inventory management, minigames and rearranging furniture. DLC could be provided automatically, there could be cross-save functionality with an iPad edition (which would also be fantastic)… basically this is an iPhone game ON THE WRONG PLATFORM.

Back in the halcyon days of 1997, I tried playing Wipeout 2097 with my Sega Saturn's Arcade Racer steering wheel. The wheel has no pedals, and no rumble, let alone Force Feedback. But you know what? It felt amazing with Wipeout. That sensation of not being in contact with anything that made Sega Rally Championship feel so detached was instantly a bonus. It felt like I was piloting an anti-gravity machine.

So the floaty, gyroscopic control of an iPhone would surely feel amazing with Wipeout. You could dive or pull the nose up through subtle tilting, and this ease of motion would leave your thumbs free for braking and firing your weapons. AG Drive has proven that iPhone can handle beautiful anti-gravity race tracks, but Wipeout is a volved and driveable experience. iPhone would feel better than analogue sticks in this instance, I'm sure of it.

Flying games don't always feel as good as perhaps they should on the iPhone, but Pilotwings' more nuanced, deliberate controls would suits gentle titling far better than coaxing your glider through the skies using a thumbstick or circle pad.

The beauty of the environments would benefit massively from the retina display, too, and the pick-up-and-play nature of its short challenges would also be perfect for those 'I've got six more minutes until the past's cooked' moments.

This may sound like an odd choice, but it's actually very similar to several iOS concepts that worked well. Prope Discoverer and Epic Citadel that focused on creating a beautiful, explorable environment that pushed the platform's graphical capabilities while providing a slow-paced, interaction-light experience. Even so, they were fascinating.

Those concepts share many features with Everybody's Gone to the Rapture. Recreating The Cinese Room's beautiful and startlingly naturalistic visuals on mobile would be a tricky task, but iPhone 6 is certainly capable of giving it a good go. And the slow-paced, observation-heavy gameplay is perfect for the touch screen's interface. A gyroscopic 'look' function would also add to the experience.

OK, so this isn't even out yet, but the premise arguably suits a multitouch display better than Wii U's single-touch input. Sure, the iPhone's screen is small, but imagine using the pinch to zoom in and out of your created level, then drag blocks and enemies onto the scene. It would work so smoothly.

And if you're concerned about the controls of actually playing the game being imprecise, don't forget there are game pads available for iPhones. You could enjoy the pixel-perfect 2D platforming experience anywhere, make levels anywhere and upload them for your friends to enjoy – you guessed it – anywhere.

OK, this isn't even a thing on consoles any more, let alone iPhone. But imagine the terror if using an iPhone's gyroscoping motion sensing control to look around the hallway and bathroom in real-time. You literally wouldn't want to turn around for fear of Lisa waiting to scream at you.

Imagine doing that in the dark, with headphones on. Seeing as the game was always free anyway, acting as a teaser for the now-never-to-be-release Silent Hills, that would have been the cheapest laxative available. Such a pity it'll never happen.