What could possibly be more of sci-fi geek’s wet dream than an epic sci-fi video game? Two words: Episodic Content. Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Dr. Who, etc, us sci-fi geeks love continual doses of different sci-fi flavors. Bioware recently released new episodic content for the video game Mass Effect onto the Xbox Live Marketplace, and being a big fan of the game I didn’t hesitate at the price (400 MS Points/$5 real money) and downloaded it right away.
If you have beaten Mass Effect and are looking for more adventures in the life of Captain Shepard, the first thing you’ll notice is that you can’t immediately jump into the Bring Down The Sky content unless you have a previous save from earlier in the game. I don’t know why if Bioware was planning on developing DLC why they wouldn’t have something in place to access it immediately. I did not have a previous save I could access so I had to go through the beginning of the game again. I was okay with this since I love the game, but there are those who might not be as patient as I am.
Once you can access the Bring Down The Sky mission it will jump to a cut scene showing an asteroid being propelled towards a planet. Your mission is to make like Bruce Willis in Armaggedon and stop this from happening. Without spoiling the story aspects of the mission the actual objectives are slightly disappointing in some ways. The asteroid is very similar to many of the random planets you can land on around the galaxy. You land in the Mako and drive to certain points and fight enemies in variations of the same base that you’ll find on a dozen other planets.
I mean seriously, no matter if your a space pirate, terrorist, survey team, planetary outpost, and on and on, they all appearantly have the same contractor. It’s like they shop at the biggest Ikea in the universe.
While that’s disappointing there are some great new things. The Batarians, a new alien race, are interesting and I got the impression that either through future DLC or the next game that we will be seeing more of them. The alien race doesn’t just add interesting things from a storyline perspective; they also use slightly different tactics than the races from the main game. Above all the story is why I bought it and the choices that are presented through the story are great. The game asks you to make a decision at the end of the mission that is fantastic.
Pros:
-New alien race that fight differently
-More story and choices to make
-Additional achievement points to earn
Cons:
-How many times do I have to fight in the same base?
-I forgot how clumsy the Mako is.
-Short. About 90 minutes long.
Recommendation: Buy if your a fan of the man game. It doesn’t take too long to get to the point where you can access the content if you have beaten the game, plus for $5 you get an extension on the story and some fun new choices to make. I’ve spent more renting movies that I enjoyed far less than this extra mission. Hopefully future content will have more in the way of variety for the locations you actually fight in.
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