mass effect 2

Earlier this week (March 23), a Cerberus Network DLC pack was released for Mass Effect 2, free to anyone who bought the game new or purchased Cerberus Network access. These Firewalker missions (five in all), have never really promised to be much. They're free. They represent content that was pushed out of the game proper. And, they bring back a remarkably hated driving mechanic from ME1. So is it worth your time?

Yeah, probably. Though really, anything that's free is technically worth your time, especially if its a new gameplay mechanic. I would say this is even worth some of your money, just based on the fact you get roughly an hour and a half out of it. These 5 missions are sort of pigeonholed into the game, immediately available via your terminal when you get free access to your ship. The first mission describes a scenario that has you recover the Hammerhead vehicle. This recovery consists of landing on a planet, walking 5 feet, then triggering a voice-less cutscene showing you approach the vehicle. Then, you're driving it. The rest of the mission is a loose tutorial/playground for you to figure out how it works. The next 3 missions are supposed to have been found through data you recovered in the last mission. One involves some pretty intense fighting, where you discover just how easy it is to blow up. There's no checkpointing, but that's not a huge problem since you can get through everything rather quickly. You take damage fast, but if you get out of the line of fire, you can recover quickly. Another mission has you essentially racing from checkpoint to checkpoint, refilling your timer slightly at each stop. That was thrilling for the few minutes it lasted. Then there's a sort of environmental hazard mission combined with some exploration on foot. No fighting in either of these. The last mission was fairly docile, with things to blow up, but not much you could really call "fighting."

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So, my favorite game of this generation has been Mass Effect 2, as the culmination of an experience from the first game. AND, happy day! There's more -free- DLC coming soon (assuming you bought the game new).

First off, there's the "Firewalker" pack, which introduces vehicular portions of the game in 5 different missions. Unlike the Mako parts from ME1, this vehicle is a hover tank. It jumps (high), moves from side-to-side and has homing missiles. With these changes, the more annoying aspects of ME1's vehicle have been smoothed over. The changes come as bittersweet in some ways, since there doesn't appear to be as much in the way of general exploration of a planet. Check it out in action here. All I've been seeing for release dates is "late March," which might imply that Bioware is going to take their time with it and release it when its ready.

Then, there's the recently announced new fancy gun, another heavy weapon to add to your arsenal. It's already been added to the game, available for download from the title screen. It seems to be an AoE electricity gun, shooting bolts of electricity out at your foes. I'm excite to use it against packs of those husks, which have been proving impossible to kill without Shockwave.

A side note: GDC is this week, but I won't really be keeping up with the news all that much on Koholint because I'm in Costa Rica until the 14th! If anything extremely big goes up, I'll post it, otherwise the little stuff will get its way on here after I get back.

3 weeks ago or so, my attempts at completing all achievements for Dragon Age: Origins were halted when the Return to Ostagar DLC was first made available, as the accompanying patch rendered my game temporarily unplayable. At first, I was obviously annoyed, but then I decided to reward Bioware for this only recently fixed bug by buying Mass Effect off XBLM. In the weeks that followed, I have discovered a new favorite franchise, having now completed the original game in full twice, only putting off my third play-through in order to pick up Mass Effect 2.

The first Mass Effect was pretty awesome. I don’t often whore myself out to achievements, especially when it comes to difficulty-based things. Yet, somehow the game demands it from me. It remains rewarding on multiple iterations through the story, while posing an increasing challenge with each unlockable difficulty. The story is communicated through strong characters, really strong emotional choices, and a general drive for the hero’s success, as I find is the case with many Bioware games. Yet, unlike games such as Dragon Age and Baldur’s Gate, Mass Effect allows you to step into the shoes of a pre-existing character, our noble Commander Shepard. You guide his actions and speech without defining them, which allows him to surprise you fairly often with his intelligence and wit. Without writing a full review, suffice it to say I’m quite fond of the game. It is definitely one of the best I’ve played. (More after the break)