7th May 2010 - With the 'Equalizer Pack' DLC just being released for the smash hit Mass Effect 2, All Age Gaming have produced a rather detailed list of the content of the DLC prior to the 'Equalizer Pack' for Mass Effect 2, each with our own personal score and what we would like to see different in the future. Kasumi Goto is the newest member of the Normandy crew and it wouldn't be complete without a re-cap of her latest star-trekking exploit. To read more about Mass Effect 2, read our definitive review of the game HERE.
Cerberus Network
Cost: Approx $15
Value: Free stuff is always welcome, until you have to pay for it.
Score: 9/10
The only thing better than this is Ubisoft's claim of ‘one free thing every Thursday’ on their Uplay service….for as long as it lasts. Mass Effect has outlasted its single player campaign though so it would be good to see more ‘hints’ as to what ME3 might hold. The Fire Walker driving bits are still crap. Cost a lot of money if you didn’t get a new copy of ME2 but well worth it when you look at the loot below:
Zaeed Massani “The Price of Revenge”
Cost: (free)
Value: Comes with the game anyway at least with pre-order, so really a missing member of the crew.
Score: 7/10
Personally, Zaeed can go away in Mass Effect 3, especially if he wasn’t already killed. With Garus as sniper and all the history and back story, Zaeed was late to the party. Maybe he can be a mole in Cerberus and Shepard can kill him!
Blood Dragon Armor
Cost: (free) with Dragon Age Origins
Value: Not the first cross over. A welcome idea until you relies it's useless.
Score: 5/10
A nice touch to round out Dragon Age, it would be good to see more cross-over’s in Mass Effect 3, but with more useful items. The Blood Dragon armor was redundant at best, and not very good at showing the face of your character. Free stuff is good, but it needs to be useful too.
Normandy Crash Pack
Cost: (free)
Value: A throw-back to ME1; writing my name in the snow with yellow would have been more interesting.
Score: 4/10
Running around in the snow, looking at things, never felt so real! Seriously, how was this was even considered? It had a bunch of flashbacks from ME1 and a collect a thon of parts but there was literally nothing to do. Luckily it was free, but I would have preferred to see the original Normandy is a museum or something. Again keep the back-story Bioware, but consider better ways to integrate your random ideas.
Fire Walker Pack
Cost: (free)
Value: Still feels like it should have come at retail. Five all too similar missions with floaty spamming.
Score: 7/10
And so we come to what was essentially the end of the ‘free’ stuff. I think in Mass Effect 3 vehicles should be better integrated into levels and direct control over shuttles should be norm. Hell lets add in some space fire-fights, ship to ship. The ‘Fire-Walker’ was a wasted bunch of 5 missions called “collect the spawn point”. The hover tank was floaty at best, horrible to control still and a spam fest of strafing fun. If anything Halo has shown how to integrate cheap driving mechanics into a level quite well. Let’s get some dog fights planet-side
Alternate Appearance Pack #1
Cost: (160 MS Points)
Score: 5/10
It is assumed that there are more costumes to come, but for only 3 of the characters u can pick up some slick pants and sexy eye-wear. That’s right; Bioware is almost as bad as Resident Evil. Like fighting zombies in your favorite leopard skin bikini, space never looked so good. That said none of the clothes are for your player and it makes no sense that while you have to wear full face gear helmets, they are stuck wearing Rayband and a leather jacket.
Masse Effect 3: Bring back non gravity or environmental areas. In fact low gravity areas would be extremely epic, ala Dead Space.
Cerberus Arc Projector & Cerberus Weapon and Armor
Cost: (free - limited time due to MS error)
Value: “Errors” are great for allowing free things before they are due. Got in quick and snagged the lot.
Score: 5/10
Due to a glitch for a couple of hours at least a bunch of stuff appeared on the MS website for free if you were quick enough. The new weapons at least added to the heavy weapons, but once again no other characters were able to carry heavy except Shepard.
Mass Effect 3 should really have better defined class statuses, i.e.: Sniper heavy, biotic. There is no sensible reason that Grunt or Garus could not carry heavy weapons also so that I could focus on being a sniper or biotic.
Kasumi Goto “Stolen Memory”
Cost: 400 MS Points
Value: no more free stuff = sad face. Sexy thief with 'massive' plot holes= win.
Score: 8/10
Not the worst party character, apparently Bioware thought it was worth forking money over for. Kasumi is actually well rounded with an excellent take-down ability of cloaking and dashing behind players. The story was a bit weak, what with a guard guarding the private bedroom of the boss character and another 4 outside (the EMPTY private bedroom) but not a single guard anywhere near the super, top secret art room vault.
This is in theory the best and most useful of the DLC on offer and yet, once it is over you will be left wondering; just what to do with your new party member and weather you will ever see her again in Mass Effect 3. Next to new weapons she is also the most useful, if not a re-skin of the Quarrian companion.
Pre-order bonuses (weapons, Armor and head-gear)
Cost: (free)
Value: Depends which and what you got, as all of it was never going to be an option.
Score: 6/10
Kasumi ranks out as the highest and best of the DLC on offer. The most useful, it is now up to the developers to start making more content to actually use them in. Mass Effect 3 is still a long way off, and Bioware have stated they don’t wish to depart to far from the norm established in Mass Effect 2. However simplifying and streamlining content meant redundant issues, like party member not needing space suits and shop keepers replaced with their own kiosks. I mean, what’s the point of having a shop keeper to talk to when they just defer you to their computer.
Kasumi Gatos ‘stolen memories’ was a point in the right direction with an almost Hitman-esque theme of talking and clues. At times it felt almost like an old-fashioned point and click adventure. More costumes for Shepard with better integration of their ideas, planet-side vehicular fights and some different use of space such as low gravity. The very end of Mass Effect 2 is exactly how Mass Effect 3 should start, with different team members assigned to different tasks based on their skill and chance of survival. If each and every mission is tackled this way then Mass Effect 3 is going to take the galaxy, by storm.
Article by Ian Crane