"A Unique Terrorist Plot"
"Mass Effect" has a lot of interesting lore buried within its many text entries and one-off conversations, and one of the ones that always stuck out to me was the discussion of what a "war crime" was considered in this futuristic universe. The use of "asteroid drops" by various races during wartime is one of these infamous tactics, and it always intrigued me as to what this would really look like. Thankfully, BioWare also felt a need to explore this, thus the DLC "Bring Down the Sky" was created.
This DLC explores a situation where an asteroid is hurtling towards the human colony on an earth-like planet, all being directed by a Batarian terrorist squad who took control of its thruster system. This asteroid was a prospect for use as a space station, and the engineers working on it have been taken hostage. It's up to Commander Shepard and company to stop the asteroid's impact, save the hostages, and prevent the Batarians from getting away with their crimes.
Gameplay is pretty much identical to other planet missions, with exploration with the Mako and a few combat sections in buildings being the mainstay. The Mako is still hot garbage so unfortunately the above ground exploration is poor. However, indoor combat was not too shabby and had a decent mix of close-range and long-range firefights. There is a side quest where you find some murdered scientists, but it wasn't too interesting and seemed like it was just thrown in haphazardly.
The plot is decent, but it doesn't really go anywhere. The new characters aren't really "characters", so you don't really feel attached to them whether they live or die. Same can be said for the enemies. There isn't really a lot of time for this exploration anyhow, since the DLC barely lasted an hour. The best aspect of this plot was actually the fact that the setting was interesting, and the visuals of the asteroid hurtling towards a populated planet was both striking and inflicted some tension to the situation.
There's some decent loot to get as a reward for completion, but besides that not much else. It was an alright experience and was thankfully short enough without overstaying its welcome. It kind of toes the line of playability at times, but if I was replaying this game, I would likely run through this DLC again despite its simplicity.
Final Verdict: 6/10 (Above Average)
"Mass Effect" has a lot of interesting lore buried within its many text entries and one-off conversations, and one of the ones that always stuck out to me was the discussion of what a "war crime" was considered in this futuristic universe. The use of "asteroid drops" by various races during wartime is one of these infamous tactics, and it always intrigued me as to what this would really look like. Thankfully, BioWare also felt a need to explore this, thus the DLC "Bring Down the Sky" was created.
This DLC explores a situation where an asteroid is hurtling towards the human colony on an earth-like planet, all being directed by a Batarian terrorist squad who took control of its thruster system. This asteroid was a prospect for use as a space station, and the engineers working on it have been taken hostage. It's up to Commander Shepard and company to stop the asteroid's impact, save the hostages, and prevent the Batarians from getting away with their crimes.
Gameplay is pretty much identical to other planet missions, with exploration with the Mako and a few combat sections in buildings being the mainstay. The Mako is still hot garbage so unfortunately the above ground exploration is poor. However, indoor combat was not too shabby and had a decent mix of close-range and long-range firefights. There is a side quest where you find some murdered scientists, but it wasn't too interesting and seemed like it was just thrown in haphazardly.
The plot is decent, but it doesn't really go anywhere. The new characters aren't really "characters", so you don't really feel attached to them whether they live or die. Same can be said for the enemies. There isn't really a lot of time for this exploration anyhow, since the DLC barely lasted an hour. The best aspect of this plot was actually the fact that the setting was interesting, and the visuals of the asteroid hurtling towards a populated planet was both striking and inflicted some tension to the situation.
There's some decent loot to get as a reward for completion, but besides that not much else. It was an alright experience and was thankfully short enough without overstaying its welcome. It kind of toes the line of playability at times, but if I was replaying this game, I would likely run through this DLC again despite its simplicity.
Final Verdict: 6/10 (Above Average)