|
Post by Clint Johnston on Sept 8, 2010 16:12:54 GMT 1
Thought I'd start a new thread for this.
I got it and played it through once last night. I was again disappointed in the lack of squadmate chatter, but Liara's conversation on the ship more than made up for it. "Liara, don't give the mercs ideas"
The final battle was less than challenging, but then I brought my Blackstorm, and used incendiary bullets at the guy's feet while he was reacting.
The shadow broker's HQ is awesome. I'm sort of hoping that that one of the things you funded makes you able to hear what's going on in the video library. The "dossiers" on your people were hilarious! Miranda experimenting with online dating and Legion with MMORPG's is almost worth the DLC all by itself. And oh boy, I can finally redistribute the points on my squadmates. I screwed that up the first few times, and it always bugged me.
Last but not least, I liked the part where she comes on your ship and offers commentary on your romance. Now I'm feeling really guilty for letting my shepards cheat on her.
|
|
|
Post by Clint Johnston on Sept 8, 2010 18:45:12 GMT 1
Just went through my second playthrough. This one is with Jack now, and she said "you deserve to be happy" Since this one is all renegade, I said Ok, and you can't come on my ship. Damn it. Did the same thing with my femshep. Fortunately the replay I'm doing for Mock Effect hasn't got that far yet. Maybe we'll still get some Blue tentacled action.
|
|
|
Post by Mister Buch on Sept 9, 2010 0:33:09 GMT 1
I just finished playing. Needless to say, there follows a long review and spoilers!
I liked it! After being so disappointed by 'Overlord' I wasn't expecting much here, but I really enjoyed this. It's everything a DLC pack should be (and also everything it shouldn't be, but more on that later.) The locations, set-pieces and characters are all interesting, fun and different - I loved the ruined hotel and the ship exterior. Battling another Spectre felt amazing, as did punching the Shadow Broker in the face.
I also really liked the Coruscant-Nights-car-chase-city-gimmick thing. It was very simplistic and insanely easy, but fun. And the buddy-buddy cop dialogue was genuinely hilarious throughout the whole thing. (Go, go, go, go! / I'm GOING.)
In particular I thought it was great to see Shepard and Liara bickering and fighting like that. Liara was my favourite romance option, and I used a Shepard who was with her but started seeing Thane. I stand by that, incidentally, after the way she changed and barely had a word for me till today... I'm not entirely happy with the way the romance played out - I followed it all through, dumping poor Thane, but didn't get much i return. (Maybe my thing with Thane spoiled it a bit but in the end all I got was a kiss and the word 'okay' three times). But thank God Liara finally has a point and a decent line or two in this game.
I thought parts of the romance dialogue were genuinely very moving. This whole thing seems to have had some serious effort put into it. I wish to Heaven they would do something like this for Ashley and Kaidan.
--
My big criticism remains - the death and revelation of the Shadow Broker and the continuation of one of the main romance quests... should not be released as extra content months after the game. You should not have to pay more to continue one of the main plotlines. I'm still very pissed off that I paid extra for something so crucial. This entire mission should have either been in ME2 or ME3.
I also should say that it feels like the Shadow Broker should have got more than this. After his huge build-up in Mass Effect 1, this seems like a relatively weak explanation and death. I repeatedly got the impression that this whole thing had not been planned from the beginning - parts of it seem to contradict the introduction he had in the first game.
Also Liara looks different and there were one or two bugs. And by the end I got really bored of the endless firefights. And what's with all the flashbangs. Seriously. --
But yeah, I really enjoyed it! It's different, moving, fun and genuinely complements the game's storyline. Unlike most of the Bioware DLC I've bought, I'll keep this!
EDIT:
Whoooah, okay! I took her for drinks afterwards, and got more than 'okay'. Really superb. I badly wish I'd never flirted with Thane.
'What happens to us afterwards?' 'I dunno. Marriage? Old age, and a lot of blue children?'
Absolutely brilliant. A really, really good romance quest in ME2. I feel like now the story is actually complete, you know? WHY WAS THIS NOT IN THE GAME YOU BASTARDS.
|
|
|
Post by Clint Johnston on Sept 9, 2010 4:34:57 GMT 1
LOL, they made a comment on the "nothing to say" after you beat boss 1. You have to hit all the paragon interrupts, and Shep tells her off, telling her she had better talk or did she want shep to go hack some more consoles.
|
|
|
Post by Mister Buch on Sept 9, 2010 10:07:00 GMT 1
Yeah! I've been genuinely angry at Liara Tsoni for most of 2010, so I loved that line! I thoroughly enjoyed the arguments, I guess because I was so invested.
Also I realy liked the 'omni gel' joke.
|
|
|
Post by Knightfall on Sept 9, 2010 10:25:41 GMT 1
I think this is probably the sole "stellar" review for BioWare DLC that I've seen you hand out. My world has been rocked and I am presently considering reinstalling everything so's I can play this.
I really don't want to buy Microsoft Points though. We hates them.
|
|
|
Post by Mister Buch on Sept 9, 2010 13:14:50 GMT 1
I think this is probably the sole "stellar" review for BioWare DLC that I've seen you hand out. Not stellar, Knight! The Big Criticism counts for a lot. I just liked it a lot, and was really surprised by that! And I think it's only great if you happen to have romanced Liara in ME1. If not - this is just okay.
|
|
|
Post by Knightfall on Sept 9, 2010 20:07:21 GMT 1
Not only did I romance her in the first game, I'm fairly certain I romanced her picture in the second game. This DLC is relevant to my interests. =D
|
|
|
Post by Clint Johnston on Sept 9, 2010 21:50:09 GMT 1
Wasn't that a bit lonely? I mean, MIRANDA is right downstairs...
|
|
|
Post by Mr. Glow on Sept 9, 2010 23:19:18 GMT 1
I feel like such a black sheep in the Mass Effect fandom sometimes. Both of my 'canon' Shepards are staying single to the end of the trilogy. I only really try out the romance options to see what they're like and of course, to get the obligatory achievement.
On the subject of the DLC, whatever I think about the actual quest, I will admit the dossiers are kind of cool. I don't like everything in them though, I always imagined Garrus was an only child and his mother was dead, and the implication he's sometimes listening to dance music on his scanner made me lose a bit of respect for the guy. Miranda's little online 'dating' storyline was a little creepy as well.
The big one had to be finding out that while Shepard's out on missions, Jacob is off in the armory 'working out' to 'Asari Confessions 26'. Not since the infamous baby oil scene in Mitchell have I been so squicked out. He's so getting killed off in my imported playthrough.
|
|
|
Post by Battlechantress on Sept 9, 2010 23:27:08 GMT 1
ROFL. I swear they put that in there just because Jacob's romance was so poorly received. Seriously though, given how often most of us even bothered to take the guy along with us on 99% of the missions, what *did* we think he was gonna do? (Not that I really wanted to know this, mind you.)
I've only ever bothered with Kaidan and Garrus as romance options. I thought about giving Thane and Liara a chance, but... eh, how many playthroughs do I really need to do? And BW better make it worth my NOT kicking Kaidan to the curb in ME3 after Horizon. (Or at least punching him in the face.)
|
|
|
Post by Mr. Glow on Sept 10, 2010 0:07:32 GMT 1
I liked Jacob's romance sidequest, especially the way he calls it off if Shepard says she wants anything more than casual sex. That's Jacob for you, classy AND romantic.
|
|
|
Post by Battlechantress on Sept 10, 2010 1:03:37 GMT 1
And yet, he says he "loves" her. Uh huh. I'd believe it more coming from Garrus, and he's not even from the same species!
|
|
|
Post by Mister Buch on Sept 10, 2010 10:39:35 GMT 1
Garrus is adorable.
|
|
taj1702
Serviceman 3rd Class
Posts: 26
|
Post by taj1702 on Sept 10, 2010 11:48:34 GMT 1
Downloaded and played the DLC the other day and I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed it. Given Bioware's track record with DLC in both Mass Effect and Dragon Age, I don't mind saying that this came as a pleasant surprise. As much as I had let my hopes get up contrary to nearly all past experience after reading about the plot, I was prepared for a let down and it didn't come.
LOTSB is an extremely solid piece of DLC. Solid enough in fact that I would tend to agree with those who say that the content felt like it should be part of the vanilla game, rather than a downloaded expansion. Still, that little quip aside, there was very little that I didn't enjoy about it. It does help that my ME1 romance was Liara, but I think I would have enjoyed it either way.
I think one of the things that stood out, while trying to rekindle the romance was a line shortly after you chase Vasir out of the Trade Center, well I guess fall out of the trade center would be more accurate. I remember my Shepard becoming rather indignant that Liara would run after the Asari Spectre rather than check to see if I'm okay. Actually, I really enjoyed that entire string of Paragon interrupts. (The lover's spat) It made the relationship feel a bit more real to me. When I talked about us, she also commented that I seemed more interested in seeing Jacob without his shirt on. It was like my third playthrough and that was the romance I was working on at the time.
Also, while I'm on the continuing the relationship thread I really liked the part, after the missions, on board the Normandy where she asked how I was, and I was able to tell her how my Shep really felt about what was going on. Aside from Kelly there's really been nobody else on board that you could have that level of honesty with.
Okay, back to the missions themselves. The environments were very well done and I particularly enjoyed a couple of lines of squad dialogue in the Hotel Azure that talked about what Azure means. It actually made me laugh out loud. Of course there's the omni gel joke, and during the air-car chase, which I thought was very well done, I enjoyed Liara's comment that it was "still better than the mako."
From a visual standpoint, I don't think anything else in the DLC compares to making your way across the hull of the Shadow Broker's ship. That whole scene was beautiful and more than once enemy fire caught me unaware and snapped me back into reality while I was admiring the storm happening around me. The boss fights were... I'll say fine. They were both against enemies who force you to do more than just point and fire which I thought was a nice touch. Typically in a ME2 boss fight, all they've really done is pump up that enemy with barriers and shields and made it just a matter of keeping behind cover and plugging away with your guns and biotics until they die. It was nice to see a slightly different formula at play.
The dossiers and other little extras that come with the Shadow Broker's base of operations were nice and amusing. A little disappointed in the video feeds lacking real sound, but given what it probably would have cost to bring back in the voice actors to do what would amount to seconds of on screen work, this can be forgiven in my eyes.
Overall rating: 9 out of 10
|
|