Review: Mass Effect: Bring Down the Sky

Gameplay: 8
Sound: 8
Graphics: 8
Value: 7
Overall: 8.2

The Good:
· Does nothing to detract from the Mass Effect experience
· Introduces a cool new race to the game
· Good price for the amount of content you receive

The Bad:
· Same old bunkers to explore
· Frame rate drops and texture pop-ins are still common

Essentially, when you’re deciding whether or not to buy an expansion pack for a game you’re going to consider a number of factors. The first is the most obvious: did you like the game that this is an expansion of enough to buy a little bit extra of it? For us guys who bought Bioware’s ‘Mass Effect’ back in November, I’m guessing that you weren’t let down too much. After completing the game the first time round back at its launch I decided that I’d play it again at some point in the future, and so the prospect of the first (of many) expansions, ‘Bring Down the Sky’, excited me.

The second question you’re going to have to ask is whether you think that the amount of play time you’re getting in the expansion is worth the money that they make you lay out for it. In the case of ‘Bring Down the Sky’, you’re going to be getting a whole 90 minutes of extra awesomeness with its own encased narrative that’s separate from the main quest, and all at the cost of 400 Microsoft Points (approx £3.40). Now I’m not sure about you, but can you remember when ‘Oblivion’ came out and there was that ridiculously priced Horse Armour DLC which cost 400 Microsoft Points? Well, you’re paying the same amount here and think about how much more content you’re getting. Conclusively, It’s a lot for a little. If that isn’t enough to tempt you, then Points Whores rejoice, because 50 Gamer Points will be yours just for finishing the story. There, I’m all out of selling juices.

Let’s go into a little more detail here. If you’ve read the ‘Mass Effect’ prequel novel, you’ll know about the bad-ass alien race: the Batarians. For those of you who aren’t ultra nerds, they’re these browny-green humanoid aliens with four eyes. If any of you were wondering why they weren’t in Mass Effect then here’s your answer. It’s apparent that they were saving them for this expansion (and expansions to come...).

If you’re worried that because of the expansion’s short length it’s not going to have a fully fledged narrative, you’d be entirely incorrect. This is Bioware, the masters of story telling that we’re dealing with here! As a brief overview of events, the Batarians are pissed so they hijack a mobile asteroid station with the intensions of colliding it into the human colony world of Terra Nova, which would result in the killing of four million people. It’s all pretty intense for a game that lasts for an hour and a half, but whatever, fast is good. Right?

The final question that you’ve got to ask yourself is whether or not you want to be playing on another wasteland asteroid and running through the same bunkers and buildings as you were in ‘Mass Effect’ all over again? If the answer’s no, then there’s no point in you picking this up because that’s all it is. Furthermore, you’re going to have to be doing a fair bit of roaming about so that retarded tank-thing is back. (At least it jumps.) At the end of expansion, you’ll have to face a boss and a disable-all-the-bombs-before-the-timer-runs-down-and-we-all-die type situation, which is pretty easy, and then in true Bioware fashion, you’ll have a pretty huge decision to make which affects the game in ways that I won’t spoil.

All in all, what you’re getting from ‘Bring Down the Sky’ is a miniature version of the original Mass Effect in all its glory. If you were a fan of that, achievement points or if you’re just in need of a quick RPG fix and happen to have the original game disk lying around, download ‘Bring Down the Sky’ now, and at such a cheap-ass price there’s no excuse.

--Tom Rhodes, 360Stage Editor--