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--

Podcast: Stop-being-a-Halo-fanboy-cast #02

We’re back again for another round in this, our second 360Stage Podcast! In this episode Editors Josh Pollard and Tom Rhodes drop by to discuss Bioshock 2, GTAIV multiplayer, the EA takeover and much, much more. So stick around and listen up, because we’ve got a hell of a lot to say!

Review: LOST: Via Domus

Gameplay: 6
Sound: 7
Graphics: 7
Value: 4
Overall: 5.7

The Good:

· The environments and locations are brought to live by nice looking graphics.
· Lots of hidden references to the show for fans.
· Very true to the LOST television show

The Bad:

· Can become very repetitive
· Little re-playability and the game only lasts 4-6hrs
· Poor voice acting
· No online

When I first heard about the production of LOST via domus I almost cried. When I found out how the game would play I literally cried some more. Last week I found myself listening to the official LOST podcast and they told us that the LOST game doesn’t even count as cannon (it’s that bad), so is this game even worth searching the shelves of Game to buy?

To begin with you wake in the jungle, a scene that pretty much rips the opening scene of the original pilot. Then you eventually make it to the beach the only thing you can do to help the other losties is to do a fuse puzzle which with the progression game becomes the most repetitive, frustrating and boring puzzle ever created.

So you’ve spent the majority of the game doing ‘fun’ fuse puzzles, then you get to spend 2 levels walking through a cave. It feels like Ubisoft have added pointless objectives to extend the gameplay, which I may add lasts a lousy 4-6hrs.

The game plays more like an interactive TV show. You get the previously on lost and a small snippet of the end credits at the end of each level. The story, however, is pretty poor up until the final cut scene. We can now move onto the voice acting and whoever decided an American should voice Charlie deserves to have the game up his arse. The voice acting is terrible and lets be honest only fans of the show and gamer point enthusiasts (nods at tomr711), are likely to play. So fans will be put off by the poor voice acting as it’s hard to listen to the characters without shouting abuse at the screen.

Let’s be fair. On the plus side the island environments are beautiful looking. They are rendered pretty well. It is one of the more enjoyable experiences of playing. For fans the extra challenges should be fun. They have you finding hidden easter eggs from the show such as Locke’s wheelchair and Kate’s plane and photographing them. Not too exciting but it is nice to see reference to events from the show. The biggest reveals of the show are the large exploration of the Hydra and the other is what’s behind the magnetic wall in the hatch. These are obviously little lures so fans will fork out to play the game.

The narrative is based around a character never featured in the TV series. With him you’ll be doing a lot of shooting. By that I mean with a camera during the playable flashbacks. This adapts further puzzle elements and the flashbacks run as a linear narrative alongside the on-island events. The flashback story will hit interest with die hard fans as there is a lot of hidden information such as reports on Hanso. However, the flashbacks feel repetitive as they have you doing the same thing over and over.

Fans will be happy to know classic locations are featured, we have the hatch, the black rock, the front plane wreckage (where smokie kills the pilot in the show), to name a few. For fan’s a chance to explore the various locations should be fun in itself. For example pushing the buttons in the hatch is pretty awesome after watching the show for 4 seasons.

No online?!?! This was a major disappointment for me. An online mode could have really gone to town, (better make that island). I have often discussed with other owners of the game how an online mode where you could play as one of the castaways would be so much more fun than the set-up of this game. A standalone online game would be great too. I hope Ubisoft are taking notes here for future reference.

The LOST game soundtrack is the same score from the show. It helps to build the atmosphere and keep the game more in line with the show. With the limited rights Ubisoft got they kept very true to the show. You see Michael getting wood for his raft, you see and hear the hatch explosion and there’s even the odd polar bear!

The game is not worth its £40 price tag. It’s worth half that at the most. In place’s the game is really fun to play but it ends all too soon and it is let down by repetitive areas of the game and poor voice acting. Still, it is fun to watch the timer in the hatch count down without pressing the numbers!

--Sean Linley, 360Stage Editor--