Of the trio, the best slice of content by far is Zaeed-The Price of Revenge. It’s up to Commander Shepherd to track down and recruit Zaeed Massani, the galaxy’s most feared and ruthless mercenary, for the suicide mission. But as anyone who’s played Mass Effect 2 knows, getting someone to join your squad isn’t as easy as a welcome card and a handshake- you’re going to have to waste a lot of intergalactic thugs before earning the loyalty of anyone. You first bump into Zaeed on a dark alley in Omega, beating the shit out of some Batarian. He’s up for the job, if of course you’re willing to help him liberate some slave colony from the Blue Suns first. As the mission progresses Zaeed’s dark past is revealed, as well as his true motive for wanting to get back at the Blue Suns. There’s a new heavy weapon to be collected and added to your arsenal, too.
Zaeed quickly becomes my favorite character in the game. He speaks in a raspy British accent, like a James Bond who’s been through hell and back. The long, thick scars that gnash the side of his face he got from taking a bullet to head. How does one take a wound like that and live to tell about it? “A person who’s stubborn enough can survive just about anything,” he explains to Sheperd, “Rage is a hell of an anesthetic.” Yeah, he’s a total badass.
Mass Effect 2 is all about making difficult moral decisions, and the choice to make in this mission is one of the toughest. BioWare takes a cheap shot, forcing you to choose between the loyalty of Zaeed (and an achievement), and doing the right thing. Being a Gamerscore whore, I had no choice but to take the bad guy route, but the blood-curdling screams of the innocents I betrayed in the process made those 15 achievement points especially hard to swallow.
I think somebody needs a hug
The Normandy Crash Site add-on was a lot less action-packed than the Zaeed mission- I didn’t even lift my assault rifle. There’s no combat involved, rather, Shepherd takes a solemn visit to the final resting place of his crew and ship from the first game. The mission only lasts about 10 minutes, but if you were like me and poured hours into the original Mass Effect, the Normandy crash site can bring back some fond memories. I found the wreckage of the Mako, the tank-like vehicle used to explore the surface of planets in ME 1, to be especially moving. Oh Mako, how I miss you’re cannon, you’re little jump thrusters…the way you made it possible to free roam any surface I chose.
Almost like a gift from some kind of Mass Effect God, the Firewalker Pack soothed my aching heart with a brand new vehicle- the hover tank. The hover-tank is fun enough to speed around the surfaces of foreign worlds, and the familiar rocket boosters let you jump from cliff to precarious cliff. As I hovered around, collecting various artifacts and thrashing Geth around like ragdolls with my cannon, it felt like my old friend the Mako had returned to me in spirit. It was a nice blast from the past, but with almost no story or diversity between the five missions, this add-on felt so…added on. Also, it makes no sense to me as to why BioWare didn’t include this vehicle in the main game.
Your brand new hover tank...insurance is gonna be a fortune
That’s the main problem I have with all three of these expansions - they should have been included in the main game. It seems to me like BioWare initially had them as missions in the main game, but decided to pull them at the last minute so they could offer them as free DLC, thus becoming heroes in an extremely pricey Xbox Marketplace. Hey, sitting on two plus hours of free game content, I guess I can’t complain too much. My only fear is that, from here on out, getting the quality DLC is going to cost us.
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Verdict
Zaeed- The Price of Revenge: 3.5/5 Facial Scars
The Normandy Crash Site: 2/5 Hunks of Space Wreckage
The Firewalker Pack: 3/5 Planetary Minerals
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