Review: Mass Effect 2 Free DLC

BioWare promised us plenty of downloadable content to keep us coming back again and again to the universe of Mass Effect 2, and so far they’ve been pretty solid in fulfilling that promise. I just finished three of these expansions, Zaeed- The Price of Revenge, The Normandy Crash Site, and the Firewalker Pack, all of which are free. Unfortunately, aside from a shotgun and some armor, these are the only things you’ll find for free on Mass Effect’s “Cerberus Network,” the online service that supplies any available DLC.

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.

***

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

Review: HBO's "The Pacific"

I wrote this review of HBO's "The Pacific" for the Outlook. This is the full version that hasn't been butchered- er, cut- by the Media Editors

For the majority of America, the Pacific theater of World War Two is the greatest war story never told, a tale trapped in the glorious shadow of the European campaign. For this reason, and for the sake of honoring the First Marine Division for the hell they went through, HBO’s “The Pacific” is a story that needed to be told…and man, what a story it is. The 10-part miniseries, brought to life by the creators of the phenomenal “Band of Brothers”, is as visceral as it is gorgeous, a haunting yet surreally beautiful epic. The series drags you through Hades and spits you out, exploring the dark corners of war that “Brothers” didn’t dare to.

Unlike the somewhat unfocused style of “Brothers”, switching between characters as quickly as they die off, “The Pacific” hones its attention on the true stories of three Marines. Eugene Sledge, played by Joseph Mazzello, is the doe-faced youngster of the group. Gentle and soft-spoken with a southern-tinged accent, Sledge is eager to join the fight despite his parents’ fears. Robert Leckie, portrayed by James Badge Dale, is the charmer of group; carrying himself with a certain air of intelligence and wit, he’s the kind of person every guy likes to think they are. Lastly, there’s born-to-fight Marine and Medal of Honor recipient John Basilone, played by Jon Seda. All three parts, as well as the dozens of other supporting roles, are superbly acted. Though the dialogue, especially the banter between the characters, was borderline cliché at times, I couldn’t help but care deeply for each man’s fate. Every time their amphibious carriers rolled up to the beaches and dropped the ramp, I found myself holding my breath, praying that I’d see each man alive when the fire had ceased.

Right in the first episode, these men are thrown onto the beaches to fight for their lives with only 30 minutes of background story covering their existence back in the States. While getting into the action early on sounds like a good thing, some may find watching characters who they barely know storm a hail of gunfire unappealing (Why do I care if this guy got his face blown off? I don’t know him!). Though this approach may turn some off early on, patient viewers will be rewarded with watching the young Marines grow up before their very eyes as they hop from island to island, storming beach after blood-soaked beach. From the pristine sands of Australia to the blackened dunes of Iwo Jima, we watch them find love, fall from innocence, teeter on the brink of insanity, and through it all, depend on each other.

The series really takes to heart the statement “war is hell.” These war-ravaged Marines aren’t the stereotypical “Hooah!” group of muscle-bound grunts marching valiantly into battle: the men are muddy, emaciated, and broken. In one scene, the camera swaps between close-up views of each man’s face as they trudge from battle, an unsettlingly absent gaze stricken on their dirty faces. “We were more like dogs than Marines,” a veteran recalls.

“The Pacific” is the darkest World War 2 film out there, and when the soldiers find themselves in the thick of the jungle, things really start to get grim. The Japanese are perhaps the most terrifying and awe-inspiring enemies I’ve ever seen. Charging at the Marines wave after wave through the trees, letting off a nearly inhuman battle cry, it sometimes felt like I was watching “Dawn of the Dead” rather than a war movie. These aren’t the defeated, disheartened Nazis found towards the end of the European campaign. “These Japs’ll kill themselves before they let us on their land,” a Marine whispers to Sledge.

Especially towards the final episodes, the series is unflinchingly brutal in its depiction of the atrocities the war caused. You can almost feel a Marine’s pain as his limbs are ripped from his body in a mortar-strike, almost smell the burning flesh of Japanese soldiers stumbling from a bunker incinerated with flame-thrower. Even more horrible are the images of the Japanese citizens caught in the middle: a child lying face down in the mud, a woman begging Marines to take her baby before detonating a suicide bomb. This is by no stretch of the term an easy watch.

Through all of the hell endured, perhaps the most gripping and heart-wrenching scenes come in the final chapter as the men return home and try to move on with their lives. The sight of a still war-plagued Eugene Sledge having a nightmare stands out in my mind. His tormented soul tossing and turning in bed while his father, awakened by the whimpering cries, tenderly rests his hand on the other side of the door, helpless and wondering what the world had done to his son. Moments like that reach places that no amount of blood packets and prosthetic intestines could ever touch.

“The Pacific” grabs hold of you and refuses to let go. It isn’t until the closing sequence and the stills of the actors’ faces fade into the photographs of the men, the heroes, they portrayed that you exhale and realize- this hell existed.

***

5/5 Stars

Welcome to the mess that is my mind

They say that a cluttered room makes for a cluttered mind. If this is really the case, then, judging by the two-foot pile of papers covering my floor and the collection of a dozen or so half-empty Vitamin Water and Coca-Cola bottles littering my desk (not to mention the half-eaten pudding cup), it's pretty safe to assume what my mind is like.

It is for this reason that I wanted to start a blog. It's a way for me to take this upside-down trashcan that is my brain and dump it on screen, well, more like splat it on screen. I do this not to organize my thoughts, God no, but to craft them into something tangible for the entertainment of myself and others...but mostly myself. This blog is a way for me to throw up the precious thoughts and ideas I have- atleast the ones (somewhat) suitable for public viewing- before I forget them.

To be perfectly honest, I was on the fence about starting a blog for some time before taking the digital plunge. An aspiring journalist, everyone told me it was a great way for me to develop a following and get that big break. But after visiting several blogs myself, I was worried that I'd come off as snobby or over-opinionated. Doubts began to flash through my mind: What's the point? Is anyone going to read it? Does anyone even care? But now, as my finals are failed, summer begins, and I find myself sitting on a mountain of free time, I finally decided to go for it. I decided that, unless I want to end up as a monkey with a pad and pencil, I can't be bothered by these things as a journalist. Sure this site will likely get less hits than a batter staring down Stephen Strasburg, but it's for me more than it is for others. Sure I may come off as a complete asshole who thinks he knows everything, but when I think about it, all the best writers are assholes. I decided to stop thinking about doing it and just do it already.

That's the philosophy that will go behind what I post on this blog: don't think twice about it, just type it in and click 'publish.' I decided to go on a whim and start this little spiel, and that's how I intend to treat whatever I have an inkling to put up. Maybe a movie critique, or maybe a funny story I heard. Maybe a life-altering realization, or maybe a thought on how to spell a fart (pffffffssssstttt....oooo that's a wet one). Expect the strange and expect the plain. Expect the extraordinary and expect the ordinary. Expect the sensical and expect the nonsensical. Expect the unexpected and expect the expected. Expect piles of papers and soda bottles. Above all, expect the random.

They may say that a cluttered room makes for a cluttered mind, but I say that a cluttered mind makes for a cluttered room. My room, like these words are products of the messy, messy mind they were spawned in. So grab your plastic bags, pooper-scoopers, and all the lemon pledge you can grip and enter if you dare...the mess that is my mind.

Oh, and I think I'm starting to get ants in here.