I'm Commander Shepard and this is my favourite thread on Obsidian

[mr insomniac]

Overlord DLC is out today. Slowly downloading it now.

Is it good? I downloaded it, but haven't installed yet. I'm in AP mode, and not ready to get back into ME2 yet.

[GreasyDogMeat]

As always the voice acting and production values are top of the line. It mixes a creepy atmosphere, some hovertank action and geth shooting together. The highlight for me is the ending which got extremely crazy, cool and freaky.

 

Casey Hudson does a better job previewing it. Some slight spoilers.

 

Analysis: Defenseless herbivores are no match for guided missiles.

Edited June 16, 2010 by GreasyDogMeat

[mr insomniac]

Thanks for the info

 

Sounds good to me. I even had an unfinished game of ME2 on the go when AP arrived in the mail.

[HoonDing]

1) Is it free?

 

2) Is the gameplay merely hiding behind boxes and popping heads?

 

If yes on both, I might get it.

[mr insomniac]

560 bioware points.

[Oblarg]

I do love how the codex describes space combat in the Mass Effect universe as taking place at ranges of thousands of kilometers, yet in all of the cinematics the ships are right on top of each other.

 

I guess it wouldn't be much fun to simply see projectiles because the enemy ships are so far away that they're not visible (actually, come to think of it, that could be pretty awesome if pulled off correctly).

[Nepenthe]

Overlord DLC is out today. Slowly downloading it now.

 

It's pretty good. Not the best ME DLC (I wonder if Bring Down the Sky is ever going to lose that position), but I'm sure a lot of people will appreciate it over Kasumi (because most people didn't understand that they were buying an NPC - and a really good gun - instead of a mission pack. The amount of VO etc. Kasumi had gets routinely ignored, and I actually prefer it over this one to a degree) because of the Brind Down the Sky like structure.

 

The obvious downside is that the squadmates are without VO, which is made even more painfully obvious by Bioware overcompensating with mute cinematics. I'm not too fond of the Hammerhead, either, they took away everything that was good about the Mako, started over, and wound up with something that isn't really better. The "kill people and take their stuff" guy in me was also somewhat disappointed with the lack of "phat loot" or even a Firewalker style trophy.

 

On the plus side it was fun, there was somewhat more variation in gameplay (and a certain cannon encounter is probably the neatest in any ME game so far), production values including audio (and not just VO, also general audio design are top-notch). Graphically absolutely gorgeous in all aspects.

 

Semi-related: I'm not sure how I managed to do any killing done with my sentinel before I had the Locust. Even the sound it makes is really therapeutic

[Serrano]

You can't blame them too much I guess, DLC is still a new thing and obviously it's expensive and difficult to get all the voice actors in to do lines for each one. With any luck they'll take this into account with future games and have a lot of the dialog pre-written so it can be recorded while working on the main game.

[Nepenthe]

You can't blame them too much I guess, DLC is still a new thing and obviously it's expensive and difficult to get all the voice actors in to do lines for each one. With any luck they'll take this into account with future games and have a lot of the dialog pre-written so it can be recorded while working on the main game.

 

Yes, or synergise with multiple DLC/other projects (though I guess they can't use ToR due to different publishers) if they need to do it later.

 

I understand why it's absent, I still don't have to like it, though - since it sets these separately paid for missions into a clearly inferior position when compared to the ones that are in the game - that are also money-for-minute a considerably better return to your money.

 

It's pretty sweet, but it still leaves room for improvement.

[Nepenthe]

So, the new DLC (Lair of the Shadow Broker) has been out for ~6 hours on the X360, and here's a spoiler free review of it:

 

It rocks.

 

There's quite a bit of dialogue and... other writing in the pack, and IMHO it's all top notch. Especially the 'other writing' you can access after you've beaten the mission itself. The boss fights are quite cool, and the grunts seem to use tactics from Kasumi (have flashbangs), which adds a bit of variety to gameplay.

 

Not sure what else to say at this point. There's imho a pretty massive surprise at the end, and I don't mean storywise.

 

Squadmates are mostly unvoiced, but Miranda at least had one line in the DLC - which was enough for suspension of disbelief.

 

I can give this my unreserved recommendation.

 

p.s. played on Normal, as I always do on my primary char. Will run through it on hardcore later today, will update impressions then, if anyone's interested.

[Serrano]

I found this on the bioware forum for anyone who's interested. It was in the Dragon Age section but I assume same applies for the ME one;

Rough DLC release timing - please keep in mind these are estimates, there can always be local delays as well as time needed for content to propagate/mirrored to all servers:

 

 

 

360 worldwide: early tuesday AM, pacific time

 

(MS usually does their DLC updates tuesdays worldwide around 4AM PST)

 

 

 

PC/Mac worldwide: tuesday, by 10AM mountain time

 

(we aim for putting PC & Mac DLCs live worldwide by 10AM our time - mountain time - on the same day as the earliest other platform or retail launch)

 

 

 

PS3 North America - mid day tuesday, pacific time

 

(Sony America does their DLC updates for NA PSN stores on tuesdays between noon and mid-aft PST)

 

 

 

PS3 Europe (and PAL region - incl Oz) - mid afternoon wednesday, GMT

 

(Sony Europe does their DLC updates for all EU and other PAL region PSN stores on wednesdays, between noon and mid-aft GMT)

Edited September 7, 2010 by Serrano

[HoonDing]

There's quite a bit of dialogue and... other writing in the pack, and IMHO it's all top notch. Especially the 'other writing' you can access after you've beaten the mission itself.

Do you mean the stuff from the Redemption comic from Dark Horse?

[Nepenthe]

There's quite a bit of dialogue and... other writing in the pack, and IMHO it's all top notch. Especially the 'other writing' you can access after you've beaten the mission itself.

Do you mean the stuff from the Redemption comic from Dark Horse?

 

No.

 

Thanks for setting off my gag reflex.

Edited September 7, 2010 by Nepenthe

[Malcador]

So, the new DLC (Lair of the Shadow Broker) has been out for ~6 hours on the X360, and here's a spoiler free review of it:

 

It rocks.

 

There's quite a bit of dialogue and... other writing in the pack, and IMHO it's all top notch. Especially the 'other writing' you can access after you've beaten the mission itself. The boss fights are quite cool, and the grunts seem to use tactics from Kasumi (have flashbangs), which adds a bit of variety to gameplay.

 

Not sure what else to say at this point. There's imho a pretty massive surprise at the end, and I don't mean storywise.

 

Squadmates are mostly unvoiced, but Miranda at least had one line in the DLC - which was enough for suspension of disbelief.

 

I can give this my unreserved recommendation.

 

p.s. played on Normal, as I always do on my primary char. Will run through it on hardcore later today, will update impressions then, if anyone's interested.

 

 

You should write for IGN.

[Nepenthe]

You should write for IGN.

 

I'm THAT bad?

 

Hardcore didn't seem to add any new drops or anything and at this point is probably more fun for me than near-godmode normal.

Edited September 8, 2010 by Nepenthe

[Serrano]

Ditto on what Nepenthe said. There are a lot of new, really nice looking locations (with environments that factor into combat in some cases) and all the levels are well laid out. There's a new minigame that absolutely rocks and some cutscenes that are (at least) on par with the best cutscenes from the main game. I should also mention that it's a good length, I was playing on Insanity so I had to whittle down shields but it took me 3-4 hours to get through all of it. It's longer than Bringing Down the Sky several times over. I'd say it's definitely worth the money and the time.

[HoonDing]

So is the Shadow Broker

a computer

?

[Nepenthe]

So is the Shadow Broker

a computer

?

 

 

no

 

 

More in-depth review. This will spoil levels and design stuff, but just a bare minimum of the story content in part A) and the 'end stuff' in B).

 

 

A)

 

 

The DLC is in four main parts. First, you kick it off by going to have a chat with Liara at her office in Ilium - I don't think it's necessary to have completed her initial fedex quests. Am pretty sure my second char hadn't.

 

The first part is a very short crime scene investigation, which is followed by a more classic ME2 level, where you are fighting your way inside an office building. Mostly standard mercs with flashbangs, coupled with engineers and vanguards. On higher levels the engineers spam incinerate, which can be a bit nasty, but yeah. The level design is IMHO improved a bit from the basic game, where the waist-high barriers seem to actually make sense in the places where they are, as opposed to just being haphazardly slapped in convenient locations. A bit like Kasumi, I think.

 

The office building fight is followed with the relatively much-publicised car chase sequence. This looks pretty good, but is rather simple and very short. It's a fun break from the regular action, but nothing cool.

 

At this point Liara joins the squad for the first time. She has singularity, warp and stasis as activated powers, the standard +6/+6/-6 class power and access to heavy pistols and SMGs. There's a fairly epic rooftop battle, where flying trucks with shadow broker agents crash around you. These appear to be on a timer, so that if you take longer to dispatch one squad, you can find yourself in a pretty nasty crossfire. Cool. This is followed by the first boss fight of the game. Against a vanguard-type enemy that zips around the area with a type of biotic charge. A bit different from anything in the game so far, and rather fun, but nothing astonishingly cool.

 

From the rooftop battle we hit the Broker's base, a space ship in a perpetual electric storm. You first fight on the outside of the ship, and then on the inside. The outside parts are IMHO damn good-looking, and there's quite a bit of opportunities to use the special environment in the combat. This includes Miranda's slam just tossing people out from the ship The enemies are again the soldier/engineer/vanguard merc mix, with some mechs and drones tossed in. It seems to run long-enough, stopping just short of crossing into the 'too long' department. First section is finished with everybody's favourite, a timed defence mission. More fun than the one on Horizon, though.

 

There's a short trek inside the ship until you come head-to-head with the Broker, who actually isn't anybody important from the ME history in disguise, or anything else that was widely rumored beforehand. There's a final boss-fight, which is basically the 'take out the ballistic shield guy' battle, coupled with the Broker wrecking the environment if you tarry.

 

Overall, I took a bit over three hours to complete the DLC both times, and found the combat and character interaction to be rather satisfying.

 

 

B)

 

 

Ok, after completing the DLC, the Broker's ship becomes a secondary base to you, and you get Liara's stasis added to your bonus powers. There's also some research you open during the mission, heavy pistol damage for sure + two I can't remember...

 

There are some terminals on the base, including the option to reassign the points allocated to your squadmates for a small eezo cost. Another one contains the Broker's records on your squadmates and some other people of interest, and includes stuff like personal e-mails and the unedited mission report for Mordin's and Kirrahee's genophage spreading mission. Some of it is laugh-out-loud funny, some more than a little sad, and I found them all to be extremely well written.

 

The real kicker here, to me, is that it adds a real-time based element to the game. You have access to "Investment opportunities" and bribes sent to the broker. These update in real time, so that yesterday when I took advantage of the investment opportunities, I could see their results today and make new investments for tomorrow. New bribes had also arrived. I'm not sure how far they are going to take this, and what it's role will be in future DLC, but the whole thing is pretty jaw-droppingly cool to me. I completely did not see it coming.

 

 

If there's anything further you guys want to ask from me, I'll be happily to share my x360 and grad studentness induced joy of having gotten my paws on this release really early with you!

[Hell Kitty]

Squadmates are mostly unvoiced, but Miranda at least had one line in the DLC - which was enough for suspension of disbelief.

 

I played with Tali and Garrus. Tali had one word to say, and Garrus' presence was mentioned later on.

 

Given the significance of events in this DLC, I do wonder how it will carry over into ME3 for those who don't play it.

[Raithe]

Shephard : "Remember the days when you could just slap omni-gel on anything to get it to open?"

Liara : "Yeah, that security upgrade annoyed an awful lot of people...."

 

It's nice to get little shout-outs to make you smile..

[Serrano]

I laughed out loud when I heard them say that.

Edited September 8, 2010 by Serrano

[Morgoth]

For some bloody reason my Cerberus network doesn't connect anymore, which means I can't play my newly obtained DLC. What the heck? Anyone?

[Tale]

You may need to refresh your login information. At least that's what I did. It kept not connecting when I started the game up, so I hit connect, put in my info, and it worked find after that.

[Morgoth]

Okay, problem solved. It was a checkbox in the LAN internet connection tab. What the hell....

 

Eitherway, off playing Overlord and Shadowbroker now.

[Serrano]

Have fun.