Huge fan of this game, it was my GOTY 2010, played through it abou 3 times and I've played all the DLC and I'm desperate for more, even read the books and comics
So bearing all that in mind, should I buy this DLC? I loved all the other ones
UPDATED
Game » consists of 21 releases. Released Jan 26, 2010
@Venatiosaid:
Huge fan of this game, it was my GOTY 2010, played through it abou 3 times and I've played all the DLC and I'm desperate for more, even read the books and comics
So bearing all that in mind, should I buy this DLC? I loved all the other ones
Definitely someone like you that's even read the books will get more out of it then others. I bought recently, and even though it was way too combat focused for my liking, i'm still glad I played it.
I'm a huge fan too, read the books, comics and all that. played thru the game multiple times on PC and Xbox. speed run attempts with my vanguard build on insane.
Arrival is alright. It's a pretty decent multi-stage mission with some story tie-ins to help explain a few things. You don't get your AI team. They try a really primitive sneak/alternate path thing at the beginning which might get expanded to something more substantial in ME3?
Is it worth the cash under normal circumstances? No. Certainly not. But to a fan like you and I, yup. Definitely worth it. It's just short.
You should probably wait for a sale. It will tie to beginning of Mass Effect 3 but you can't really make any choices in it and it's more combat focused which never been ME2 strong part. So you should play it just for the story but it's probably not worth the full price.
If you want more Mass Effect 2, go right ahead and get Arrival. It sort of sets up the events leading up to Mass Effect 3 which is pretty cool.
Do you still enjoy the combat? If so then yeah, because that's close to all there is. The story is lacking, Shepard's on his own this time around with no party members, you have very little bearing on how the story will pan out, it's only around an hour long and there's quite literally nothing new introduced - minus Admiral Hacket's aged-Zaeed-face. I too really enjoyed ME2 btw; completed it 5 times, though I haven't read any of the novels/comics, and I thought it was a waste of money. But that was because, alongside everything else, I was completely exhausted with the combat by that point, so hence I'd say why it all strongly depends on whether or not you still enjoy fighting against the same enemies with the weapons and powers in more of the same environments.
If you're mostly in it for the story, I'd recommend you just watch it all on youtube since again it's not like there's anything noteworthy you can import from Arrival into ME3; the story stuff that occurs in ME3 related to Arrival will happen whether you've played through it or not.
I thought it was good. Don't remember it having any good paragon/renegade choices so it doesn't encourage 2 playthroughs, and the early stealth part might be annoying if you want the achievement but don't have an infiltrator with cloak, which I had so it was nothing. But it was on par with the quality of mass effect 2 I'd say.
@pyromagnestir said:
I thought it was good. Don't remember it having any good paragon/renegade choices so it doesn't encourage 2 playthroughs, and the early stealth part might be annoying if you want the achievement but don't have an infiltrator with cloak, which I had so it was nothing. But it was on par with the quality of mass effect 2 I'd say.
There wasn't any need for "stealth" because the AI is really stupid.
As much as I love Mass Effect, Arrival was really disappointing.
Not really. It's 2 hours of solo combat mixed in with an unnecessary appearance by Admiral Hackett (who suddenly has a face for no damn reason) and a decision that sets up Shepard's arrival on Earth at the beginning of Mass Effect 3. I'd say you get it anyway, but look for a sale or something.
If you want to know why you're on trial on Mass Effect 3 and have a choice for your counterargument then yes.
Only if you really like NE2, or money is no object for you. It's a decent bit of story in the Mass Effect universe, but it's not as good as the rest of ME2. If I read a short story about Arrival, I'd be about as excited.
The motivations of the characters made no sense to me, but apparently like shadow broker it's supposed to connect to the third game. If you want all your save games to connect to the third, then yes you should pick it up. If your looking for high quality DLC then you should probably pass. It's short and combat heavy.
I was just going to write "only if you are a huge fan" I too have read all the books, comics, etc and loved the other DLC. This DLC isn't *bad* as much as it is just really short and really doesn't give you anything new. The plot rundown works like this: "Don't forget the reapers are coming!" as if we could forget. I'd say do it just for completionists sake, but don't expect anything nearly as good as LOTSB or overlord
It's nowhere near the quality of LotSB or Overlord (although I found Overlord rather tedious, especially on multiple playthroughs). I don't regret my purchase though; buy it if you really love yourself some ME and/or are at all concerned about missing out on content that might tie-in to ME3.
The worst Mass Effect 2 DLC by far. Even the Alternative Appearance Pack has more going for it.
Lacks polish - "They've seen us" - Commander Shepard. You're own your own, dude." - Me
Also removes a major decision from your hands, which for a Mass Effect game is like taking a big dump on my chest; and I'm just not into that sort of thing.
As others have stated above, steer clear. Remember the Quick Look Brad and Ryan (I think) did of it? Few do. They unknowingly played through pretty much the entire thing and I'm guessing EA and/or Bioware told them to take it down because of it.
If it's still going for full price, you're basically paying seven or eight bucks to have Bioware tell you "Hey guy, Mass Effect 3 is coming!" 'Damn shame considering how good Shadow Broker was..
@Ramone said:
No. It's pretty poor really. However it does set-up ME3 in a pretty major way
One could just watch the ME3 trailers and save themselves $10.
(spoilers ahead)
I just watched a play-through of this DLC on Youtube and I have to say its pretty damn awful. The bulk of it is repetitive solo combat against generic military dudes in boring old corridors. But the worst part is that the story aspect is just downright terrible. Not only are there no real choices to be made here, but the plot makes no goddamn sense at all:
Firstly, you get contacted by Admiral whatshisface of the Alliance. After all this fucking time, he just shows up saying that some random scientist lady somewhere has evidence of the Reaper invasion and they want you to go in alone to rescue her from a Batarian prison. Firstly its never made very clear how the fuck she got captured in the first place, since she (somehow) has an entire army of military dudes at her disposal back at their base.
So once rescued, the scientist lady explains that her people have prepared this 'project' to stop the Reaper invasion by blowing up a mass relay. Ok, fair enough. And predictably within minutes she turns on you and reveals that she is actually working for the Reapers. Oook.. So why did she tell you about the project in the first place? Or an even better question is, why on earth didn't she just take down the whole project once she went over to the Reapers?
Anyway no time to think about that nonsense, cause you get knocked unconscious and held prisoner for two whole days; during which no one from the Normandy bothers to come looking for you, and none of the bad guys at the project base think to maybe tie you up or throw away your equipment. So of course you wake up, grab your shit and pick up where you left off by shooting more waves of dudes. Eventually you come across a control station for the whole project thing. Its so ridiculous that this thing is just there and left open to access by anyone; it might as well be a giant red button saying 'DO NOT PRESS OR YOU WILL RUIN ALL OUR EVIL PLANS'.
Anyway, you activate the project and do some more shooting, until eventually you manage to get out of there with the Normandy and the mass relay blows up. But not before you have a dumb conversation with a floating image of Harbinger (the Reaper from ME2) that just inexplicably shows up out of nowhere. Its dumb in the sense that the Reapers (the all powerful race of ancient machine-beings who have destroyed and harvested the entire galaxy many times over) are now getting really pouty with Shepard because she helped destroy one and a half Reapers, which should be nothing considering the supposed near-infinite number of these things! And now all of a sudden the focus is all up on Earth and humans, even though they are just a tiny matter compared to THE ENTIRETY OF THE GALAXY!
The whole thing just seems clumsily thrown together quickly to (poorly) explain the opening of ME3, which apparently involves Shepard going back to Earth to stand trial. Even (the usually excellent) Jennifer Hale sounded really bored and disinterested the whole time throughout this DLC. Glad I didn't buy it and I recommend you don't either. I really hope they don't carry this shoddy work into ME3.
If you're obsessed with ME like you appear to be, then it's worth it. I wouldn't tell anyone who doesn't love ME to buy it though. It's fairly short and insubstantial.
Here is an update on my playthrough, I just replayed all of Mass Effect 2, literally every single mission, on PC and did all of the DLC to have the save I want into Mass Effect 3 and just minutes ago finished The Arrival
It was alittle short and the beginning was weak but man that ending was awesome.
Oh yeah I replayed it because I thought the PC version was better, played it on 360 before
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