Review: Mass Effect 2 "The Arrival" DLC

Hey there folks!

I'm here to review the new (And sadly last) DLC for Mass Effect 2: The Arrival

This, clearly by the name itself, sounds completely fantastic and fans of the series will not be dissapointed!
For those who are not familiar with the series, Mass Effect follows a man named Shepard, a Commander in the System Alliance Navy. The year is 2185 (In Mass Effect 2) and a giant machine race known as the "Reapers" who destroy all life, are coming back. The only person who can stop them, is Shepard, along with his crew of 13 people of course!
The Arrival is set DIRECTLY before the storyline of Mass Effect 3 (Coming out this November!) Shepard is contacted by Admiral Hacket who tells him a scientist has discovered evidence of a Reaper invasion. Problem is, a race of beings known as Batarians (Who absolutely HATE humans) has accused her as a terrorist and take her back to a prison on a near by world.
Hacket asks Shepard to go get her back.
Seeing as anything more I say is a huge spoiler, I will be silent.

However, I can talk about how the experience was.
With my first playthrough, I noticed that some of my special attacks as a Vanguard (Part Biotic Part Soldier) lagged the game. For example, every time I used the Dash ability, the game would pixilate and freeze for a moment, I would be stuck to the floor for a few seconds or I didn't move at all and the enemy I was aiming for bounced backward and I have my shields recovered.

This was easily looked over in my second playthrough.

The graphics on the game itself was just....astounding! Playing through the game its hard not to be in awe at how far Bioware has come with their graphics and storyline. None of the additional cast was voiced in the DLC other than Shepard (Male Shepard - Mark Meer/ Female Shepard - Jennifer Hale)

This, however a small letdown, was still fantastic at how much effort they placed into the vocal acting. Mark Meer placed a lot of emotion as Jennifer placed in her seriousness.

Both were well picked for the role.

If you are into it, there are three achievements: Covert Action, Last Stand and The Ultimate Sacrifice. Easy to get, even despite one of them is a little tricky.

Covert Action requires you to get to the Scientist without catching any attention. Not very hard, just walk when near them and you should be fine. Last Stand is tricky, asking for you to last 5 rounds of constant attackers in Project Rho. When this part of the level starts, kill all the guards to the right and run quickly. From there, you can hide behind cover at the far back of the room and easily pick off attackers. However, Round Five sends two (Or in the Insanity Difficulty setting, three) Heavy Mechs your way. But if you have the Cain heavy weapon, you should be fine.

The Ultimate Sacrifice asks one thing: To complete the DLC.

While some reviewers complain that the DLC was too short and not very well refined, I disagree. This DLC has left me wanting Mass Effect 3 more than ever. While I agree that is was short and had not much dialogue, what was there was perfect to lead us straight into the next installment, the final chapter in the saga that has had many gamers transfixed since 2006

Out of 10, I gave The Arrival DLC a 8/10

Review: Da Vinci Disappearance DLC

Hey there folks

The eager arrival of this DLC has had Assassin's Creed fans wanting ever since a hint towards the release of a DLC (Downloadable Content) and they have been delivered a work of pure genius. The Da Vinci Disappearance.

WARNING: This review has many, many spoilers in it. If you have not completed this, then do not read it.

This DLC, on first experience, shortly gives the gamer a small insight to what is happening to Desmond after the events of the Campaign, with two unknown men speaking about Desmond. One being William, a man who is a higher up in the Assassin Creed and another unknown and unnamed man. They discuss the new memories and then upload it into Desmond, clearly wanting something important.
The memory shows the date as 1506, taking place months before the final conclusion of the Campaign (Ezio taking after Cesare) With a quick visit and errand asked by Leonardo, Ezio finds his young helper and escorts him home, only to find Leonardo gone and his home in a messy state, indicating a struggle. (Side note: Before Ezio leaves to find Salai, Da Vinci's model, helper and lover, they discuss one of his recent paintings. Da Vinci, critical of his work while Ezio applauds it. This painting turns out to be The Mona Lisa)
After finding clues inside paintings, recovering them from merchants, a man named Duccio De Luca (Claudia Auditore's childhood sweetheart) and a quick visit to Lucrecia Borgia (With a little foreplay for the painting) Ezio maps out clues by Leonardo written in "Invisible ink", discovered by his talent with the Eagle Vision.

After sorting out a map (That is bloody annoying and frustrating. Trust me, you'll need help with it) Ezio takes off after Leonardo and saves his friend from a bloodthirsty new creed called the Hermeticists, bent of transforming mankind with a vault Leonardo had discovered. After killing them all, Ezio and Leondaro travel into the vault together.

WARNING: Major, major spoiler for the game series. If you want to keep it a secret to yourself, now would be the time to stop reading

At the end of the Vault, they find a code. This code is unknown and makes no sense to Leonardo but Ezio simply leads him away and begins to talk to him about the lost time they haven't had together.
The code is as follows: 43, 39, 19, N, 75, 27, 42, W.
You can quickly realise that this is Latitude and Longitude. When placed together from Italy, it seems to turn out its near a little town called Glenfield, in the USA.
Its very possible that Assassin's Creed 3 is going to be based there, whether in the Animus or not.
As the gameplay fades, we hear the men at the beginning talk. They say that they have the coordinates (Also indicating that the Lat, Long theory may yet be correct) and that they needed to focus on Desmond. However one of them dismisses this and says that they cannot, as he has slipped into a coma.
It is all up to Desmond now to see if he wakes up or not.

This game is a treasured favourite of mine and this DLC, which I have now just ruined for some poor soul, forgive me, is a great piece of gameplay. I foretold the DLC not to ruin it purposefully, but to give an insight to what to expect and what lays ahead of you.
Have fun and happy gaming!

DLC Review - Da Vinci Disappearance
Cost: 800 Microsoft Points (Or $10 credit card payment)
Package: 8 new missions, new gear, new costumes, new multiplayer maps - catergories and characters
Graphics: 9/10
Acting: 9/10
Gameplay: 8/10
Storyline: 10/10

Overall score: 9/10

Reviews - Upcoming Hints

Hey there

As per promised, I posted two Reviews of two games I am growing to love. But now I have some news. In the near future, I will be posting reviews about DLC's as well as hints for those hard to get at puzzles and tricky achievements.

Of course, this news comes fresh due to the very, VERY recent release of the Assassin's Creed Brotherhood "Da Vinci Dissapearance" DLC, only released 12 hours ago. I am currently playing my way through it and I am very excited to see what it is like. 
I will also be posting hints for the Subject 16 Video, as many people seem to have trouble with it.

Also, as it is released, I will do a small post about Halo Reach and its second DLC, the "Defiant" Map pack.

Thanks very much for standing by me and I so appreciate over 250 views. What I would love more is a few followers....
Thanks again
Al xxxx

Review: Bulletstorm

G'day folks!

A game that I eagerly awaited for the demo and I instantly fell for. One of the most original games for both storyline, voice work and gameplay.
The newly released BULLETSTORM!

To those who are unfamiliar with the game, let me be the first to say, that this is what as known as a "game changer". The first thing that really caught my eye, oddly enough, was the amount of swearing and how....crude it was. I absolutely loved how seeing something huge coming down from the air and Rill (A character early on in the game calls out "Ho-ly piss sh*t!" and the swearing becomes more crude, imaginative and even weirder as the game progresses. But in all seriousness what also is a great addition is the Skillshot awards. By simply playing the game, you are rewarded for killing your enemies for being quick, shooting off a mans head or shooting him in the bum or even, possibly the most popular way of every person who plays the game, the "MERCY" Skillshot: requiring you to shoot an enemy in his testicles until they explode. He will fall to his knees and scream and its up to you put him out of his misery. There is many, many more skillshots for you to take but this one has grown into popularity so quickly with the games release.

What I also noticed was the level of voice acting. The game has so many unknown voice actors (The exception being Jennifer Hale, Fred Tatiscore and the "Veteran of voice acting" Steve Blum) they are mostly the actors who usually do the small work of the vocals. What amazed me was the level of commitment by the actors into their characters, especially Trishka Novak (voiced by Jennifer Hale), the main protagonist Grayson Hunt (voiced by Steve Blum) and despite having a voice over for the robotic noises, Ishi Sato (voiced by Andrew Kashino). Their voice work was so clear and so pristine that you could easily hear the great anger in their voice, the seriousness, their hatred and their bottled up emotions. It was quite exquisite.

Now, onto the small problems so far.

During multiplayer, it seems that no matter where I connect into, the words "BAD CONNECTION" stay on the screen for the entire match until it is over. I know that these problems will soon be fixed with the updates and DLC's to come, but it is roughly annoying to try and play online while those words stay in front of your face and you lag across the map. However, the customisation of player's character online as well as choosing the colour of your Leash down to the colour of your boots is quite fun to do. The Echo mode also deserves a small recognition as it challenges players to get as many stars they can, as well as getting a higher score than your friends. While this is all well and good, the maps as well as the Multiplayer maps are limited, making choices small. Also, there is one, and only one, mode of multiplayer, and gamers would look forward to some sort of TDM or CTF sort of Multiplayer.

This game is quite indeed a game changer, as many critics have already pointed out, and I quote, "Many game engines are changing over the years, but now it seems they have to step it up for Epic's"

Out of 10, I gave Bulletstorm a 9/10

Review: Army of Two - The 40th Day

Hey there guys and girls.

This game was thruster upon me a few months ago, and I must admit, I grew attached to it quickly and how the gameplay worked and eventually developed. Army of Two The 40th Day.

Firstly, I wish to say that I had never played the first Army of Two and this game was a completely new experience to me. One of the first things that impressed me was Customisation. Never, and I mean NEVER, have I seen a level of this amount of Customisation to a playable character and such games as Saints Row 2 can be put to shame by this game. The player can choose what outfit their chosen protagonist wears, you can choose what mask he wears (Or make one yourself online!) and what stunned me the most, was the ability to customise your weaponry.
You get to choose what scope, what colour, silencers or enhancers, the whole kit and caboodle. You can go simple and keep it sleek and nice, or go insane, colour your pistol red, gold and covered in poker chips and have a soda can as your silencer!

What impressed me as well was the storyline and the voice acting. The game itself is full of fighting, and at some times, sneaking past a patrol of enemies. What impressed me was the acting: If there was a gunfight, the characters would yell orders, which increased in volume the further you traveled from your companion, while being undercover, the characters whisper in hushed voices, or just give hand signals to each other when too close for speech. With a great storyline such as this and the level of acting was just...brilliant.


A few of the bad points, however small, did drag down my mood a slight nod. As I said before, you can create your own mask online and then transfer it over onto your character. It was a real struggle to do this, as both the game and the website do not tell you it requires both your 360 to be online and active on Xbox Live and your computer must be on as well, on the site of creatinng your own mask. Another small annoyance was also playing online with friends. Playing with a buddy online is great fun and a good way to stock up Achievements (If that's your thing) but this is very, very prone to lag, freezing and at some points, reducing the Xbox to freeze and not work at all. These were the only bugs I was able to find.


However overall, this game was such a delight, I thanked the man who placed this game in my hands. A challenging and smart game, that should be remembered by both game developers and gamers alike for its level of Customisation, its real shining star.


Out of 10, I gave Army of Two: The 40th Day a 8.5/10

News

Hi folks

As the personal time in my life is becoming more and more restricted, its my unfortunate duty to say that posts on this channel from today onwards will be untimed. The reviews of the games and many more on the way will now be posted whenever I get a free time to myself and not on the dates provided.
As a fair comprimise, I will post two from the list tomorrow, most likely going to be the newly released Bulletstorm and another of my choosing.

If you wish for me to review any games of your choosing, leave a comment

Thanks very much
Al