New Mass Effect 2 DLC: Lair of the Shadow Broker

The Game Room
1

I have ignored all the Mass Effect DLCs so far. They’ve only been some non important extra content, there if you want to pay for it but don’t make a larger impact on the overall plot arch. Bioware is set to change that with their new Mass effect 2 DLC Lair of the Shadow Broker. Both Liara and the Shadowbroker are major characters in the Mass Effect universe and I expected that particular storyline to be resolved in Mass Effect 3. Instead it’s coming out as a DLC on September 7 for 800 MS points.

Publishers so far have kept the important plot points in the actual games and the DLCs have mostly been for extra flavour. Then again, the whole DLC might be a wash.

Liara: Oh poop! The Shadowbroker got away. Oh well, we’ll get him in Mass Effect 3.

Any thoughts on this?

Link. Link.

2

This is one of the things I had been looking forward to before the game came out, and should have been part of the plan from the beginning.

There’s still no way in hell I’m going to buy Mass Effect 2, though. And “Bioware points” can go die in a fire.

3

I’m considering it, but ME2 got really, really boring after the first two playthroughs. It’s not the story I got sick of - it’s the gameplay, so I’m not sure if the prospect of an extra thread tied up is enough to get me back to it.

4

It kinda was - the dialogue files are still in the game files, but only accessible on the PC. See here - spoilers obviously.

I for one was pretty hacked off with the way Liara’s character was handled in ME2 if she was a LI in ME1, so I’ll be getting it in the hopes of Bioware fixing that. They probably won’t, but even so the quality of DLC has been pretty high IMO - Overlord in particular was damn good. “Square root of 912.04 is 30.2… It all seemed harmless…”

5

You know, I lost track of the DLC available after I bought the one thing for Dragon Age. I’m thinking that if I hold out, then by the time I’m ready to do a full replay they’ll cut a package deal. Hell, just the fact that it’s supposed to be the last DLC has made it suddenly more attractive to buy the rest of it.

That must be what they’re counting on, because otherwise this whole piecemeal DLC system seems fundamentally flawed. It doesn’t incrementally enhance replay value – it turns each replay into a potentially lost opportunity to enjoy new content without having to start over. Once I know that it’s possible to get it all in my next playthrough, it’s worth it to pick up the whole package.

But if other people feel this same way, and are more likely to buy it when it’s available as a complete package, then it is effectively the same as the “expansion pack” business model that the DLC was supposed to be moving away from.

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Johnny Angel, I agree completely. Another name for expansion packs.

7

BioWare has announced a new DLC for Dragon Age that resolves a huge plot point in that game too. Massive spoilers. Don’t read if you don’t want to know what happens at the end of Dragon Age.

You get to find out what happened to your/Alistair’s/Loghain’s demon god baby. I’m kinda interested how it turns out. They made such massive deal about it in the game.Link. Morrigan looks like she has Down’s syndrome in the art on that page.

As I understand it, you can play all the DLCs for Mass Effect 2 even after completing the main quest. So you don’t have to replay the whole game to get to the extra content.

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It’s not quite the same, though. I mean, there’s one where you pick up a new team member. But the whole story of the game is structured around gathering your team in order to fight the plot. Once the plot is over, why are you recruiting now? Where are you planning to use that new armor? At least the Broken Steel add-on for Fallout 3 put in more plot after the end of the game, and that game already had random encounters for you if you’re bored. Once you’ve done all the missions in Mass Effect 2, you might as well start over.

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Ahem, except for the Shadow Broker quest. I mean, that is some more actual story that could take place afterward without seeming pointless.

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Not really. Shadow Broker ( :rolleyes: Good God, that’s a stupid name) is one of the least interesting “characters” in all of Mass Effect. Heck, he’s just not a character. He/she/it doesn’t really do anything, never even particularly bothers Shepard, and is only tengentially relevant to events. Kinda like Legion in ME2, who was originally supposed to have a bigger role but got tossed in at the last minute, but moreso. Even by claiming that somehoe, he was working teh Collectors!!1!11poneone (and don’t even get me started on how stupid that storyline was), who really cares? Lots of people have, apparently.

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I think we’re working from two different senses of the term “pointless”. I just mean that the mission is sufficient unto itself, unlike a new team member for a mission you’ve already completed. But your point is well taken. The name didn’t bother me, though it does invoke one of my pet peeves in gaming of trying to make shit sound badass by sticking “shadow” or “blade” somewhere in the name. By the time the Shadow Broker was more than just a minor advance-the-plot quest, I was used to it.

12

Anyone pick this up yet? I’ve been playing it pretty much all afternoon, it has roughly the same gameplay time as Overlord did (for me at least).

Without giving too much away, I thought it was pretty damn good - a nice bridge to ME3, and critically needed if you romanced her, which I did. Provides a conclusion that the vanilla game was sorely lacking.

Giving too much away, [spoiler]I didn’t expect the Shadow Broker to be…that. Truthfully, I was expecting a geth-style linked AI, or a bunch of asari matriachs or something. The first time I saw him I thought he was some sort of krogan/vorcha hybrid. Still, a good fight, and at least it puts paid to those stupid ‘TIM is SB’ theories. I was expecting a few more…layers, a few dummy SBs before the real one.

Having familiarised myself with the Redemption comic, I’m damn glad they sorted Feron’s relationship with Liara out. If they’d have had anything going I’d have locked him inside one of the Collector’s smoothie maker machines, just to watch him die.

The ending, very, very good, great set up for the next game and a welcome return to form for Liara herself, who thankfully sheds her hush-hush pseudo-badass persona and resembles the prothean expert we all know and love.[/spoiler]

One final thing - it’s worth buying just for the humour in it. I had several laugh out loud moments, Shep himself gets some pretty on the mark one-liners and you gain access to some comedy gold at the end, including;
Legion’s online gaming preferences,
Jack’s forum activies,
Grunt’s extranet searches,
And the crowning moment for me, an angry krogan vs Khalisah Bint Sinan al-Jilani, the annoying reporter Shep can smack around in ME1 and 2.

Also; Liara’s father, confirmed as Matriach Aethyta?

13

I thought it was pretty good too. Not very long but it had good production values. This is supposed to be the first in a series of DLCs meant to bridge the story between Mass Effect 2 & 3. I’m betting we’ll see a DLC focusing on Ashley or Kaidan in the future.

Mr. Kobayashi, regarding you last spoiler.

[spoiler]

I’m guessing you’re right, though it does raise some interesting questions. Liara’s office on Illium is less than a half a minutes walk from Aethyta’s bar. The whole time Liara was there they never bumped into each other, really? Hi I’d like to order a dri- dad, what the fuck?![/spoiler]

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Let’s hope so, speaking of ME3, I read in an interview with devs recently that ME3 was going for a lighter, more humorous tone. Initially I was :dubious: on this point, but if it’s like LOTSB then my scepticism has been unwarranted.

The major nitpick I have is regarding the technical stuff; I got stuck twice in the scenery, the first time during a boss fight and the second just randomly, forcing reloads. The second one is regarding other squad members you bring along, I brought along my main man Garrus for that old skool flavour, but he kept his gob shut the entire time - only the SB himself commented on his presence, saying that archangel’s bounty is worth quite a bit to him.

Liara says in ME1 that she doesn’t know who her ‘father’ is; Benezia raised her alone and never discussed her bonding partner, so Liara herself wouldn’t have a clue. Why Aethyta never said anything (other than having a pureblood daughter, which isn’t much - there are two purebloods in Ilium’s docking area - who knows. Maybe her status as a bartender would bring Liara into disrepute or something.

That’s one of the best things about the DLC, it adds a whole new layer to many characters, including Shepard himself. Of particular interest to me is Captain Anderson’s meeting with the chap in the Cerberus uniform. What the heck’s going on there? Some kind of informant? Or is Cerberus a little less ‘rogue’ than the Alliance would like to admit?

I also chuckled about the TMI about TIM.

15

Oh, and there are new vids after a day - Anderson resumes his favourite hobby, and even the volus hate Khalisa!

16

Maybe we can drop the spoiler boxes from here on out. Otherwise it’s just going to post after post of spoiler boxes.

Open spoilers, don’t read further.

Suffered some hiccups as well on the PC. Some slowdowns and a crash. I’m betting Bioware didn’t want the hassle and expense of getting all the voice actors in to do some extra lines.

I missed that bit of dialogue in MS1. Explains why Aethyta is working as a bartender. He wants to be close to his daughter. If think the whole point for secrecy was to protect Benezia’s honour. She was a prominent member of Asari society after all. Would make it really easy for Benezia’s enemies to discredit her.

Captain Anderson’s a pragmatic guy. He wouldn’t be above asking help from Cerberus if need be. Doesn’t necessarily mean the* Alliance* is in bed with them, though they probably are. It will be interesting to see what happens in ME3 now that Shepard has both Cerberus and the Shadow Broker on her/his side.

Did you catch the dig at Omni-gel? That was pretty funny.

17

All right, spoiler warning ahoy then!

Other than the getting stuck issue, I haven’t had any other problems - although I read on the official forums that the PC version has some big problems even installing.

I didn’t really expect too much, but was slightly disappointed that Tali’s only line in the whole thing (involving the man she loves going back with the…mono-gendered alien he loves) was ‘keelah!’ at an explosion, and that Garrus didn’t get any extra dialogue. I mean, even the Ish assignment gets extra dialogue if you bring Miranda and Jacob along. Not much, I know, but I’d have liked to see something. Still, definitely the best DLC for my money, even better than Overlord which was pretty damn good.

On Anderson, I get the feeling he’ll play a major role in ME3. From what we learn in LOTSB, he’s up to far more than we realised in the vanilla ME2 campaign - meeting Cerberus operatives (likely an informant, as he “doesn’t trust Cerberus” and in Retribution causes all sorts of problems for them), smacking Udina around again and, most surprising to me, hiding behind a car and blasting a krogan away, in full councillor garb!

18

This DLC is really a must buy for anyone who romanced Liara and is interested in how that turned out. There’s a very good scene after you defeat the Shadow Broker where all the tension and hate Liara has been carrying for the last two years just melts away. Bioware can really make convincing facial animations, and the small changes they made to Liara’s appearance greatly improved her looks compared to the vanilla MS2. All the little snippets of dialogue and moments between Shepard and Liara really made them feel like a real couple. The car chase had some fun bickering between the two. I also liked the romance scene on the Normandy. For once Shepard lets her/his guard down and talks about how he/she really feels. We’ve never seen Shepard as vulnerable and it was handled very well in my opinion.

I think romance with Liara, Tali, or Garrus are the only ones that feel real. The rest, more or less, feel like flings.

19

I thought it was great, and worked well (as in, has dialogue for) whether you had finished the game or not. I’d probably be more inclined to do it after the suicide mission, but I’d sure like the extra resources you can get which translates into less time scanning planets.

When I first saw the Shadow Broker’s silhouette I thought he was a fat salarian! When you are talking to Feron when he’s in strapped to the device, his last dialogue option is telling you that the SB is “big”. I never selected it the first time because he was getting shocked after every reply so I stopped after the second one, so I really had no idea what to expect when I went in there.

Liara’s backseat skycar driving was pretty funny, and I loved the reply “keep dreaming, T’Soni!” when she suggests that all the mooks they have had to fight on the outside means fewer to stop them on the inside.

But the whole time playing I had this feeling of dread that at the end Liara was going to say that she couldn’t decide between Shepard and Feron and would call it quits. I’m glad there was nothing between them and the scene on the Normandy was really nice.