Mass Effect 2 Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC Reviews

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Written by Brother None on September 9th, 2010

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Clocking in around three hours, Lair of the Shadow Broker unravels the engaging tale at a great pace. Despite the dark themes of murder and betrayal, the conversation can be quite humorous. There are some really great moments between Shepard and Liara, and the storytelling effectively communicates the strong bond between the two, even if they weren't romantically involved in your game. Over the course of the story, it's clear that Liara has evolved from the shy girl Shepard met on Therum into a hardened woman struggling with her feelings of loss and guilt. To keep everything balanced, BioWare tossed in some self-deprecating material, including jabs about the Mako's wonky controls and using Omni-gel to open any door. Visually, Lair of the Shadow Broker boasts some really breathtaking environments. The cut-scenes are beautifully rendered and approaching the Shadow Broker's ship is simply stunning as lightning storms envelope the massive vessel.

There's a lot of well-polished content here, with some of the more beautiful vistas in the ME universe. However, it's over too soon. Even if you watch all the videos, unlock all the terminals, and read all of the Shadow Broker intel available to you (It's required reading: these vignettes offer hilarious insight into all the major characters in the game), you're looking at only two hours of gameplay. At 800 Microsoft Points ($10), that's a hefty price to pay, especially compared to the retail game's hour-to-dollar ratio.

Considering the mission is less than half the length of Overlord and more expensive than that pack (it's 800 MS points instead of 560), you might think you're getting screwed on this one, but there are a couple reasons why it's worth it. As I said before, the events in this pack will almost certainly affect events in Mass Effect 3, and if you had a relationship with Liara in the first game, you'll get a chance to hold onto that relationship. On top of all that, once you get into the Shadow Broker's base, you'll find plenty of fun things to do, like taking a look at your crew members' extranet usage and learning that Miranda uses an online dating service and that Jack writes poetry.

Liara she's back! The Asarian doctor was my love in the first game and her absence from the second caused the kind of pain I usually reserve for real-life unrequited love affairs. Having her back in your squad is a comforting feeling and the development of the relationship between her and Shepard throughout the DLC is well written and well acted.

The Shadow Broker story itself though rolled off like a perfect SciFi tale that took you along for the ride. After a brief introduction to the mission that consists of you going to Ilium and speaking to Liara T'Soni you are on your way.

You travel to places like Liara's apartment which has a piece of your old N7 suit that was found when she helped the Shadow Broker find your corpse to help recreate you. It is obvious that she admires you, with a nice glassed in display of your old suit.

Mission structure in discovering the Shadow Broker is quite varied in its objectives and there's little downtime. Experiences include a hostage situation and a high-speed chase in skycars, the "glove" looking cars, which offers a short driving period that is exhilarating, and although a bit unwieldy, not too annoying to handle. The collateral damage from the chase matches most action films. While some missions in Mass Effect 2 boil down to clearing rooms and progressing towards your goal, this mission is tightly written, with constant twists to the action. The fight with the Shadow Broker's assassin is a nice pace change since there's not a ton of boss characters throughout Mass Effect 2 and the assassin uses (Charge,) the rarely-used biotic power by an enemy.

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