Bioware and Microsoft announced today that they will be releasing new downloadable content for Mass Effect. According to the IGN
article the new content will let us explore a new uncharted world and we get to meet the Batarians. Hopefully this "exploring" won't just involve you getting in your Mako and driving to an outpost shooting down some turrets and aliens along the way and then it's over. Mass Effect is woefully short on exploration depth. It involves you getting on your Mako and repeating the above mentioned task multiple times. There is no real depth to those side missions. Don't get me wrong, I love Mass Effect and I've already played it four times but compared to a standard rpg it's not very deep. It took me about 14 hours to finish the game the first time through. I didn't do most of the side missions but still that's way too short for a game that was marketed as an "Epic rpg", and the story which was good but is no way an epic. Knights of the Old Republic is a great example of an epic story. Anyway, I've completed most of the side missions on my second and third playthrough and it was extremely boring. The side missions don't really have any impact on your major story line and it feels rather pointless in the end. Back to point, I hope this new content will actually have a more traditional exploration that we are used to seeing in rpgs. That's the reason people play rpgs, so that we can explore, interact, discover, and make an impact within that game's universe. Also, as suspected the whores at Microsoft will be charging $5 for this new 90 minute content. So I'll wait and see actually what the content is like before I decide to send my $5 to Microsoft. Cheers!
