We’ve been replaying “Mass Effect 2″, and thoroughly enjoying it. Or we were, at least, until we came to the mission.
That one mission. On Aite. “Overlord”. DLC on the XBox, included on the PS3 version, and sheer pain no matter how you slice it.
If there was ever a moment when a planet cracker would be handy to have, it’d be for this, so we could wreck this whole planet, throw it into the sun, and watch it burn while laughing merrily.
“Mass Effect 2″ is a great game, absolutely. The overall game is superb. But the “Overlord” side mission is an exercise in wanting to punch everybody who came up with it until they cry true tears of remorse.
It’s the worst side mission ever. And we’re counting escort missions in that.
#5) The Hammerhead
Oh, sweet zombie Jeebus, the Hammerhead.
Why obligatory vehicle sections still exist, we’ll never know. And to BioWare’s credit, they just wanted to give the gameplay some variety. Still, this thing was and is a nightmare: the controls are clunky; the firepower makes those turret fights an exercise in frustration; and best of all, you get thrown into the thing with no idea how the controls work or what the hell you’re supposed to do with them. The only saving grace is that the computer voice in the Hammerhead is an incredible smart-ass, and that does make things slightly less frustrating. Slightly.
It’s like helicopters in GTA and its clones: we know you want to do it, but it doesn’t work. Let it go. Of course, you couldn’t, of course you had to…
#4) Make Us Platform With The Thing
Find whoever thought this was a good idea and fire him. Out of a cannon. Into a wall. Made of spikes.
The one upside is that you can glitch through these areas if you screw up, which you will, but somebody should explain to whoever came up with this bright idea that glitching your way through a section is not “fun”. It’s “annoying”. Especially when you’re dealing with clunky controls.
#3) The Collectibles
Oh, remember when we were talking earlier about “not knowing what you have to do?” Hope you checked the trophies before you landed on Aite, because there are some collectibles you’ll have to pick up. Not that you will be informed about this; no, you’ll stumble onto them after fighting a couple of turrets. And then you’ll spend a lot of time wandering around, looking for turrets to shoot at you to find the damn data packets.
![[avatar]](http://p.uproxxcdn.com/photo/569/thumb)
![[image]](http://cdn.uproxx.com/wp-content/thumbnails/130/110/2013/05/hr_Star_Trek_Into_Darkness_32-150x150.jpg)
![[image]](http://cdn.uproxx.com/wp-content/thumbnails/130/110/2013/03/Archer_AK_4-150x150.jpg)
![[image]](http://cdn.uproxx.com/wp-content/thumbnails/130/110/2013/03/handsOUYA1-150x150.png)
![[image]](http://cdn.uproxx.com/wp-content/thumbnails/130/110/2013/03/easter-egg-54-150x150.jpg)
This was a great read since Overlord was the only DLC I did not download for Mass Effect 2 on my XBOX. Also I am very excited for Mass Effect 3. Any and all Mass Effect articles are appreciated.
Save your money. Urgh!
I just replayed Overlord last night and I can pretty much agree every point except I will take the Hammerhead over the Mako any day of the week.
…OK, I’ll give you that one.
I actually liked this DLC. And did you really need a ‘reward’ for having for content in your Mass Effect. I seem to remember you complaining DLC gave you overpowered rewards as a bad thing.
Hmmmm, I don’t remember where we discussed that, but my opinion about gamebreakers is pretty much consistent whether they’re in the game or DLC. And, realistically, I’m not asking for the BFG, but a tech tree we can find elsewhere in the game? After all that? Come on!
I agree with The Hammer. Equipment rewards from DLC don’t really mean much to me (only one I ever really cared much about was the gauss rifle from Fallout 3′s Operation Anchorage DLC); the experience is much more important. And aside from the hammerhead stuff, Overlord provided me a hell of a lot of fun.
*ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL!!!*
/obligatory
I am the very model of a scientist salarian…
The only things preventing me from a perfect achievement score on this game is those stupid datapacks, which I had no idea about when i played through, and the Arrival DLC. I’m getting them this weekend, its settled.
Worse than an escort mission? Seriously? I couldn’t count how many games I’ve completely quit on because of the escort mission.
Don’t get me wrong: 99% of escort missions are flaming noxious turds fresh from Satan’s anus. It’s just this mission is like having to catch those turds and juggle them.
W-hut? I’ll grant that the hammerhead stuff was tedious, glitchy, and overall shitty; but the rest of Overlord was awesome. So eerie and creepy with the VI shrieking at you every now and then, and that whole sequence on the Geth ship, and the virtual reality section at the end… and even an emotionally moving storyline. I thought it was really great, especially in how different it felt from the average mission (and I’m not talking about the Hammerhead parts here).
Oh, the WRITING is good, aside from the ending, which tries to fake some ambiguity and fails miserably (you were RAMMING TUBES INTO YOUR BROTHER, INCLUDING TWO DOWN HIS THROAT. How the hell did that seem harmless?) It’s a nice self-contained story. But that really can’t overwhelm the fact the rest of the mission blows.
Also, I didn’t think that Geth cannon was that hard. It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out that you’re supposed to make the cannon destroy its own shield generators, and working out the timing on how to do that was a little tricky, but that part was pretty easy once I figured those things out.
It’s not hard to figure out, but it is incredibly repetitive and annoying, and paired with the shitty controls, it becomes irritating quickly.
Hm, I don’t remember the controls being bad. I wished there was a lockon feature or something to make it easier to kill those turrets, but that’s all I can recall. Might’ve been a different story on the Xbox, I dunno; I played the PS3 version.