Mass Effect Pinnacle Station DLC Reviews

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Written by BuckGB on August 29th, 2009

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Your goal in every case is to reach first place on virtual leaderboards; you won't be able to compare your results with those of other players. Once you rise to the top of the initial set, your primary challenger gives you your choice of a few different weapons as a reward, and you unlock a few final scenarios. But the unlocked battles are a joke: you're really just unlocking the ability to play every mode on every map (before these battles are unlocked, each mode is playable on only three of the four maps). The only worthwhile unlockable is a final combat simulation assigned by the Admiral himself, which is at least more challenging than the easy battles that precede it. It's just as buggy, though: On two different attempts, enemies stopped spawning into the map, and the countdown timer disappeared, again forcing reloads of previous game saves. Assuming that bugs don't force you to give up, Ahern gives you the keys to an apartment in the sector, where you can stock up on medi-gel and grenades. A couple of hours after you start, you're done, with no reason to return and with no better understanding of the universe or its characters.

To add insult to injury, if you purchased the Greatest Hits edition of Mass Effect, Pinnacle Station won't function unless you employ a work-around that involves deleting the packed-in Bring Down the Sky content and then purchasing it from the Xbox Live Marketplace--essentially doubling Pinnacle Station's price. A future fix may remedy that problem, but even when in perfect working order, the latest Mass Effect add-on is shameful. It's unimaginative and soulless, and considering that it has been almost two years since the original game was released, it's too little, too late.

I think I'm on to some meta joke that BioWare is pulling. Star Trek lore includes the Kobayashi Maru, an impossible computer-simulation scenario that only a cheater can win. I could describe Pinnacle Station the same way. The DLC requires that the player place first in each of its simulator challenges in order to complete this mini-adventure, but the missions are tuned in strange ways. Some missions are a cinch at the default difficulty. A few required me to drop the combat challenge to "novice" and then breeze through. I was using a Level 50 character for this, and, glancing around the Internet, I am not the only one doubting this DLC was properly balanced.

Adding insult to injury, the content is choppy, extremely buggy and glitch-prone. Out of five separate attempts, I was not once able to complete a single round of combat. The first time, my character inexplicably became unable to move and I was reduced to an immobile gun turret. During my next try, the game simply froze. The time after that, I went into the menu screen and the game froze again, necessitating a full hardware restart. Reviewers have a responsibility to go into a game and evaluate it for what it is, but when a reviewer is literally not able to finish the content in question due to its poor quality, any obligation to see it through to the end goes out the window.

I think it's pretty clear that I hold Mass Effect in the highest possible regard, having nothing but the utmost respect and affection for it, but I need to be honest when I say that Pinnacle Station is not only a complete waste of money, it's an insult to Mass Effect itself. I can't imagine why this shoddy cash-in was even released at all, except for a quick infusion of ill-gotten income from all the suckers like me who bought it on faith.

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