Circuit Jerk

I’m a Mass Effect fanboi.

Whenever everyone else complained that you spend too much time cruising across desolate planets looking at rocks and corpses, I said, “bring on 50 more.“

When gamers bitched that the large open set pieces looked empty and void of props, I said, “this is space, there’s a lot of open, void of props areas.”

When people complained that there wasn’t enough interaction with the world, I told them I was a loner.

When critics said Pinnacle Station was a useless expansion, I laughed at them haters and said “Let me be the judge.”

They were right.

Pinnacle Station might have passed as a neat little section if packaged with the original game. I probably would’ve skipped over it during my subsequent play throughs, but I wouldn’t have hated on it.

Here’s what I got essentially:

-A generic, tough as nails commander, yelling insults at me

-4 generic game modes on 4 generic maps

-Annoying goals for each of these maps

-A glitchy final, only a little different last “mission”

You essentially get four scenarios, which are normally multiplayer map types. There’s a headquarters, a horde mode, a kill so many in so much time, and a kill as many in the time allotted modes. It gets extremely repetitive and boring.

What makes it even more repetitive and boring is the fact that each map is ripped right out of a section of game. So after playing this bullshit scenario, I have to play through it again later, only for reals.

Then, the “Gunner-esque” commander of the station throws you into a scenario he’s been building. It’s based off of one of his greatest exploits, a battle in which him and a small crew survived a heavily out-numbered battle with Turians.

The first time I attempted this mission, I killed the first two waves of Turians, hit the goal I was supposed to, was told things are about to get real, and sat there for three minutes waiting for “things to get real.” They never did, so I loaded.

Then the second time I played, I became lodged in a giant pillar while all the Turians took potshots at me.

It wasn’t until attempt 3-8 when I actually took on the seemingly never ending waves of Turians. I beat it. My reward for two hours not well spent was an apartment in the same system.

The apartment is definitely a bachelor pad worthy of Shepard, but should at least introduce some Sims into this. Let me furnish the apartment! Besides buying some weapons from some shady dealers and filling my medi-gel, the apartment is useless.

The developers said they wanted this “Fight Club” scenario in with the actual game, but it wasn’t ready. It took them well over a year to release this expansion from the last one. This should’ve been packaged with “Bring Down the Sky” or given away for free.

Yes, I know Microsoft has a limitation on how large of a file you can release over Xbox Live before you have to charge for it.  Valve was able to get them to wave it, why not Microsoft Game Studios?