Reader Review: Mass Effect Pinnacle Station

Do you have what it takes to get a review published right here on Kotaku? Matt does. Or “Shephard”, as he prefers to be called.

Yes, that’s right, we’re now publishing reader reviews here on Kotaku. This is your chance to deliver sensible game purchasing advice to the rest of the Kotaku community.

And thanks to the very kind chaps at Madman Entertainment, purveyor of all kinds of cool, indie and esoteric film, the best reader review we publish each month will win a prize pack containing ten of the latest Madman DVD releases.

This review was submitted by Matt Gosper. If you’ve played Mass Effect’s Pinnacle Station DLC, or just want to ask Matt more about it, leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Mass Effect: Pinnacle Station (360, PC)

Mass Effect’s new Pinnacle Station DLC is essentially a combat challenge arena, with four modes: Time Trial, Survival, Capture and Hunt. Time Trial and Survival are fairly obvious – fight for the shortest and longest time possible respectively. In Capture you find and hold capture points in the arena, moving from one to the next as quickly as possible. Lastly, Hunt mode is essentially ‘kill until you get killed’.

Loved
* Rewarding – The bonus reward for beating the final ‘super combat’ mission if you ask for a harder challenge is a nice touch from Bioware.
* Visuals Augur Well – The extra work done for the backgrounds of Pinnacle Station – the bridge of the station faces onto an awesomely rendered space scene, hopefully a sample of the high-quality work in Mass Effect 2.

Hated
* Too Easy – Lack of challenge in the missions themselves. At the end of the DLC you can ask if there’s any more missions, and you’re told “you can always replay them”. Why bother when they’re so easy?
* All Combat, All The Time – There is almost no story for the DLC. Yes, Bioware said this was a combat-oriented expansion, but! You arrive, fight a bit and then bang! The end. Surely a little plot couldn’t hurt? Maybe the Council wants to test Shepard’s combat skills. Not an epic story, but something more would’ve been nice.

In the end, Pinnacle Station is a nice chance to revisit Mass Effect before the sequel arrives, but doesn’t offer that much content. For 400 MS Points it’s a decent deal, but with early descriptions of the DLC as “… kind of a casino, gaming, fight club space station” I had hoped for more. But let’s face it – if you like Mass Effect, you’ll play it no matter what. Any reason to play again is a good reason.

Reviewed by: Matt Gosper

You can have your Reader Review published on Kotaku. Send your review to us at the usual address. Make sure it’s written in the same format as above and in under 300 words – yes, we’ve upped the word limit. We’ll publish the best ones we get and the best of the month will win a Madman DVD prize pack.

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