Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: BioWare
System requirements: Windows XP SP3/Vista SP1/Win 7, 1.8 GHz multiple-core CPU, 1 GB RAM (2 GB Vista/Win 7), 256 MB graphics card with Pixel Shader 3.0 support, DirectX 9.0c-compatible sound card
Genre: Shooter
ESRB rating: DLC content not rated; base game Mature
Release date: Available now

The teaser trailer for Mass Effect 3 shows a lone sniper picking off enemies from inside Big Ben in London. But how we get to this situation after Mass Effect 2 is a closely guarded secret. Developer BioWare has revealed a tiny bit of the mystery with Mass Effect 2: The Arrival, the final DLC pack for the second adventure in the trilogy.

Alliance admiral Hackett (voiced once again by character actor Lance Henriksen) has recruited Cmdr. Shepherd to infiltrate a Batarian prison and rescue a scientist who has discovered an artifact of the Reapers, a hostile alien force that many believe has the Alliance in its crosshairs. Shepherd locates the scientist, who reveals a plan that could prevent, or at least seriously delay, the arrival of the Reapers.

The Arrival is bare-bones shooter material. You don’t choose squad members (your instructions are to assault the prison alone), the layout of the environments gives you only one path forward, and the action is almost totally uninterrupted by dialogue choices. However, you’re given a huge morality choice at the end of the scenario, so you should make sure to save before the final battle if you want to see how both choices play out. Also, the pack only gives you one more solar system to mine; I had almost forgotten how much fun it is to rob entire worlds of their natural resources without ever setting foot on them. But everything concerning your Shepherd will port over to Mass Effect 3, so as tedious as it is, a-mining you should go. Hopefully there will be less of this in the next game, since this resource-gathering method is one of the few major blemishes on the series so far.

Yes, Mass Effect 2: The Arrival is a one-trick pony. Only once did enemies have the courage to rush me while in cover, so I could just hide behind bulkheads and pick them off with impunity. And there was only one enemy that couldn’t be put down with a few bursts from an assault rifle. But the pack is somewhat meatier than the average add-on offering; an average shooter player can get an hour to 90 minutes out of it, not including planetary strip-mining time. You get two large environments on which to fight, and you get the tiniest of glimpses of what is to come when Mass Effect 3 is released next fall.

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