Turn back the darkness cannot be breached.
I feel a chill. It is so cold, being a prisoner of your own body, hearing everything, seeing everything, but it all seems so surreal, almost as if you are watching a bright television set in a pitch-black room. None of your actions are your own.
You can feel yourself being transformed, something alien weaving through your mind. It makes you want to shiver in disgust. Muscle, sinews and nerves begin bending to the will of a foreign master. You are fighting for your freedom, but the unknown entity is counter assaulting and twisting control away, harvesting your very being. The indoctrination process has begun.
Mass Effect 3: Leviathan DLC takes fans of the series back to the evils of the process of indoctrination. What is the Leviathan? How can it destroy a Reaper? And why does it enslave organic life? These are the harrowing questions that players will be eager to seek answers for.Spoilers ahead, please due not read further if you wish to avoid.
Leviathan clocks in at around three hours if you take your time, plus you will likely want to finish the game again. The story unravels at an engaging pace beginning with a little bit of detective work. Shepard is then tossed through an action packed adventure that includes a giant armored Mech. It is like playing Steel Battalion with out all of those crazy buttons. The promised underwater scenes are pretty cool, but nothing revolutionary like driving the car in Lair of the Shadow Broker.
The DLC is filled with the dark themes of murder, indoctrination and the fight for self-preservation. The one thing Mass Effect has always provided their players with are ambiguous characters. No one is truly evil and no one is without fault. The Leviathan falls into this stigma and this makes the Leviathan a very interesting inclusion into the lore of the franchise. The DLC is filled with high-drama and action.
Without giving too much away about the plot or any real secrets the expansion back is about the search for a rogue Reaper that scientist believe is a defector or a rogue reaper. The cut-scenes are beautifully rendered and set pieces are massive with stunning explosion and crumbling shelters. Scientific research lab has an ominous quality that supplies gamers with apprehension and anxiety.
The added dialogue and conversation really helps to capture the feeling of desperation. Shepard and his squad mates know the end of their battle is approaching and are in dire need of this unknown entity's help.
If there is one problem with this DLC it is the lulls in the action and the need to constantly return to the Leviathan's discover Dr. Bryson's Lab back on the Citadel. Yup you get to go back to your favorite place in the galaxy, the Citadel. There is a little bit too much of search and scan going on it this DLC too.
When you compare Leviathan to the Shadow Broker DLC of Mass Effect 2, it really lacks the overall entertainment of that expansion pack. But it really delivers on drama and human emotion, as one DLC's characters loses a close relative.
There are some really great moments in Leviathan and overall fans of the Mass Effect series will be happy to step back into the role of commander Shepard. The big question on everyone mind is how does this new DLC change the games ending, and the truth is with subtlety.
For one the history of the Reapers is far stranger than we knew. I won't spoil it but there is some interesting back-story here. I will give my thought on this in another article, which you can read here. Mass Effect 3: Leviathan DLC is worth the purchase price for true fans of the series. I give it a 9/10 for letting me team up with my squad in another heart racing adventure.
Mass Effect 3: Leviathan also includes two new weapons, the AT-12 Raider Shotgun and M-55 Argus Assault Rifle. Available on Xbox Live, Origin and the PlayStation Network for 800 MS Points and $9.99 respectively, the DLC will also hit Europe tomorrow.
Watch the trailer below and check out these new images from the DLC...