Tiny Diggers – An iPad Construction Truck Game for Kids Age 2-5

It had been awhile since I had visited Commander Shepard and the Mass Effect 2 universe.  It was not a lack of desire to play in the universe, but more because I knew about the new character that was coming via the DLC and I decided to wait for a return until that DLC was out.  Now we have the Stolen Memory DLC with our new thief character, Kasumi Goto, and while there were some neat perks and information to be found, the DLC was rather bland, and played out far shorter than the approximate 90 minute window of play that Bioware had touted before release.  It is not as bad as say, “Pinnacle Station”, but it is a long ways from the “Bring Down the Sky” DLC package for the first Mass Effect.

In Stolen Memory, Shepard has received an email from our favorite puppeteer, The Illusive Man, stating that he has another teammate that we can recruit for our suicide mission.  Of course, Kasumi Goto won’t just join our motley crew of characters, as she wants us to help her out with a mission to gain her loyalty and trust for our cause.  So we are tasked with helping her gain a memory unit that contains the memory imprints of her former partner and lover.  But nothing is ever easy, and it appears that we have to break into a vault owned by Donovan Hack, a man who runs a large crime syndicate.

As I progressed through the story, I found myself really enjoying the quirks of Kasumi Goto.  Here we have a character that is very sure of herself, but is also in a venerable state of mind due to the loss of her lover.  She had decided to put everything on the line to pursue this memory container.   She also uses her stealth ability to the fullest, appearing from thin air to incapacitate an enemy, and then disappearing again in to the ether.

On top of the mission pack adding a new character to your crew, you also have the chance to find a new weapon, and you gain a new casual outfit to wear on the Normandy.  If you are a man, you get a new formal suit/tux, while a female Shepard receives a short, low cut dress with heels.  Okay, not the best perks, but it beats seeing the same outfits on the Normandy, and the new weapon is really powerful.

All of this said, the mission pack is fairly short, coming in about the same length as the last character that was added into the game, Zayed.  Bioware has stated that you will get about 60-90 minutes of gameplay out of this DLC, but I ended up exiting the mission at the 45 minute mark.  It also does not help that Kasumi never fully interacts with you via a dialog tree.  You can look at stuff in her residence on the Normandy, but you never get to engage her in any conversation, or even have the chance to romance her.  It just seems to be a lack of effort from Bioware to really make a new crew member integral to the ship experience.  A chunk of enjoyment on the Normandy is interacting with crew members and working your inter-personal relationships with them.

So is the Stolen Memory DLC pack worth your purchase?  If you are a hardcore Mass Effect 2 fan, the answer is a no-brainer.  There is enough here to keep you reading the codex for awhile, and Kasumi Goto is a great character for missions.  The casual fan would do better to stay away, and stick with the free content.  I still look to Bioware’s first DLC pack for Mass Effect as the gold standard.  Adding a main quest with several little side quests along with an interesting storyline.  Stolen Memory is good, but it never breaks out of that just above average mold.  Mass Effect 2 – Stolen Memory gets 3 Aeropausonauts out of 5.