He’s a profiteer voiced with what sounds like an intentionally bad Sean Connery impression and the end of the mission left me wanting to see him again. As a bad guy, Hock gives players a look at what douchebags in the Mass Effect universe look like. (Don’t worry those do show up later.) At points, Stolen Memory riffs on James Bond movies and holds a few in-jokes–like a statue of the Rachni Queen–for folks who played Mass Effect 1. The heist structure of the first part of the Kasumi mission provides a nice change of pace from the frantic gun battles that dominate ME2. Maybe it’s because she’s avenging the loss of someone close to her. But, there isn’t a whole lot of flirty-flirty with her. At first, given her appearance, you might think that Kasumi’s just around to generate more sex appeal (not that ME2 needed any more of that). She carries some mystery, or more mystery than the other characters, just by the nature of her backstory. The criminal she wants your help stealing from acquired her old partner’s graybox–a neural interface that stores secrets and memories. In fact, her mission is part memorial and part revenge. She reads old, printed books and mourns for her slain partner.
Her impish delight in her profession draws you in, but there’s a streak of sentimentality in her, too. Kasumi’s a sign that things might be getting slightly better. The natives of Terra came off as the most boring species you’d encounter in ME1 and ME2 didn’t do a whole lot to change that. Mass Effect’s had a human problem that goes back the first game. She’s a master thief recruited to join Shepard’s universe-saving mission but players will need to gain her loyalty first. So, one way of evaluating the new content is looking at the character of Kasumi herself. In this instance, you’re essentially paying for a new personality to interact with. Here, you get similar things: a new weapon, new research to improve existing attributes and a new achievement. Usually, with DLC, you’re paying for new maps, weapons, vehicles or abilities. Of course, those expectations are also different because the Kasumi DLC costs about seven bucks where the Firewalker pack was free. The Mass Effect games stand out for their approach to story and character, so the new Kasumi – Stolen Memory pack has a different set of expectations. So, unless the DLC outright breaks the game, not a lot will change how you feel. Anything that comes after is meant to feed the larger whole. In Mass Effect 2, you already have an experience you either like or don’t like.
When I reviewed the free Firewalker pack, I found it to be a fun vehicular addition to the ME2 experience. That brings up a question: how do you evaluate DLC for a game like it? I’m not talking about whether it’s objectively good or bad. Follow to Bioware exec and Project Lead Director for Mass Effect 2 Casey Hudson, there’s a lot of downloadable content coming for Mass Effect 2.