Take Back the Rock

So, up next in the Mass Effect DLC rambles is Omega. Thank goodness I have found the time to write this; I’ve been extremely busy with college and sorting out some other issues in my life right now.

The truth is I was really excited for this one to be released when I first heard of it. Somehow I knew exactly what was going to be happening. Aria taking back Omega from Cerberus, that was all I wanted to know.

I never paid much attention to the trailers or any new weapons or characters, but I’ll tell you this; playing through this DLC was just edge-of-my-seat sort of fun.

So the story is pretty simple. We meet Aria on the Citadel and she tells us how Cerberus took over Omega but let her leave freely, and she plans to get it back. I always find myself doing this DLC after Leviathan and before Citadel. Call it an obsessive routine, I’m not sure why. 

The station is now occupied by Cerberus General Oleg Petrovsky and right away you can tell he means business the moment he knows it’s Aria’s fleet attacking. He basically sends everything he’s got to stop her from reaching him. Luckily, the civilians on Omega and another resistance do not agree with Petrovsky’s plans.

Throughout ME2 you were either fighting Collectors or mercenary gangs. There was the Blue Suns, Blood Pack and the Eclipse. Then we get to meet another merc gang, only this time they are on our side! *phew*

Yes! A female turian! I really hoped we would get to see that someday!

This DLC also brought in a lot of surprises a little more than just the fact that we would run into a merc gang that would take our side. Then we meet Nyreen Kandros and I can’t describe to you how happy I was to discover that she was a female turian. We have never seen a female turian until now, and that’s what makes this game have some more diversity; we got Eve who was the first female krogan. I prefer to call her by her birth name when she reveals it, but that’s me. Now we get to see a female turian for the first time as well.

Anway, Nyreen is definitely a character that is meant to surprise us. First it seems like she’s some sort of turian huntress and old friend of Aria’s, but then it is not long before we learn that she is actually the leader of the merc. gang: the Talons, hoping to take back Omega. This puts Aria’s trust towards Nyreen to the test, but I of course never had any suspicion about her. She’s also a Cabal Vanguard, which is another name for a turian biotic. You don’t see much of those around eh? They’re trained for deadly missions involving infiltration and relying a lot of offensive biotic moves.

Ever since meeting Nyreen, I’ve been dying to unlock the playable turian cabal in multiplayer. I should really get back into the game to get closer to that goal!

Nyreen, aren’t you full of surprises!

Anyway, I like how the whole mission is strategically planned by Aria and her followers; like everything is set in stages to retake the station. Take down the shields, take back the reactor, bring down the force fields, rendezvous at club Afterlife…you know the drill.

Did I ever tell you how much I hate fighting Cerberus troops? Well it’s mostly due to all the smoke bombs they throw which seem to take forever to clear. On the bright side we also get a new enemy:

Hello handsome!

Meet the adjutants; a Reaper-like enemy said to originate from beyond the Omega 4 Relay, created by Cerberus. Why am I not astounded that those terrorists would make them since they were desperate as hell to get their hands on Reaper tech? Now they have it, and these creatures can easily infect other species and turn them into another adjutant. The adjutants kept Aria busy in order for Cerberus to take Omega, but shortly after that they lost control of the hostile Reaper-like species and they have been infecting anyone they encounter ever since.

The adjutants made a great debut entry during the game and at first I was surprised they appeared under the Cerberus codex rather than Reaper. I always aim for those jelly-like balls on their heads and backs when I fight them. They’ll still pretty tough though, especially when combined with Cerberus troops at the end of the DLC.

I also like doing the little side quests in this DLC; such as where the elcor Harrot asks you to find Aria’s couch that was tossed out and eventually you come across the clinic in the slums where Mordin used to work. Unfortunately I couldn’t tell it was the clinic, there were no similarities I saw there that made me think “Oh this is where you recruit Mordin!”

I was disappointed when Nyreen sacrificed herself to give Aria a clear path into Afterlife. I mean, in a DLC there’s often one character who betrays you and dies as a result, or if they don’t betray you, they still die, and that was the case with Nyreen. That sucks because I really liked her.

Once we’re inside Afterlife, I find myself running around the room deactivating the booby trap Aria fell into before I even worry about the enemies. I might have to change that strategy if I were to play this game on a higher difficulty though. 

What I really admire about Petrovsky is he’s willing to throw everything he has to stop Aria like I said earlier in this article. But when Shepard and Aria finally manage to defeat all his forces to reach him, he suddenly orders all his remaining soldiers to cease fire and surrenders. Well you better surrender sir, because we beat you fair and square! I was expecting him to die but hey at least we convince Aria to spare him now that he wants to turn himself in.

We also get his chess set after beating the DLC which is a nice little bonus decoration in our cabin; I still miss having that weird Prothean relic from the 2nd game but oh well.

And that concludes the Omega ramble, only one more DLC ramble left!

-Emily