Just like with Dragon Age: Origins, Bioware has included a DLC pack that introduces a new team member for your roleplaying adventures. This time we got Zaeed Massani, a scarred mercenary that sounds like that shark guy that stood in for Mrs. Puff in that one Spongebob episode. Is Zaeed a worthy adaptation to your team? Does he provide the fun gameplay the squadmates do?

Story

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Zaeed Massani sticks out among the Mass Effect 2 cast for being surprisingly underdeveloped. He doesn't have a recruitment mission, you just meet him on Omega and he joins him. He also doesn't have any dialogue conversations outside of his two missions. You can visit him in his cabin, but he only shoots you one liners. However, he gains a surprising personality during his loyalty mission, where you and him come to terms. The confrontations between Shepard and Zaeed have surprising depth, and tension. Zaeed also has an interesting tie to one of the minor villains in the game, which plays into the plot nicely. Zaeed also can play a dramatic role in the end run if you let him.

+Poignant loyalty mission

+Fits well into story

-No dialogue conversations

-No evolution outside of mission

Score: 25/40

Gameplay

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Zaeed plays like your standard soldier character. He doesn't really bring any true combat upgrades to the battle scene, his powers could easily be interchanged with that of Garrus or Jacob. His loyalty mission however is surprisingly fun to play, and ranks as one of the better ones out of the eleven possible quests.

+Fun loyalty mission

-Doesn't add much to gameplay

Score: 30/40

Graphics

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Zaeed himself is a strange character to look at. His two pupils are different colors from eachother which is an interesting idea but looks bizarre graphically. His scars also make his facial expressions seem stiff and and unnatural. However, the loyalty mission that accompanies Zaeed has a surprisingly interesting atmosphere and is fun to explore.

Score: 8/10

Sound

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Zaeed's voice acting is well done and interesting, but the voice actor they chose has an incredibly distinct voice and I can't help but be reminded of previous roles hes taken. However, this is a trivial complaint to more polished sound effects, powerful voice acting, and great score by Jack Wall.

+Good voice acting

+Polished Sound effects

+Jack Wall's score.

Score: 10/10

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Overall

Zaeed is a fun but flawed DLC. Like the Normandy Crash Site its free with a purchase of the game, so you might as well download him, and it does add a good solid hour of gameplay to the final product.

Aggregate/Overall Score: 73/100