2 Responses

1. Glazius Says:

   Storyline
   Design
   Gameplay
   Detail

   @GlaziusF

   Running this on a low-40s DB/Fire brute. Diff 2, so bosses is bosses. Mission Engineer is so close now.

   —

   NO ONE will be admitted during the THRILLING contact scene!

   …the army. Oh, I have bad omens about this map.

   Oh good! It’s not red Atlas Park with a million low walls and no minimap!

   It’s the Galaxy-like map with the parking garage. The boss is modestly easy to find on these, and nice work on the green helmets, even if they are three to a pack.

   —

   Mysterious alien radiation! Is there nothing you can’t make grow to tremendous sizes, or at least place distressingly close to the camera lens?

   Hmm. “2 civilians to save, rescue last civilian”? Somethin’ wrong there.

   …why are the giant ants using sonic attacks? Ants don’t even have lungs! (you might be able to work it if you gave them wings and called it vibrations or something)

   Nice work on giving the queen a non-mammalian model, though. I wasn’t expecting an EB around now but it’s nothing I didn’t have the insps for.

   —

   Welp, normal mission in Croatoa i WHY HELLO THERE OPTIONAL BOSSES! Man, those things blend right into the trees.

   The brekable objects are easy enough to find though, important in a map like this.

   …man, if it ain’t the reds in these movies, it’s the greens.

   Little problem at the end where a destructible spawns right in front of a giant monster, but some tactical Sir Robin and I manage to get enough time alone with it to destroy it.

   —

   …uh, whoa.

   Energy Drain takes off like half the blue bar regardless of rank. And it’s autohit. Having two minions pop it when I go in to melee with them, as you do, means I’m basically tapped out.

   …and there’s a jail.

   And there are four patrols that somehow all found their way INTO the jail.

   Fortunately after half a dozen deaths I don’t show up behind doors anymore.

   Voltaic Sentinel is its own tiny permasapper, and Short Circuit is another end bar killer.

   Dying because you have no end to do anything and are getting permajuggled in a corner by force bolt is ten kinds of frustrating.

   And it happens four times. BECAUSE AIM HITS THROUGH LUCKS.

   So that’s forty kinds of frustrating. That’s as many as four tens. And that’s horrible.

   …and the last glowie spawns in a wall. Peachy.

   —

   Well, I’m reviewing anyway, because it’s late and I haven’t the time to restart this.

   Storyline - *****. Even though I didn’t see how this ended, it’s a great pastiche of various B-movie plots, all joined together with everyone’s favorite time-traveling alien National Socialist vampires.

   Design - ****. Great visual work on the customs, though the sonic bugs seem a little off and dodging around a giant monster standing right on top of a destructible objective probably wasn’t in the original parameters.

   Gameplay - *. Not for the bug. For the terrible, terrible Martians. Whenever any of the minions touched me they’d fire off Energy Drain, which is half my blue bar unavoidably gone. The lieuts popped aim, dropped a sentinel, and spammed elec powers. I was helpless to do anything as I died, over and over and over and over. And don’t even get me started on the general who tanks your recovery rate AND base defense. It’s like fighting a group of nothing but Malta Sappers except they can deal real damage as well.

   Detail - ****. The customs and the bosses really needed more overblown descriptions, to fit with the tenor of the arc. As it was they were pretty pedestrian.

   Overall - ***. I was having a lot of fun with this arc and its cheesy B-Movie aesthetic, but the Martians proceeded to experiment on that fun in unspeakable ways and it became a rampaging monster that I could only escape because it got stuck in a wall.

   Posted on June 8th, 2009 at 9:30 pm

2. Train Wreck Says:

   Thanks for the review. I have, since the review, gone back and scaled down the end drain on the minions and lts. So they should be far less annoying now.

   As far as the other stuff that happened, I can honestly say I’ve never seen any of the bugs you encountered during multiple plays of the arc… how annoying.

   Thanks again for taking the time to review and play the arc.

   -TW

   Posted on June 17th, 2009 at 12:22 pm