1 Response

1. Glazius Says:

   Storyline
   Design
   Gameplay
   Detail

   @GlaziusF

   Running on a low 40s DB/Fire brute. Diff 2 so bosses is bosses. Mission Engineer. -_-

   —

   Wow, that’s long accept text. I generally don’t think it’s a good idea to get cute with accept text, just make it an objective statement of the goals and shunt any amusing dialogue to either the briefing or the “on mission acceptance” box afterward. That way team members can know what’s up too.

   I will say the premise is modestly interesting. Stealing crime gear from the criminals and all.

   Mmm. Traditionally there’s something you have to do in the last room - I’d suggest moving the gas itself to the back. As it is there are about three empty rooms at the back of the map I wind up on.

   —

   Hmm. You got room for a little inner monologue in the briefing for the second mission? As it is I was a bit clueless what I was doing running through the security offices… well, until I got inside, anyway.

   Once again, though, the objective shows up on the third floor of 5. Lot of nice little flavor bits in here, though, some stray arifacts to smash and civilians to kidnap. Managed to just run through everything and laugh at the puny guns.

   It may be because I just ran a mission on the relevant map yesterday, but I see what you’re going to pull here and I love it in advance.

   —

   Once again, you could probably move/copy/paraphrase the mission intro text to some “inner monologue” in the briefing.

   Any reason why this Council base isn’t, uh, a Council base?

   The sole objective shows up somewhere close to the back this time, and I guess it’s in a “back” location since this is the top floor.

   But… wait a second there, mission complete clue. Heroes? Emergency services? I thought this was the Rogue Isles. Have I been running around in Paragon City all this time? Nerva is the “good part” of the Rogue Isles, heavily patrolled by Longbow, so it wouldn’t be unreasonable for something to get moved there, but a lone villain with a presence in Paragon City enough for a stable base of operations seems a little much.

   Having the contact talk about the location of Maegwyn in the first briefing would help a little.

   —

   There! The briefing for the finale has the kind of internal monologue I was asking for!

   Heh. Yeah, this is about what I figured would happen.

   …you’d think “may grant HIDEOUS BERESERKER FRENZY” would have been mentioned on the tin of this stuff. Ah well, wouldn’t hardly be a challenge without SOME opposition.

   …aw no. What’s this I see on the second floor just upstairs from the elevator? After fighting a grand total of two spawns from this custom group?

   Why yes, it DOES appear to be what I came here for!

   I head up to the top floor anyway in search of something interesting, and yep, there’s a nice chemicaled boss, but all his pathetic mewling doesn’t change that this fight’s really kind of an anticlimax at this point.

   —

   Storyline - ****. It needs an explicit place to happen, a little more monologue since the contact’s in her own little junkie world, and this monologue would include not only your immediate mission plans but maybe some explanation of how you two met in the first place, because she knows your name. (though we may be getting contact descriptions in I15 that’d take care of that.)

   Design - ***. I was pretty impressed by the incidental spawns that made the first three missions feel populated. Can’t think why they vanished in the fourth. (you can have a “boss” fight with any element of a custom group, if you want to do setpieces consisting only of people) But when the vital thing that I need to do shows up maybe a third of the way into the mission, that just doesn’t make sense.

   Gameplay - ***. I never thought I’d have to mark down for being too easy, but if “frustratingly easy” made any sense at all it would apply here. In the first mission I found the necessary glowies all clumped in a hallway, figured one of them had to be a trap, fought all the way to the end of the mission looking for the real one, and nope, that was them. There’s a total of one boss-level fight in this arc and it’s optional. I want my 15 minutes of sweaty-palmed button-mashing boss fight before I call it a caper!

   Detail - *****. The contact’s very well-realized, there’s a nice variety of customs in the final battle, and most of the objectives have fitting if plain descriptions.

   Overall - ***. By the later levels of CoV characters either can handle bosses or run on a difficulty where they don’t encounter them. A fight with a normal boss now and then is exciting and perhaps a good marker of a significant objective or installation. As it is, even if this is a jar of water from the Well of the Furies, I think all I had to do to get it was click six glowies. It just doesn’t feel like it means anything.

   Posted on June 8th, 2009 at 7:20 pm