1 Response

1. Glazius Says:

   Storyline
   Design
   Gameplay
   Detail

   @GlaziusF

   Running on an ice/axe tank, diff 2. I may regret that.

   Did you know there’s like half a dozen missions titled “the four horsemen”?

   —

   You know, just to get this out of the way, I don’t get this story. Tyrant’s trying to invade our dimension! There’s an EB in every mission! LEVELS 10-14!

   10-14 are when you start taking down the bosses of minor gangs and investigating some of the groups you’ll fight the leaders of at 20. Not when you save this entire dimension from evil mirror Statesman.

   Ah, the Vazhilok pollutant plot.

   …but exactly how am I supposed to know that a corpse used to have a water department ID badge? There are LOTS of corpses that don’t have water department ID badges on them.

   So, I have to find the right body, backtrack to fight a boss, then go back to the boss room to fight another boss.

   Ah, the first of five Five Parts Of Arbitrary.

   —

   A… a village in Oranbega? Oranbega is a giant sprawling subterranean city! That’s like saying “a village in Manhattan”, there’s no place for it to be.

   You can call it “a small section of the Oranbega caves” or something.

   It could have been something light in that display case, yes. Or it could have been something heavily that was magically levitating, as magic things tend to do!

   So this guy can teleport out and he’s already got the thing I was trying to stop him from getting.

   …why am I fighting him, again? Honest question, here. It doesn’t seem to even slow him down any.

   Also, you don’t need multiple patrols saying the same thing.

   —

   Multiple patrols saying the same thing here, too. On entrance, even. (also street punks don’t really say “fellow”)

   …and can I get a little variety on the decoy chest messages, too?

   Okay! Now I have what this guy was trying to find!

   …why am I not just bailing? If he can’t get it his portal won’t be complete.

   —

   Okay, okay, wait a second. This guy is trying to open a portal from Praetorian Earth to this one that is going to lead to the entire planet being slaughtered and/or enslaved. (I don’t know if Alpha has told me this yet but it’s in Omega’s description every dang time I fight him.)

   And an office building is more important than this?

   …yes. Apparently it is. So much so that I just GIVE UP THE THING THAT CAN SAVE THE PLANET.

   …how do I know Sam Wincott keeps a badge of honor in his locker? And that he took it to work today?

   Ah, I see. But I found the glowie before I sprung him.

   You know, the same boss fight over and over again just gets kinda boring after I’ve seen him maybe twice.

   —

   Clockwork at Portal Corp. The guys who study Rularuu for a living. Um. One of the guys broadcasting for a farm team could probably knock them over with his pinky, but okay…

   Okay! I have the last artifact! Now this guy can’t open a portal over to this side!

   Why am I even bothering to do anything else in this lab?

   …why are the Clockwork building portal machines? How do the Clockwork even know how to build portal machines? Wouldn’t they have done this already so Clocky can get a pep talk from his world-conquering other self?

   …having scooped up all but one of the crates, the HUD text tells me I have to find the etched clockwork piece. But… I already have it.

   …okay, they’re not building portal machines. They’re tricking me into destroying them to make their job easier.

   And picking my damn pocket.

   So let’s see, thus far I’ve put the entire world in mortal danger THREE TIMES, and I had no choice in any of them.

   …and apparently this last time IT TOOK. The one thing I wasn’t supposed to do under any circumstances JUST FREAKING HAPPENED.

   Gee, exit text, do you think I’ve forgotten about the bit of fingerpointing you did after the first mission? Eesh.

   —

   Storyline - *. I want to go negative here. I understand this is a setup for a larger arc, but I just oopsed my way into DOOMING THE ENTIRE WORLD. THREE TIMES. Most people can only manage once and they have to TRY even then!

   Design - ***. The custom is nice. But a lot of times I passed Cavatina’s position on the map by the time I dug up the glowie that was supposed to spawn him and I had to backtrack. For the first four missions can’t he just start out on the map?

   Gameplay - ***. Fighting the same two bosses mission after mission after mission just gets boring.

   Detail - *. Omega has what I assume is his default description in the first mission. Reading it there ruined the rest of the story.

   Overall - *. Not an average, since I would really rate story and detail lower than 1 if I could. Detail because I ruined the plot of the arc for myself in the first mission just by checking somebody’s description. Story because I have to be dumb enough to doom the world multiple times for it to work.

   Posted on June 11th, 2009 at 8:46 pm