1 Response

1. Glazius Says:

   Storyline
   Design
   Gameplay
   Detail

   @GlaziusF

   It’s rereview time! Running this on a low 40s sonic/rad defender with a decent solo build. Even level, no extra heroes, no AVs all bosses FINAL DESTINATION

   —

   M1: Some grammar strangeness in the opening briefing. The opening text has two paragraphs crammed together (the second one starts “obviously, we can’t let this sort of research”) when there should be a blank line between ‘em, and it looks like you went and did some grammar cleanup puttin’ emdashes in for commas but forgot to take a couple of ‘em out. Just keep an eye out for stray punctuation.

   M1: Agh! Death arena! Can you pick map without death arena pretty please? Not that it matters for completing this particular map but still.

   M1: “It must not be allowed to fall into the hands of Crey and be used to fuel their dastardly plots.” This from a guy who was a Crey scientist until Internal Affairs looked at him funny. I mean, we the players know Crey never met a puppy it didn’t kick and then strip for parts to use in the new Puppagon Protectors toy line, but to its own employees it can put up a decent front of LEGITIMATE BUSINESS. …oh, right, checked the briefing again. Eriksson is Janet’s inside man. Might be nice to have a mention of his nature in the opening popup as I glossed over it.

   M2: Okay, “warning — timed mission” sounds really off. Especially since Janet is doing something with what is likely a known fixed duration (shutting off power), she can just spell the time limit out in large red friendly letters. Or, y’know, normal-sized ones.

   M2: Even though you can put logs in the correct order no matter what order you added the objectives in now (grab the icon, drag and drop) I’d still like an entry number in the logs, if you’ve got the space for a little “Entry 52:” prelude.

   M2: I don’t think you need to do any kind of trickery that indicates the boss here is speaking Russian. Just have him speaking in English and mentioning he’ll be glad when deep cover is over and he can speak the proper mother tongue.

   M3: . . . I just had the most terrible idea. It’s a shame you can’t go ALL the way with it as the Winter Horde isn’t tintable. The ice cream machines are still escorted by the same models, but they’re “Frosted Freaks” who have decided to hang out in the subzero spray too long and been covered in ice that they rip off and throw at you. (all the way would involve chocolate frosted freaks, strawberry frosted freaks, pistachio frosted freaks…)

   M3: That aside, new smaller map is much better.

   M4: The chaining works much better, mostly because it isn’t there. But I run into everything in just about the right order anyway, so even though Aurora mentions Igor and Molotov I’ll let ‘em slide. …also, was this map in better repair the last time I was here?

   M4: Hmm. I could swear I heard the actual Paragon Protector name bandied about over the course of the arc. The final debrief shouldn’t be talking about it like it’s something mysterious.

   M*: Careful with your verb tenses in the souvenir. You’re talking about past tense, and the verb “to have” should always be conjugated “had”.

   —

   Storyline - *****. It was last time and this time there’s nothing to ruin it.

   Design - *****. End boss is much less with the stacked slows, and she doesn’t show up out of nowhere on yer head either.

   Gameplay - *****. New smaller outdoor map is much better.

   Detail - ****. The revision of the arc left a little detritus behind. I think I’ve caught most of it in this rereview.

   Overall - *****. Much Improved.

   ---

   (Glazius’s Original Review pasted here for reference. -El)

   @GlaziusF

   Alright, let’s see how soloable this is. Level 37 ice/sound controller, running on diff 3 for the real boss fights.

   —

   Oh boy, it’s Evil Corp Crey!

   A method of rapidly producing superhumans? You mean besides the Paragon Protectors they have running? Okay, maybe this is “before” we know about the clone lab and Invisible Falcon and all.

   So the security chief had one too many HR seminars about the dangers of passive aggression and now mistakes it for the real thing? Is that what I’m seeing here?

   Ah, I kid because I love.

   Some nice distracto glowies in here and the real prize is pretty nice too.

   So this IS before the Paragon Protectors were outed. Okay.

   —

   Ooh. It’s nice to get the city on my side.

   But this is screaming for a timed mission here.

   …sweet Christmas that’s a giant navbar crammed full of a lot of text. You know how to condense disparate objectives into a single plural - you did it in the first mission. Really it needs to be done here too.

   Huh. Interesting. He thinks we’re working with one of Crey’s rogue projects.

   They found ancient buried cryopods and started researching. Well within the scope of Crey.

   Ohhhh, this is gonna be some cheese. I’m getting Fallout vibes, just in the retroculture.

   Would you like some irony? This character’s a Nuclear 90 organic snocone machine. Her name is “Snowcone IX”, which means what you think it does.

   —

   Ahaha, oh dang. WHEN RETRO FOODIES KILL.

   Okay, let’s see where this goes.

   …Royal Overlook. I dislike this map. There’s just so much territory to cover and so many weird alcoves to hide things. 8 of ‘em is pushing it.

   Feel free to get all Don Martin with the sound effects. It’s kind of weird to see sensible words coming from an inanimate object.

   Aaaand 40 minutes later the last machine goes down. That was just an energy sapping mission. So much running. So much rezzing Freakshow.

   —

   Time to bust a bunker, then.

   Ah, the ol’ atom bomb countdown. I feel like one a’ them double-naught spies.

   The prole sword is pretty hilarious.

   But I have to ask, is there any reason the last two missions are locked to higher levels? If you have guest captives they don’t have to dictate the level of the mission.

   The first two bosses are pretty interesting mixes to contain and drop, but the final room is so small that end end EB aggros onto me as soon as the collection’s complete.

   Ice control/Ice armor. That’s a mix that’ll slow you down to a ridiculous degree if you get close into it and can’t step away because you’re moving too slow.

   Shivan charge, away! And I’m still almost wiped when my pets turn on me due to Arctic Air going off, but we all survive… somehow. Really given how much slow you’re pitching at people with ice control’s targeted powers you may want to ignore Arctic Air and consider a more “pure defense” armor set like energy armor. Nothing like staring at multiple bars full of tiny, tiny icons.

   …um. Wow. Thanks for beating most of the salient plot points with a misshapen hammer, final debriefing. I know what I just did! I WAS THERE! You don’t have to be all “oh my who expected the Red Menace wasn’t the cold war tragic”, I heard ‘em rant while they got whittled down! And Russia was kind enough to provide intel on these yahoos so they’re probably over the Cold War, just a little!

   I mean, okay, maybe it’s a weird parodically-intended cheeseball moralization, but the tone is just off-putting.

   —

   Storyline - ****. I really hate to do this, but that final debrief was a record scratch at the end of a smooth, smooth mixtape. Peeling back the paint and calling out the events in the arc for being nonsensical and unexpected, even if they WERE nonsensical and unexpected, disperses the comfortable fog of retro camp, revealing a jagged abyss of broken contrivances.

   Design - ****. Needs an end map where the final boss isn’t going to spawn standing on your shoulders, and a final boss who’s a little less inclined to make you stare at your power bar for half a minute while things start recharging. The customs are nice, even if the two baseline robot minions are a bit superficially similar. And there’s a nice variety of objectives, though they often crowded out the navbar. The glowies in mission 2 can all stand to be condensed and the nav text in mission 3 could stand to be a bit less verbose.

   Gameplay - ***. That end boss and the interminable hunt for converted soft-serve machines are the major drags here.

   Detail - *****. The detail was pretty much top-notch all the way round, though.

   Overall - ****. A less introspective debriefing and a less sprawling outdoor map would both be big helps here, and the final boss’s powers and spawn mechanism would benefit from some tweaks as well. But overall this is a good piece of campy superhero action.

   Posted on September 24th, 2009 at 7:35 pm