4 Responses

1. Glazius Says:

   Storyline
   Design
   Gameplay
   Detail

   @GlaziusF

   Running this on a low-40s It Ain’t Me/No Senator’s Son, er, ice/axe tanker, +0 x2 with bosses on.

   —

   Well.

   This is an interesting start. Hello, amnesia protagonist, it’s nice to be you.

   Malta. They seem hostile. Then, they seem unconscious.

   Up ahead, the guy who saved me. His backstory is tangy, with hints of a fine aged Captain America, but as an amnesia protagonist I probably shouldn’t know too much about him.

   Another guy, War Shaman, with another backstory I probably shouldn’t know.

   Beachhead is 19, War Shaman is 26, I am apparently 37.

   Lot of missing numbers there. Ominous.

   Deeper in I meet Professor Improbable (subject 33) and Corona (subject 23). All of them seem to be just brawlers, unless I’m missing something.

   After the base leader goes down Beachhead spills some more of the beans. Looks like this is gonna be a regular Left 4 Lab Rats, or something to that effect.

   The briefing is nice. I wonder who’s going to die first. At least that seems to be the way this is going.

   —

   Oh. Now it’s a flashback. Amnesia Protagonist’s best friend.

   Looks like this is the inside of a conditioning simulator. I easily dispatch the vile Nazis, but now I’ve got World War II following me around. Don’t you hate when that happens?

   And now the Reds. Now there are two wars on my shoulders.

   And an invasion. I do like the propaganda, but I wonder why they’re following me.

   …oh. That’s why.

   Well, while I appreciate what you’re trying to go for here? The problem with an enemy with no attack powers is that it bolts very, very easily. Trying to chase the big sack of hit points up and down the corridors with the crate on was probably the opposite of what you intended here — maybe just giving him the Robotics laser rifle and one attack with it would be enough. After all, he does talk about me bowing down at his feet, and some of the laser rifles look impressively sci-fi.

   So we’re going to split into two teams. Team A will be the experienced SEAL and the hero with powers. Team B will be three people who may never have held guns before.

   Uh.

   Well, this would make sense if Beachhead were actually worried that I’d been brainwashed, and as none of the others object, perhaps this is actually the case.

   —

   Anyway! Blowin’ up a generator in time-honored fashion.

   Mmm. Bad luck with some spawns puts two generators (and consequently two sappers) right next to each other. This is was it was like in the old days, all the time. Ah, memories.

   According to one file there’s still a brainwash victim in the base somewhere.

   According to another one, I’m not it. Dodged a bullet there.

   And I get some anti-super juice. Well, that’s nice.

   Interesting choice for the generator room. I would have picked the one with the big pillar in the middle surrounded by plasma jets, but this one’s nice too.

   Anyway, the dude just before me — some kind of fire controller, I think? — was turned. And now he’s down, complaining bitterly that heroes like himself can’t be trusted.

   I have to wonder if that epically low morale is a desired outcome or an unfortunate consequence.

   …we’re taking him with us? Beachhead, that never works. The zombie always wakes up and sabotages everything at the last second.

   —

   Hmm. Another flashback. This one promises to be grimmer.

   I can see I’m already beginning to see red. Wonder if I can fail this one? Let’s leave my bff Dr. Brainwash behind and scout around.

   Oh dang. He’s everywhere.

   Maybe he could mention the meteor in his opening briefing. Like, heroes crashed it down into Atlas in a show of force.

   It does show up whenever I try to lock onto an enemy, which presents a rather amusing image really.

   Well, what do you know? I can break the frame here. Poor little civilian program. It only wanted to do its job. Let’s see what’s opened up.

   Finally, a boss fight! He doesn’t do the giant hordes of clones thing this time, though, which is a pity.

   Well. The three effective noncoms have predictably gotten themselves in over their heads, and Beachhead is going to hold off pursuit as long as he can.

   Somehow I think I’ll be the only person getting out of this.

   —

   Well. I guess he stayed out in the open to catch the generator boom, unlike the others who were sheltered from the blast? Anyway, some of the others seem to have made it, so I guess it’s time to grab a sub.

   War Shaman doesn’t seem to understand predators very well, though. I mean, what are tiger stripes for?

   Oh hey. Dude’s alive and of normal limb count. I would not have predicted this. Anyway, I lead him back to a bend in the tunnel and dash off. Not letting a stray bullet ruin this.

   I find the lockdown code he was talking about by beating a boss. “Find” is a bit of a keyword for a glowie click, at least to me, so you might want to reword that to “take out the base cryptographer”.

   Like the justification for and reference to the Arachnos hangar with the Recluse video.

   I lift the lockdown… and O’Brien comes out to say goodbye. Aww. I’ll miss you too, you big silly. But my axe won’t.

   Mind control? I would not have predicted this. Fortunately I always cart around a break free or two for Architect purposes, and it does make sense if he’s an evil psychologist. Just a boss, though? I wouldn’t have minded an EB.

   —

   Storyline - ****. Interesting interleave of modestly head-trippy brainwash sessions with the main plot. I don’t mind the in medias res style much - the mission summary makes it pretty clear what I’m getting into.

   My one problem is Beachhead’s choice of the team split, basically putting the only two combat-capable people together even though there’s no guarantee on the strength of forces. This makes sense if he’s worried that I may be a Malta sleeper agent, but he never lets on about anything like that so it just looks like he makes a pretty big blunder and ultimately dies needlessly.

   Design - *****. Aside from the meteor, everything makes a decent amount of sense, and the meteor really only needs minimal justification to work. The hero designs, though they don’t get a lot of mileage, are pretty evocative, and using the nightvision goggles to unify the Malta-aligned customs is a nice touch as well.

   Gameplay - ****. The customs are reasonable to fight… when they fight. Chasing the doc all over the top floor of an Arachnos base in mission 2 was a real pain. I can understand why you don’t want him to have a lot of attack powers, but giving him just one wouldn’t compel him to run all over the place.

   I can understand why even the Malta missions are mostly empty - giant piles of gun drones are nobody’s friend - but when there’s a mission detail Malta’s Sappers come out to play a lot more.

   This isn’t to suggest you should take a different tack necessarily. But a bit of bad luck can bring Sappers together on a map, which is never a good time. I suppose it’d be worse if there were normal Malta spawns at the same time.

   Detail - *****. Everything I inspected seemed pretty reasonable, though you might want to retool the hero descriptions in the first mission when I’m still groggy. Make them more personal introductions, perhaps?

   I expect mission 4 would be satisfying no matter which way I decided to run with it, but I’m glad you put in a little more support for the way I chose to take it.

   Overall - *****. This arc isn’t for everybody. It’s definitely something you play for the experience more than for the XP. Missions 2 and 4 are almost purely atmospheric, and the remainder are against what for that map is reduced opposition. But it uses the tools of Mission Architect well to tell the story it sets out to tell.

   Posted on April 13th, 2010 at 9:24 pm

2. Zamuel Says:

   Storyline
   Design
   Gameplay
   Detail

   This is by far one of the best arcs in the system and really shows what can happen when we concentrate on the story more than the xp. Does a great job of setting up the atmosphere for the plot and makes you feel involved. It’s probably the one arc that I’d say deserves access to cutscene coding. The only nitpick would be changing the [spoiler name removed] from Electricity Assault to Electric Blast due to the amount of -recovery and even that makes perfect sense for the plot.

   Posted on April 22nd, 2010 at 10:01 am

3. @Unregistered Says:

   Storyline
   Design
   Gameplay
   Detail

   Good design. I dig the brainwashing missions. The rescued heroes are quite diverse and have their own personalities. Plot is a bit unsatisfactory though. The whole sacrifice thing feels kind of forced.

   Posted on May 23rd, 2010 at 8:05 am

4. PW Says:

   Storyline
   Design
   Gameplay
   Detail

   I thought this was a really neat story about escaping a secret Malta prison/lab. It had great characters and writing. Missions 2 and 4, and maybe 5, could use more action (i.e. fighting) and the ending could use a little work. The first transition to a flashback scene was a little awkward, but I thought alternating between current time and flashbacks to re-education was actually pretty cool; the transition just needs to be made a little more seamless.

   Posted on July 29th, 2010 at 10:38 am