6 Responses

1. @Unregistered Says:

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   Pretty fun take on the Something Society with some mandatory (by genre) plot twists that make use of new AE capabilities. Unfortunately I’m not generation Z so I didn’t find the old guy complaing about twitter, facebook and starbucks references funny, mostly got a “huh?” from me. Oh…the ubermenschen should have blond hair and have blue eyes.

   Posted on May 24th, 2010 at 7:25 am

2. @gcarlisle Says:

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   I used this for an online gaming event. It was fun. The first two missions were really short but the rest were just right. Good for all levels. Great mission to have fun with your friends with.

   Posted on June 8th, 2010 at 2:36 pm

3. Nick Says:

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   Awesome mission, especially if you are a fan of golden age superhero comics. Great stuff.

   Posted on July 8th, 2010 at 9:06 am

4. PW Says:

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   A fun Golden Age romp. Loved the way Firecracker Kid is characterized, and the back story of the Paragon Society. I felt the ending could be a little stronger (the last mission felt a little tacked-on to me) and I had some quibbles with some of the plot logic, but overall it was pretty cool.

   Posted on July 29th, 2010 at 10:28 am

5. Glazius Says:

   Storyline
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   @GlaziusF (344596)

   Running this on a mid-40s ice/axe tanker, +0/x2 with bosses on.

   —

   Pff. Okay, so my contact doesn’t have any patience for these modern-day heroes who fly to stop bank jobs instead of going uphill in the snow both ways.

   Modern courtesy, Gramps. I don’t know how they did it back in your day but these days us heroes like to know what you know about the opposition before we take the mission on. You’re not being charged by the word anymore.

   But anyway, off to reclaim some ancient lost knowledge or something. Oh hey. The actual bunker map! Good opener.

   Anyway, the 5th Column are here trying to wreck things. Including the lockbox. Which they’ve already done.

   —

   Oh boy, microfilm! Just like one of them double-naught spies! Anyway, we’re off looking for leads in a 5th base. Apparently my contact’s got a descendant in this generation of heroes, and I should keep things close to my chest.

   Oh. Not descendent. Godson. That’s actually kind of nice.

   Anyway, Sherman’s clue should probably come before the one from the boss he chains into (and this map is setup kinda free-roaming, you may want to look into a more linear one) but we have the data. …well, one copy of it, anyway. Maybe.

   —

   Ah. Looks like the 5th have found an old lab of theirs in that information, and they’re restarting some terrible experiment that the old Paragon Society put to rest.

   Ah. Cloning. Looks like Master D is coming back!

   (Also wow, there’s a big hitbox on them cloning tubes. I popped Reveal next to one, and whoa.)

   An EB is here, boasting about taking Sherman down. While I keep the energy absorption running off his minions he can’t really dent me.

   Get some more evidence from the end room… including a grim memento of Sherman. Ouch.

   —

   Oh. Sherman was actually a prototype Aryan superman. …I don’t remember him being blonde, though. Maybe I just lost his hair in all the invuln sparkles.

   Anyhow, my contact apparently tried to break this to him gently, but he decided to forcefully repudiate his ancestry and got his face broken for it. I don’t feel too bad about not being let in on it, since it’s a family affair.

   Sherman’s in 5th column duds and got himself a different tank name, and asks to be led back to some kind of mind machine. You can actually do that nowadays.

   Though I suppose it’s just as well, as he gets himself stuck in a plasma emitter halfway up the lab. He does work free after a long while.

   Ah. The boss is an actual Aryan with lightning powers, who gets Sherman to obey his programming. I let him pound on the ice plating for a while while I fish out the deactivator.

   Looking over, it looks like the boss sent some info back to… the Wolves’ Den? Sounds like Striga, but that’s a Council stronghold.

   —

   Anyway, we’ve found the base, and it’s time to go shut down the cloning facility. Looks like they’ve already started up production.

   Unfortunately, the new master race isn’t much match for their prototype, and a giant Arachnoid with a plasma axe.

   The end boss is a credible clone of Sherman with about an order of magnitude less muscle mass and a serviceable Iron Cross-looking uniform. I did a double take when I caught a glimpse of the chest logo, have to admit. Looking through the admittedly meager selection, there’s Arachnos and Council but no 5th, though you might be able to get a good fake going with some of the skull options if you wanted to take a run at it. Not a major priority, of course.

   He pulls in an ambush but they’re more fodder for the blue bar and the ice plates. (good thing, too, I was running low) And then he drops. As my contact says: another reminder that the people who change the world are made, not born.

   —

   Storyline - ****. About my only significant quibble with this story is how the Firecracker Kid fobs off responsibility for Sherman’s actions on me when he’s compromised the kid himself. Not just because it’s misplaced but because it sets up my contact as a deliberate liar rather than an absentminded and/or cantankerous old man.

   I can understand his reasons and that mutes the blow a little bit, but it’s problematic when your only reliable source of information becomes unreliable. It’s perfectly in keeping with the character to fob off blame reflexively, but if he is having second thoughts maybe his lack of rancor could be a little foreshadowing.

   Design - ****. It’s hard to get a 5th Column cave map that actually has a clear progression from front through middle to rear. Especially one without the DOOM SPA. I wouldn’t suggest being meticulous in the map choice so much? Just try not to use chained objectives on a 5th/Council cave map unless the plot strictly demands it.

   Speaking of chained objectives, considering how the Panzer mission shakes out a point-to-point escort probably won’t be feasible, even though his rescue line leads me to expect one. I’m not sure if that’s anything that needs to be or could be handled necessarily. Maybe there’s a “lead to” objective to a machine that Blitzkrieg’s forces have removed the important components from?

   The new group does kind of tend to all run together, visually, but there aren’t any particularly notable threats (debuffers/controllers) so it’s not such a bad thing. I mean, they are all clones, after all.

   Speaking of clones, I’m still wondering why Sherman isn’t a blue-eyed blondie. I guess this fits his background as an early prototype - he certainly doesn’t have any reason to be using hair dye or contacts.

   Gameplay - *****. Nothing too unreasonable here. Mostly stock mobs and some interesting custom fights. One custom EB with help. There are chains but they generally don’t require a lot of backtracking aside from the first 5th Column map.

   Detail - ****. Something I haven’t seen before is that every mission’s clues are color-coded. It certainly helps segregate them. You can also drag-and-drop the mission objectives around to change the order clues show up in — I find it helpful to structure the clues in the order they’re supposed to be encountered.

   One thing I didn’t like, though, is that for all the effort that’s done to give the contact a distinct voice and personality the elite boss warnings still show up in jarring red at the end of the briefing. Kind of ruins the feel you had going. I’d keep the warning color but work out a way to have the contact give the warning. Maybe rant about how the heroes these days are all running around looking for teams when back in the day you could fight off Nazis with one hero and one kid with a dream.

   Overall - *****. While I may have some bones to pick with individual aspects of this arc, as a whole the impression’s quite favorable. It’s the sort of cross-generational plot all these Johnny-come-lately villain groups can’t sell very well at all, and the secret is more more elaborate and involving than the simple MacGuffin I expected going in.

   Posted on March 17th, 2011 at 8:59 pm

6. Wrong Number Says:

   Check out Bubbawheat’s excellent promo video for this arc.

   http://www.youtube.com/user/Bubbawheat#p/u/12/Ljv8ip0yP4Y

   Posted on July 27th, 2011 at 5:43 pm