2 Responses

1. PoptartsNinja Says:

   Storyline
   Design
   Gameplay
   Detail

   Storyline:
   Overall, it’s solid. An army of crazy RoboCops is arresting everyone and turning them into RoboCops as well. However, I feel this storyline doesn’t have a good reason to be morally neutral–it really should be a heroic arc. Standing against an evil corporation that everyone else is too afraid to speak out against is a heroic thing to do.

   I’m going to go ahead and give the storyline a solid 5. It’s basic, but it’s there–it could use some fleshing out, but there’s nothing that makes me roll my eyes or cringe, so I feel comfortable giving full points for the story.

   Design:
   The custom enemies were extremely well designed. They were homogenous, but had enough visual distinction to tell the basic X29s from the X29 random letter variant names. The X29 random letter variant names could use a little more visual distinction to set them apart, however.

   The rest of the enemies consisted of renamed PPD drones (in mission 1), renamed and recolored Malta, and renamed and recolored Knives of Artemis. Because of this, I really don’t think this arc has any reason to be a 1-54, it really should be a 30/35-54 with a bit of a ramp-up in difficulty. The composition of the enemy groups isn’t annoying (no gunslingers or sappers), but between X29 variants with gravity control, illusion control, and radiation debuffs I really think a solo lowbie would find this arc frustratingly difficult (if not impossible), and unfortunately this is what makes me drop two stars off the design score.

   Gameplay:
   I played on +0/0 no bosses no AVs to get a feel for how ‘low-level friendly’ this arc really is. As I said above, I really feel it has no business being a 1-54 arc; it’d be far more solid if it picked a level range and balanced for that range. At level 50, the enemies were a tad too easy; but at level 1 this arc would likely be impossible.

   Mission 1:
   Mission one was full of X29s and renamed PPD drones. To be frank, having three or four claws/energy blast lieutenants run up and do the same move simultaneously was visually appropriate but pretty boring since they aren’t especially threatening.

   The variant name lieutenants were a bit trickier, since two were controllers and one had at least one power from Radiation Emission (I’ve come to dislike debuffs in AE on principle, but you don’t lose any points for it). You do lose points for the ‘hunt the hostages’ in an outdoor map. This is only mitigated slightly because the random number generator decided to put all four of them in the park. I can live with that, so mission 1 I give 3 stars for gameplay.

   Mission 2:
   Aside from a backtracking issue that was my own fault (I took a wrong turn and missed the computer), this mission was pretty solid. The knives and malta added enough variety to the new X29 Recruits that the fights became a bit more entertaining. This mission gets a full 5 stars.

   Mission 3:
   Had an ally. I normally hate allies, because they tend to be overpowered slaughter-machines, but this one was a lieutenant–which is, in my opinion, the perfect ’strength’ for an NPC ally to be (strong enough to contribute, weak enough to go down like a chump). As a capstone mission, this one did a good job resolving the story, although more could be done with Sister Styx. Perhaps hidden clues in mission one or two that imply she’s got an ulterior motive or is trying to sabotage the project or is being paid to make cyborgs or something. Mission 3 got a solid 4 stars, although the knives/malta combo was getting a bit boring towards the end since there is very little variety in the mobs chosen and nothing new or interesting backing them up.

   Detail:
   Every mob had a description, but it was usually only a sentence long. Most of the lieutenants, especially in the first mission, had nearly identical names which hurts a bit, but isn’t too annoying. I’d honestly suggest simply dropping the X29 Letter Soup from the names of the ’special’ X29s. It doesn’t add anything, but makes it more difficult to tell at a glance that they’re supposed to be something special.

   My only other petty annoyance is that my character is referred to by his Archetype on two occasions. I personally feel that’s an unnecessary bit of fourth-wall breaking, but it’s a minor nitpick at best. It’d probably better to replace $archetype with $name, though, since I can’t recall a single point where the contact refers to the player’s character by name.

   I didn’t catch any spelling or grammar errors (I wasn’t looking too hard), and everything was clear and readable–but probably just a bit too brief. A little more detail / meat would go a long way towards making the missions a bit more interesting, but what’s there already, although a bit lacking, is solid; so detail gets 4 stars as well.

   Posted on August 1st, 2010 at 11:27 am

2. Rigel Kent Says:

   Thanks for the review! Your feedback’s given me some great ideas for improving the arc.

   One quick note to low level players: Malta and Knives of Artemis will only appear at mission level 41 or higher. Easier enemies take their place at level 40 and below.

   Posted on August 10th, 2010 at 7:22 pm