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1. Glazius Says:

   Storyline
   Design
   Gameplay
   Detail

   @GlaziusF

   Running this one on a high-40s DB/Fire brute, +1/x2 with bosses on.

   —

   Getting gene splicing done, no matter the cost. What, he sends squads into the miniaturizer to pull the strands together?

   The doctor’s terrible accent darts between “dat” and “zat”. Maybe pick one?

   Anyway, it’s off to get the Hamidon from the tank brigade. I hope Crey higher levels get a little more exciting in the future.

   Some glowies to click, some computers to detonate, and some dirt to make visible.

   Oh, Longbow shell casings. That’d make a good opening clue.

   The Hamidon sample is trying to tell me something. What’s that, boy? All other life must be devoured? Oh, that’s so precious.

   The doctor says “Thank you” in not so much cordiality.

   —

   And now to abduct the three cutest puppies in the world. Let’s see what this office looks like…

   Oh. ‘nother tech lab.

   Well, these may very well be the cutest puppies in the world, there’s no way to tell. But wow, nothin’ but AR customs can still wreck a man. …were these AR customs? I saw a maneuvers-type aua so they may just be regular private security, but they stayed at range and did some terrible cascading defense debuffs.

   Oh. The techs’ description says they’re going to be human subjects. The impression I got from the briefing was that they were going to be “recruited” to take care of the animals until my contact needed them.

   The hero-type who tries to stop me warns me I’m working for an insane madman. …well duh? I wonder how he knew my contact would be aiming for a zoo next. Is this just the sort of thing he does all the time?

   —

   And predictably things have gone awry and I’m rounding up the escaped test subjects.

   So whadda we got down here? We got clawfighter cheetahs, superstrength wolves, and electro eels. S’awright. Maybe there’ll be an EB gator or somewhat.

   Doesn’t seem so.

   High Hope warns me again that he’s not going to stop. What kind of mad doctor stops just because of a little thing like the experiments escaping?

   —

   …well, High Hope didn’t shoot me last time, but it doesn’t seem like I have any real objections to getting him out of the way? Apparently heinous genetic experimentation is one thing, but framing a dude is where I draw the line.

   So, off I go.

   …wait, wait. I take the charges from a recycling bin, where apparently someone has misfiled them? That doesn’t say “misfiled” to me, more like “someone threw them away”.

   And I’m keeping the list to use for blackmail. Because framing is only an intolerable moral offense when somebody else does it.

   —

   So my contact’s running off to turn babies into super soldiers. Well, it’s a more sensible breakpoint than framing some random dude, at least.

   Oh, the asylum again? I’ll offer the same commentary I have for everybody: there are some early Vahzilok missions where they’re trying to take doctors from a hospital, and it’s just the blue-carpeted office. The blue-carpeted office is fine to use for a hospital - the asylum map is just a version with way, way more geometry for you to get hung up on.

   For some reason he immediately laments his failure as I start breaking him down. I understand it’s union rules at this point to reveal your entire plan but I could pretty much guess.

   Kinda weird he’s not planning to kill the kids, though, just breed one big happy master animaloid race family.

   And that’s it. Poor little baby is sad that he got his evil plan one-upped and runs off to cry to Reichsman.

   —

   Storyline - **. Kidnapping innocent people, putting them through the genetic wringer, and killing the results when they get uppity is apparently perfectly fine. But a frame job? That’s beyond the pale? I have a weird moral compass.

   There are a couple ways to go with this: murdering the escaped experiments is the turning point, so we decide to screw up the frame job. Or kidnapping babies is the turning point and the doc fills us in on the plan, sending us to frame High Hope while he gets into position.

   For his part, High Hope shows up in the second mission with nigh-on precognitive knowledge of who ordered the raid and what their ultimate plans are. There isn’t really any explanation provided for how he came by this information; he just has it.

   Design - ***. The asylum, while a questionable choice for a last map, doesn’t have any objectives that are particularly irritating to be accomplished in an asylum. The police station is a bit of a bad choice for the fourth map - it’s supposed to be the big moral tipping point, but apart from the question of worthiness as a tipping point, it also takes just about no time to actually complete, which doesn’t mesh well with what we do being all that important.

   But the animal-people have reasonable powers and distinctive designs, making use of some of the new patterns to very good effect.

   Gameplay - ****. Some of the enhanced perception armors on the animal-people lead to giant pileups in the sewer maps. But they’re using pretty standard damage types so that’s not too bad. The private security seem to be largely composed of AR customs, which means they never voluntarily clump up, and they cascade defense debuffs (I was sitting at -100% base defense at several points) so you may want to fold in some mace-nightstick types.

   Detail - ****. Clues, descriptions, and dialogue paint a pretty clear picture of what’s going on here. My contact is a bit tight-lipped about what he’s doing up until the end, but that’s to be expected. My issue is more that what’s going on doesn’t make much sense than that it isn’t presented sensibly..

   Overall - ***. An arc with some decently-designed genetic monstrosities to wrangle and a decent concept: science going too far. But the “moral choice” that takes place in a mission much shorter than the rest of the arc, making it seem unimportant, and the initial antagonist has an inexplicable knowledge of what’s really going on here.

   Posted on October 16th, 2010 at 9:22 pm