GlaziusF

@GlaziusF

Dropping a rereview on this one with a level 40 ice/axe tanker, diff 2 for EA swarms and boss fights. Not putting it in the usual update structure because there's no score for this one. For reasons I explain at the end I think that's the fairest thing I can do.

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Playing through this arc again, I'm reminded of why the rating really suffered in the end. Really, it felt like dying the death of a thousand cuts. A bunch of little tiny annoyances that all piled up on top of each other.

Part of it is that there's a fine line between being lighthearted and rolling on the Random Conversational Interjections Table. I look at something like "Why do I stand before you, asking for your help? Perhaps it is because I like her name. Perhaps I grew bored of standing in Atlas Park. Perhaps there is more to her than meets the eye. But I digress..." and I can't think of what it adds to anything. In fact it takes away. Ms. Liberty, by saying this, sets up the expectation in me that she's not sending me out for the obvious reason -- a child has been kidnapped and this threatens the future of Paragon City.

I wasn't questioning the premise until she started doing it, and now I can't stop. My stupid brain doesn't care that I'm not supposed to be taking this seriously, I can't stop, any more than you can stop thinking of a polar bear in a red convertible.

Weren't there heroes seven years ago? Why can't they stop this? Did time travelers do it in the first place?

"My sources tell me that she is hidden in an abandoned office.' That... doesn't narrow anything down. Is that where the time portal is going to drop me? Then put the mention of the abandoned office and the time portal a little bit closer together.

Strangely enough the villains holding the Liberties are completely silent, but I think the second pass has given me a better understanding of my reaction to the villain group.

They're basically all terrible shallow little-kid peculiarities, stuck in a time capsule and left to marinate until they reach evil adulthood. And I find that horrifying. Mostly because they're all still so human.

If they were more inhumanly shaped - faceplates or less form-fitting armor - and presented as the abstractions they're supposed to represent - maybe MAL's androids/spirits of evil or something along those lines - I wouldn't have this creeping sense of dread that I was slaughtering my way through the vanguard of Pleasure Island.

Also the agent needs an armor type that doesn't boost her perception as Willpower does. Maybe Inv? She just takes off on her own because of a combination of the larger perception radius and the close quarters of the mission.

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So more weirdness from Liberty: "It seems like only yesterday we spoke. OK, maybe it was yesterday, or maybe, just moments ago?" Again. I don't think too much about how time passes for the contact. But when the contact calls attention to it, that makes me wonder why.

And another round: "for I strongly believe, that changing the past, can affect our future." First, it doesn't need the commas. Second... isn't that what I just did in the first mission?

In the mission sendoff text she apologizes for making me time-travel, like it's some kind of a surprise. But the briefing talks about going back to seven years ago. And I get another vague location, "the cave on the beach". Is that where the portal will dump me out? Then say that explicitly.

...this is some of what's giving me the impression that I'm actually inside a bedtime story. Rose Jones only knows about one abandoned office and one cave on the beach, so the indefinite article makes sense in her context.

But the mission is in MY hero's context, the context of someone who went patrolling around Striga Isle, and that's like half caves on beaches. (also patrolling inside Dark Astoria for BaniPan masks, which pretty much kills your fear of the dark)

In this mission, Liberty's near the front of the cave, which is alright, but the one glowy that completes the mission is one room later, and there are like three otherwise featureless rooms after that.

Thanks for marking another minion up to lieutenant, though, makes things much smoother.

And now I think I see what you're trying to do with these entry/exit popups. Usually they're rather objective but these feel more like Ms. Liberty buzzing me on a comm channel. Kinda throws off the expectation.

There's also this weird obsession this mission has with gold and silver. It's in the briefing, in the system text, in the clues, and it's always both of them together. It's especially weird since there actually isn't any of either. There are a lot of things that treasure can be.

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Let me digress for a bit here on the topic of accept text. One thing I've seen in a lot of MA missions, not just this one, is people "getting cute" with accept text - making it more than just an objective statement of the primary mission goal or goals. This doesn't work for a couple reasons. First, only the person running the arc can see the accept text. It doesn't get added into the info splotch the way the briefing and sendoff texts do. Second, everybody accepting the mission is agreeing to do what an objective statement of the mission goals implies. Not everybody is going to agree with a fancy accept text.

"the world is full of treasure" really rubs me the wrong way. I put out fires and bring peace to the dead and save people from losing everything they have to the mob and I don't care if I never get paid, because I'm a hero.

I get the feeling this story isn't "for me". Really on some level I'm wondering if it's for Ms. Liberty, since she's going all "why am I asking you this?" and "do you think maybe this will change the future?" and "why is she going after a book?" I know I'm supposed to take this lightly, treat it like a children's storybook, but I can't do it on my own. You have to help me.

I mean, maybe Ms. Liberty's making a storybook for this sick kid and she wants me in playing a sort of sidekick/helper, maybe because the kid saw me on the news and went wow, so we're off making a bedtime story with Ms. Liberty doing narration. And I'd be okay with that. AS LONG AS SHE TOLD ME.

As it is, I am putting this mission through my default "I am a hero on a mission" filter, and it just doesn't fit.

So, framing rant over. I probably won't mention briefings again, since I don't expect them to change significantly in tone from what they have been. Now is time for mission.

...yeah, some of the Deathblossoms and Granites are still doing the thing where they don't give me any experience (but still drop inspirations), despite me being the only one to do damage to them. Might want to check into how the group's constructed.

Something else turning the MAL minions into stylized figures might help with: they all look alike. I know there are differences in hair and costume styles and all, but what it boils down to from where I put that camera is "black bodysuit, red-lined cape" with the one exception of "white bodysuit, white cape".

Hmm. If the system text is explicitly calling out finding a note on the boss, then the objective should complete when the boss is defeated, so I get the note right when I drop her.

Still no "you lost me" text from the allies. (or the one in this mission, anyway) That's kinda important. I can't just keep the minimap open to see whether or not the little green arrows have stopped moving.

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No "you lost me" from Statesman either.

His appearance and dialog make a lot more sense this time around, though his letter should probably come before the swords on the clue list, just because he's supposed to be encountered first.

Lampshading the villains as just a bunch of random dudes still doesn't make them any less a bunch of random dudes, especially since some of them are from other dimensions (RAM, Circuit, Rularuu).

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Last mission - noticing very few gales from the stormer. Yay.

MAL has the same cast aura as the hostages. Statesy doesn't have one at all. This seems like a bit of an oversight.

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As this is a re-review, I think I can get away without actually dropping a score on this. My impressions aren't much different from what they were the first time around, though now I understand a bit better why I had them.

I disagreed violently with the framing device. That just drags everything else down. It digs into me every time I click on the contact, and it brought my opinion of everything down - the storyline that used it, the designs that supported it, the gameplay that followed it up, and the details that reinforced it.

I can't pretend that I like the framing device and go what if, because that's one small step away from going "what if I didn't actually care about all the things I complained about" and that way lies madness.

Gameplay is slightly less frustrating than last time, though running around trying to found someone with the "wrong" visual cue on that giant map is the same as trying to find someone with no visual cue at all.

@GlaziusF

Running this on a level TOO HIGH ice/axe tank, diff 2 for EA crowds and BOSS FIGHTAN.

Fair warning: I played on Virtue back at launch but have since moved on, and I know approximately nothing about whatever server continuity exists.

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If I'm working for an acronym agency it needs to show up as ACRONYM (A Completely Roundabout Obtuse Naming-Y Method) all the time. But okay, it's Sky Raiders time, they have a thing for these tiny African republics.

Endurance and inspirations will be procure-on-site. Now begins Operation: Virtuous Mission.

This sure is a cargo ship full of Sky Raiders. Just kinda... standing around. No crates of weapons, no organizational whiteboards, no firing practice, just... Sky Raiders.

Four giant rooms full.

I find Sizwe in the last room and lead him all the way back to the exit. The path I take doesn't reveal this mysterious enemy, so it's time for Jump Around And Pound Tab Vol. XXVI. Wish I'd found that motion detector.

Ah, there they are. ...on top of three stacked cargo crates. Gotta love where the cargo ship can park your objectives.

Grape-flavored robots with interesting names. ("Landsknecht" has activated a dark and terrible center of my brain. F O E! F O E! Even on the ocean, an F O E!)

Descriptions are a bit on the wordy side, especially considering I haven't seen these guys before.

Li'l debrief typo: "assess the situation" is missing an S and the forum censored what resulted.

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Hmm. Pretty straightforward stuff here, tons of battles, kinda hating the click-rad powers the lieuts have here since I can't kill 'em to shut them down. But what can you do?

A lot of the hostages trigger because there's a battle nearby, making them easier to spot.

...it'd kinda be nice if there were some ally patrols of REDOUBT bosses or something that spawned in when I was done saving these guys.

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Ah dear, REDOUBT didn't have their Cylon scanners up and running and it's up to me to stop the robots.

Couple of decent little storyish bits with the patrol and battle, but I can't find the ambassador in here anywhere. ...oh, right, he was inside a vault thing. Okay, that's alright.

My axe doesn't exactly do a lot against the big bad here, but my squishy pal who's rad to be with is up for anything.

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Bug text for mission 4 is kinda exactly the same as mission 1's.

Bosses are the same too, couple retreads... except they have less of an escort, and none of the wrinkles (ambush, time limit) that they had before. I juggle this Kali so badly she never even gets a lot of Inv on, which is kind of sad.

And the last thing I do is wreck a destructible object with a couple of guards. This really felt too easy.

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Storyline - ****. I was expecting some kind of gotcha at the end, really. Having it end on a couple junior versions of the earlier boss fight and then finish up with an inanimate object going boom just doesn't have the same oomph to it.

Design - ****. While the grape-flavored robots are pretty monolithic, they have obvious enough powers that they're easy to tell apart. There's a lot of "tell, don't show" going on here, though. The Sky Raider cargo ship is supposed to have guns blazing or at least firing, but it's quiet. REDOUBT is supposed to be showing up in force to end the conflict once the hostages are out of the way - why not have some patrols of elite bosses or something? The ambassador is waiting in a sealed room, so why not have a couple of consoles to check up on him in there?

Gameplay - ****. All pretty smooth running, aside from a lot of dead air at the end of the first mission trying to find the infiltrator.

Detail - ****. The copy-pasted bug text and the giant handfuls of description for the robots both bring this down a little. We get an actual clue to refer to the general history of the Mechanus Imperium, so you don't need to retell it with every little minion.

Overall - ****. I don't know how much space is left in this arc, but it looks like there's enough room to pile on a few extra bits of detail to make it really shine. (And please no more giant empty 4-room cargo ship. Putting various interesting bits in it is fine, just not a solid enemy crawl.)

Well, it looks like part 1's gone through, so tonight's arc is Redoubt Operations #1: Fires Over Kalago (1297). Verdict - ****. Review in MA Forums Thread.

@GlaziusF

So for my first formal replay (merc/TA diff 3) I'll just roll a bunch of quick hits up and put most of the details in the stars.

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I'd still like an opening/closing clue (m1/m2) that explains the absence of the artifact.

m2: again with the "you feel yourself being pulled back". Make the compy vanish when its job is done, considering how it vanished once already!

m3: Can I at least get a little interaction time with the objects so I can see what funny names you may or may not have given them? Also could you put Steve up at the middle of the mission this time so it's a given you've encountered him and probably wiped him out? Lastly, the important clues really need to be at the end of the list of random stuff to pick up.

m4: For some reason the map's completely empty this time. I still have to backtrack back a couple rooms to get the boss incarnation of Mr. Time Woogie. And... what? Not even an EB? Just a piddly little destructo object that Marx could wreck in a couple seconds? Wow.

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Storyline - ***. Really not much better. My main beef is the weird "forcing" of my character out of the mission. It'd work better if the stuff just vanished back into the ether. Mysteriously.

Design - ****. I was a little miffed to not actually be able to see what any of the weird stuff I was investigating was, and it didn't seem right for the last mission to be so completely empty. Also ending it all on a destructible really felt like an anticlimax.

Gameplay - ****. The weird little backtracking bit in the last mission sent me all the way to the end before I realized I missed something.

Detail - ****. What was there was pretty solid, but I'd like to see some evolving bug text from Foreshadow to match with the rest of the mission.

Overall - ****. The arc reinforced some minor problems with the first arc, but the newly introduced final fight is a real drag of an anticlimax with an annoying setup.

Tonight's arc: a rereview of Ctrl-Alt-Reset (137561). Verdict - Still ****. Review on MA Forums Thread.

@GlaziusF

Running this on a merc/TA mastermind, diff 3 because swarms are a problem and I want to see real bosses.

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Ah, the Mark III. About dang time.

Oh boy, it's thoughtcrime! Time to get all Ministry of Peace on these guys. ...although when I bug C'Kelkah I get the sudden image of a Freak with a psi amplifier trolling the Rikti internet.

Short little base later, we find him. The lighting in here's pretty awful and it looks like this dude is pretty dark anyway, so I can't really make him out. But he looks Riktoid. And apparently he's the next step in Rikti evolution?

Eh, whatever, let's see what CK has to CSay.

Pff. You know how Positron goes all cat-stance? Or used to, anyway? Outside the mission CK is doing Captured (Energy Field). Pretty funny.

Hmm. Wait a second. Meta-humans? The Rikti should have guys like that, they just cut off the Magic power source to amp the progress of Science. Mutant should still be sticking around.

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...and the Rikti are humans. It doesn't make much sense to say "a mix of Rikti and humans", CK. But okay, let's go grab a nerd for ya.

Well, this is interesting. The base defenses and Vanguard patrols manage to accomplish the mission by the time I load in and get my guys summoned up.

Not really complaining, but that's a risk you take with these types of maps. This one especially.

I roam around anyway, trying to get a feel for the enemy group. All the bios start out with the same information CK already told me. It's only at the end they actually get a bit different. Maybe just make that their whole thing?

Also according to CK they're quite, quite insane and may drive all the Rikti down with them.

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Hmm. Proper Rikti values, huh? Usually whenever somebody says something like that it's cover to do something terrible.

Eh, whatever.

Wow, a couple of bosses in the first room. Another heretic from the first mission and a recolored (?) magus.

Oh, so this isn't the mothership abandoned lab ...and apparently the Restructurists were cribbing.

Your thoughts, CK?

...so wait. There was actually a "meta-Rikti" before the Rikti even came over here. But CK said they were made by fusing metahuman DNA.

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Okay, wreck everything. I can wreck pretty well.

Explosive crates but no canisters. I guess I'm disposing of them more discreetly?

Because of the vagaries of mapping I find an unescorted Meta in the last room I check. Thank goodness for Reveal or I'd have overlooked it forever.

Anyway, H-Dotz is in a room without even any obstacles in it, which is kind of a pain if you want to fight him for the tickets.

Huh. Okay, dude from mission 2 wants to wreck everyone.

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Well well. Choice is up for me. Let's see here. Well, I'll try to contain him. Don't know how well it'll work. The insano factor here is more from these guys being turbonically grown than anything innate.

I take advantage of the confusion to slip through the battles. ...you know, I guess it's because Vangaurd are just kinda wrecking machines but they're really getting the better of those new Rikti.

Rhodes should probably make to bolt a little earlier than 25% health. He barely had the chance to get up from a little knockdown my mercs threw at him before he passed out. Either that or give him a defense set in addition to MA or AR.

Interesting conceit with the souvenir's mandatory ambiguity, I'll give you that.

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Storyline - ***. Mission 3 pretty much sums up my biggest objections to the meta-Rikti. Or really the first room of same. I wrecked the meta-boss just fine but the Rikti Magus wrecked me. And then there was the reveal at the end that contradicted what CK had to say about the metas. It's like... the Restructs were trying to make some kind of superior troop, but the Rikti are already top-tier and I didn't feel the customs were any more threatening, and H-Dotz was risking sending his own troops insane in the process. Also CK's all up about a ritual to destroy the meta's mental network and everyone connected to it, but isn't that most of the Rikti on both sides?

Design - ***. I don't know if it was the lighting in their missions, but most of the metas just looked like black, vaguely man-shaped blobs with glowing eyes. They need more contrast and more bright colors. Also mission 2 needs to be on a different map or something so it doesn't complete itself in a few minutes.

Gameplay - ****. The usual little frustrations, missing a room in the big Rikti base, not actually getting to participate in one of the missions, that sort of thing.

Detail - ****. Generally good stuff, though that whole affair with the box feels a bit kludgy. I mean, it's not like CK will say anything different if she knows he's asked me to spare him. Wouldn't he beg for his life on the same grounds within the mission anyway?

Overall - ***. The somewhat confused story brings this one down. There are about three separate contradictory explanations for what the metas are, how they're created, and how their mental comm-net affects the Rikti.

@GlaziusF

Playing on a mid-40s DB/fire brute, diff 2 for real boss fights.

Amusing aside - viewed slightly off-kilter I parsed the contact as bare-chested with red suspenders.

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Huh. The Circle may have a reputation for worshipping demons but in my experience they just go through the necessary motions to summon one.

Now Hellions, those guys definitely worship demons.

Hey mister? I don't know how long you've been down there but there's way more than one woman in Steel Canyon. Can I get a picture? A description? Ice sculpture, maybe?

I mean, the Longbow running around, half of them are women.

Okay, the guys chattering about Escalus, one of them says "on On Peregrine Island", and the other one talks about him going through Independence Port?

Le what?

Indy port is on the opposite side of the city from PI, check a tram station for a big city map.

...um. You might wanna give Helen a description that is not a spoiler for the rest of this arc. (at least now we know she falls into the "pure evil" bucket of the great dead/all-powerful/pure evil Summers Memorial Comic Book Wife Sorter)

I'm glad I got frustrated a couple arcs back, makes it easy to remember the little nook under the construction scaffolding where she actually ends up.

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Yes, the Mu are treacherous monomaniacs, and there's a lot more people with Mu blood than make it into Arachnos.

But the Vaults of Mu are some crazy spiritual plane, a reverse run of the (also CoT special) Spirit City map. They're not what happens when the Mu settle in Oranbega.

Due to my level any variant groups you had in the custom don't actually spawn - I know I'm out of range for the midnighters. The result is wall to wall Super Strikers (at high levels they get more lightning powers), who don't so much chew away at my blue bar as swallow it whole.

Fortunately I have a little temp stealth saved up for a rainy day.

More fortunately the books I'm looking for are about halfway through the city itself.

Yes, yes, I've done very well, thank you demonically Liefeldian Mr. Grace.

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Sweet Christmas, brother. You need to take some laughin' lessons from Vernon von Grun.

Hmm. It'd be interesting to have a mission that spit out endless waves of attackers that you'd beat when the timer hit zeroh wait that actually happens in Croatoa.

I suppose this is a good substitute.

Whoa whoa whoa. I have to wipe out all the Longbow on Thorn Isle in half an hour? That's not a very good prize!

Let me tell you how big Thorn Isle is. I spent the entire time at maximum rage, ended with 45 seconds still on the clock, and cleared 400 bonus tickets.

That is how big Thorn Isle is.

And that's without having to backtrack, just running right from one spawn to another! There's obstructing terrain and sheer drops all over Thorn Isle and the Longbow can fly, so all it would have taken was one runner and that would've been it. I would have carved my way through a wall of human flesh for half an hour solid and still failed the mission.

Maybe this would be a workable replacement: Escalus and N Longbow sorcery/excavation teams (boss spawns), where N is modestly small. After that they won't have the manpower to break through in time.

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Uh... yay Rosemary's baby? Apparently I get to go off and have the Best Day Ever in the meanwhile.

Or not. My spree of destruction through Oranbega destroys no artifacts, disrupts no rituals, and steals no fenceable shinies. Instead I... help someone out of the goodness of my navbar. I mean heart.

Oh hey, I didn't know the missing fortune teller scaled so high. But... is she supposed to just have the missing fortune teller description? And shouldn't she stick around (ally not captive) instead of just bolting if she's going to discuss stuff with me?

Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal! You know, if this guy was gonna wreck the world you'd think they'd spare more than a mook squad of Longbow to take him out.

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Um... description, I'm pretty sure she's not actually brainwashed here, or she'd be trying to kill me too. Though I guess there's something going on since she doesn't remember me, she's not exactly a pawn of the big man either.

The destroyer of worlds... isn't even an EB? Le what? The ambushes come out way too fast here, even with me dealing with them and claw-lady on whatever she feels like his HP just plummets like a stone.

Also he seems to open with Inferno, which would be a pretty big deal to some other guy without capped fire resist.

And after that I need to push a Warden down the giant stone stairs. Bit of an anticlimax... and for some reason the clue from him comes before the clue for springing Viv.

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Storyline - *. Vivian being everything bad that happens to women in comics crammed into one little package aside, there's stuff I really don't buy here. The Circle is summoning this guy who wants to destroy the world - but they're actual people, or the spirits of same, and the world is where they keep all their stuff. The hero opposition to this guy, though they apparently know about him and his plans, consists of one actual hero and a big pile of Longbow. And I only find out about him because I stop to help some random person on my rampage through Oranbega? Even if he's just planning to rip my heart out instead of destroy civilization, that last one's still a bit of a problem.

Design - **. A custom group where the level range makes it made entirely of Mu Strikers, a final boss who's a paper tiger (seriously, the Warden gave me more problems), map choice that's pretty much the entirety of the "special Circle" maps but without much appreciation of how the maps actually play (the "Oranbega" map is just a giant tunnel run crampathon), and a 30-minute red-and-white armored wall of human flesh with the only notable element being one single vocal boss spawn.

Gameplay - **. Seriously, that mission on Thorn Isle is absolutely terrible. It made me want to stop playing the arc. The other missions are well enough in their own way, but if I was only doing this casually I would have jumped ship right then and there.

Detail - *. Checking Viv's description in the first mission, even though it wasn't even the same model as her final appearance, spoiled the plot of the whole affair for me.

Overall - *. Needs a story that doesn't have the heroes trying to put out a forest fire with an eyedropper, a custom enemy group which will never be composed entirely of Arachnos Mu at any level range, hostage/ally descriptions that make sense for the person they're supposed to be at the point in the plot they're supposed to be (the standard fortuneteller description is also out of place since I don't care about Paragon City), and a third mission that's anything but "defeat all Longbow on Thorn Isle".

Tonight's arc: Vienna Rising (286563). Verdict - *. Review below in this thread.

Tonight's arc: Rider's Ribs Restaurant Rescue (163967). Verdict - ****. Review in MA Forums Thread.

@GlaziusF

Running this on a high 30s arch/energy blaster, diff 2 for actual boss fights, however inadvisable. Let's see how this solos.

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Okay, nice 80's movie setup here, let's have a look.

Fast-food-powered evildoers. i've seen weirder. And oh child, but that is a giant pile of takeout.

You got some duplicate clues goin' on with the coupons dropping. The end mission clue and the hostage rescue clue say almost the same thing.

Exit popup: "This dish is far from done with the scum that lingers." That's... that's definitely an 80's movie line of the terribad variety.

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Pretty standard warehouse rescue.

Getting a sense for how the enemy group works, since the three or so spawns in the first mission weren't really a representative sample.

There's unexpectedly a lot of variety among the assistant managers, and the minions have funny fast-food powersets. I don't quite get the psyblast on Sweetener, though. Maybe energy blasts (though I love the poison backup).

Though really it would be more hilarious if all the minions were assistant managers considering the average fast food structure.

I was expecting a final clue about the state of the food supplies, like maybe they'd all been deep-fried and flash-frozen already.

Not what they mean when they say "irradiated food", I guess.

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Huh. This destruction makes passable burn marks.

...a minion? Man, I wonder if she'll even make it to the boss.

She does, actually. The boss is an apparently normal boss with a very mascotty costume, but I'm expecting a wrinkle after I find Rider. It seems like it's not over yet...

Ah, yep. Boss fight round 2.

For some reason she's harder than the King because of the massive -def from the henchmen and the controls coupled with the recharge slow.

Hmm. You might be able to put some ally cops into the mission after she goes down, to start in on the conversation.

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Storyline - ***. Something out of order here. You'd think the whole "irradiated crime against nature" thing would come up a little earlier, along with the power source of the many employee minions. My contact has a history with these people, right?

Design - ****. Pretty solid power work for the customs. Fire armor is pretty control-proof, though, so you might want to just turn that into a fire aura with another armor set. And consider different jackets for the managers? I'd like to be able to prioritize locking down the forcefield-chucker who can stun me.

Gameplay - ****. Did a lap around the map looking for the hostage. To be fair, I was expecting him to be in an otherwise empty room on the first floor so I overlooked him, but still.

Detail - ****. Simple but solid work.

Overall - ****. An interesting idea for an arc, needs a little more distinctiveness among the minions, maybe don't bother with chaining the rescue since you're not likely to have the chained boss jump you somehow.

Tonight's arc: A Show of Hands (296884). Verdict - ****. Review in MA Forums Thread.

I think you missed a couple of mine (I know I also reviewed "The Day I Tried To Live") - I've put a quick master list in the second post of my thread.

@GlaziusF

Playing on a high 40s DB/fire brute, diff 2 for real boss fights.

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Contact is Operative Parks. He introduces himself as Arbiter Parks. Probably just a little confusion there.

Interesting plan here. Let's see how it plays out.

Ah, good ol' chaotic neutral. So it's a freedom vs. restrictions thing set up.

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Alright, let's see how this goes.

Not bad, actually. Hook up with her halfway through the base, frob a glowie, clear the place out...

You might want to look into your captive animations, though, they rejiggered those a while back and the scientist is doing a standard kneeling animation.

Power Transmuter... we're not seeing the rise of Darla Mavis, are we?

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Woo, Zig breakout!

Pretty straightforward. Took me maybe 10 minutes, so bringing the time down to 15 might not be out of the question if you're going for pressure.

On rescue Irene says "So my being captured and thrown in here part of Arachnos' plan?" That sentence no verb.

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Nice scenery for the final fight. Crey and Arachnos repelling a Longbow incursion.

Also the final room has the protectable near a normal spawn, which means lots and lots of fighting. Pretty keen anyway, feels about right for a climactic rush.

The special power-transmuted troops add a nice wrinkle and they look appropriately "next level of Longbow".

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There are technically already Longbow imbued with super powers - they're the Wardens. Still, legitimate concern here.

Two transmuters I can understand, but why does the mainframe also look like a stasis tube?

(also the stasis tubes have their default descriptions)

Posi up, Posi down. Rad vs Rad. Pretty good fight all in all.

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Storyline - ***. Not that my villain minds, but I have to say - what exactly did this girl go through that she's willing to join up with Arachnos with a little card that says "hey there we're the Rogue Isles. FREEDOM! Now murder your former friends." I mean, let her rant on in the mission clues or something. Villains love to rant, right?

Design - ****. Great work on the Longbow Elite corps. ...not so great work on the clues, which disappeared after mission 2. I like seeing a little progress, at least.

Gameplay - *****. Very smooth run, though. Help was enough to take out the end boss, and while there were some challenging stretches they weren't anything that you could tweak the mission to get rid of.

Detail - ***. Default descriptions for the stasis tubes, and one of them was used to represent something there are already models for (mainframes).

OVerall - ****. Solid mission that needs a little more attention to detail and a little more character background to shine.

Tonight's arc: Crossing Over (111352). Verdict - ****. Review lower in this thread.