Nethergoat

the movie could be 10x better and smarter than its trailer and still be held back from 1st grade.


*shudder*

It's been what, 24 hours?

I'm sure people will figure it out before too long.

Dr Graves- Hearts of Darkness: Price of Victory

Okay, finally got around to the rest of Graves.

Overall, terrific stuff.
I'd rank the writing a notch above the excellent Twinshot arcs just for the degree of difficulty, walking that villain tightrope. Gotta be evil, but not too evil or you lose your player, can't be too much of a lacky or you lose your player, etc etc. Authoring Villain missions have challenges above and beyond the general requirement of involving story and interesting characters.

It neatly wove in famous/infamous landmarks of old timey levelling (particularly liked the mission in the middle of the Luddite hunting grounds by the ferry in Cap- many's the lap I ran around those warehouses to avoid running the same ol' same ol' Cap contacts again), introduced you to game features in a nicely immersive way *and* provided engaging gameplay.

On this first go-round the latter episodes seem more re-playable than Twinshot- it is dialog/interaction heavy compared to much of the game's content, but the dialog isn't as intrinsic to enjoying the storyline as it was with Twinshot.


Anyway!

So, going after my 'fellow' villains was fun. The missions were well designed, not repetitive and held my interest. The character dialog is terrific, Zephyr in particular. Crosscut's mission was appropriately vile & the way it played into his remaining 'loyal' during the confrontation with Graves was a neat twist.

As a longtime CoV-only player, I really liked the chat with Boris the Russian.

The finale of this arc was strong- the villain double-cross during the ambush of Graves, followed by the revelation that Dollface was actually a huge alien threat was actually surprising and very fun to play through.

The Sirocco deus ex machina didn't bother me, Dollface was set up as enough of a menace that it seemed reasonable my lowbie self would need some help. It also neatly foreshadowed the idea of villain patrons at the higher levels.

Once again, didn't mind jogging back to actually speak with Graves in person- it was story appropriate.


With both Twinshot & Graves, I find myself hoping the devs add to their storylines in the future- I want to spend more time with all those characters, which isn't something I can say about very much content in this game.

why can't I delete this?

silly forums.


anyway, post incoming....hit 'post' by mistake.

I mostly like cut scenes, but I've said since they showed up in CoV there should be a way we can skip past them- ESC or something. Once you've seen them a couple of times, you don't need to see them again and sitting twiddling your thumbs while they play out gets old fast.

My rule of thumb is New = Good, Old = Bad.
=P

But as a new player, really you ought to just play everything and anything that comes your way- part of my appreciation of the great newer stuff Paragon's done comes from having spent years playing the, ah, less than stellar older content.

And to be honest, there are very few missions/arcs in the game so horrible you wouldn't want to play through them once....even stuff that just bugs me as a longtime vet, like the Hollows, would be fine for someone with fresh eyes.

I don't mind crashing nukes & have barely played any incarnate stuff so nothing to say on that front, but I always enjoyed Steelclaw's lists. Always at least amusing, frequently quite funny, periodically hilarious & possessed of an inimitable style that was instantly recognizable and always brought a smile to my face- a rarity on internet forums of any stripe.

As an irascible sort not prone to holding my tongue, I find it genuinely surprising that anyone (ANYONE) would be so put off by them they'd go out of their way to assail their author & drive him into retirement. Pretty lame.

Steel, I say WAFFLE the haters & let your list flag fly.
Anybody mouths off, /ignore.
My guess is you won't be missing much.

neat treat, thanks Paragon Studios!

*clap clap clap clap*

I don't get why movies are always so frenzied to cram everything possible into each film and rush, rush, rush through the mythologies of the comics they portray.

but Mandarin is thee iconic Iron Man baddie and I look forward to seeing how they translate him to the movie-verse.

having seen many notions from this forum work their way into the game over the years, I must disagree with the OP's thesis.


But that didn't stop the thread title from giving me a morning chuckle.

=D