VagabondSkies

[ QUOTE ]
Putting my arc up for grabs, have at it:

Title: The Day I Tried To Live
Arc ID: 131780

[/ QUOTE ]

Played this with my kin/nrg/mnd 50, paired up with a AR/Dev blaster. A third member of our team quit at start.

Several times throughout the missions we see the contact (Red) as he relives emotional moments from the storyarc and evolves into a more terrible entity. An interesting technique for carrying the story, definately different and well conceived.

Mission 1
Crey. A map we've seen a lot before--this plays like a published mission. Experiencing the 'life' of the contact is nifty in theory, but this mission seemed very ordinary.

Red's dialogue really takes it up a notch, and then down a notch in the monologue between missions 1 and 2. First he blames them--then the diety--is this an attempt to bypass the language filters? It seems like bad writing at first, but a few more missions seem to make this clear as the protagonist's madness.

Mission 2
Oh boy. More Crey. And a defeat all in a typical Crey base map. Contact dialogue is still really inspired, but I am not sure whatever he is talking about is reflected in the story.

Mission 3
Rikti. In a base/cave/rikti map that is supposed to be a ship's interior. Interesting use of map, even though this seemed tedious, it got more interesting as the arc went on due to glowie placement. Nice use of rikti.

Mission 4
Finally--some custom mobs! And these are a pleasure to fight, interesting powersets, groups are built like player groups, and should not be understimated. My sidekick and I were defeated a few times in this mission, and it was unclear how to get the special guest star to spawn, but this was a fun mission. Large xp drop due to pet/ally, but he was helpful in aggro managment.

Mission 5
A finale that delivers, rounds out the story and is interesting. Interesting map, nice and short. Boss fight was fun

After the long grueling missions 1-3, missions 4 and 5 are much more interesting and save the arc from being too much like a standard contact series of missions, however the early missions are very typical of published content. Very exceptional story dialogue helps a lot. Ultimately, the player(s) are not the protagonists of the story, but active observers to the life of Red, and the early missions are balanced well.

[ QUOTE ]
WWE vs Pro Boxing
174269

Crazed fans have taken hostages from both sports. It is up to you to rescue the likes of Mike Tyson, Andre The Giant, Oscar De La Hoya, Etc.

[/ QUOTE ]

Review:

Length: Very Short
Three Stars

Change all the celebrity names as fast as you can, these are clearly trademarked properties, and you should use parodies instead.

Tested/reviewed with my 50 Kin/Engergy/Mind Defender.

I liked the mission contact's appearance. "Lady Gaga." Her dialogue was not well thought out however. A simple style of speaking is fine, but hers was inconsistent. The misison synopsis is not complete sentences, but could be spoken dialogue. It passes, assuming the rest of the style of this contact's speech is consistent. "Put a hurting on those fans." Fans? That seems....wrong somehow. Maybe change them to 'Crazed Fans' or 'Fanatic Fans'.

Mission One.
Outdoor map (woods). Some people hate these. I don't. Info text on custom mobs was generic. The fans were fun to beat on, but took a lot of punishment from my defender's attacks. Soloing this made the pace slow, and I died once when I drew too much aggro and my heal missed once (this happens with solo kin defs somtimes). At the end, there are a couple of Rikti whose info reads that they have infiltrated Arachnos (what Arachnos?). I really enjoyed that the 'wife' customs were Lts. This was fun to play, and squishie friendly (only mezzed once and I cleared the map).

This is my first review, I hope it's helpful.

Some of my friends were unable to participate during this event due to time contraints. I suggest a "X hours of gameplay" during a 10 or 20 day window for a future 'reactivation' event.

Global: VagabondSkies
Male
38
6'
Sterling, VA
Digital Defenders (www.ddhq.org)
MRT: Vascular or Rashalla

Digital Defenders
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As a Kin Def with some experience, I like to introduce myself and explain how my heal works as I join a team or when new toons join the team just to make sure there are no false expectations. Sometimes I'll ask the team to save the last MOB to serve as an anchor for Tranfusion and Transference.

For kinetics, keeping the blasters alive can be a challenge, since so many are used to keeping their distance from MOBs. I've teamed with blasters who i've had to remind several times how the targetAOE heal works, or even hold a target and invite him in close for the effect. Kineticists like's a tight formation so the buffs and heals blanket the team for maximum coverage.

One of the challenges with a targetedAOE heal though is that the target has to survive for the duration of the attack animation for the heal to work, so learning to not neutralize an allies heal is also something to keep in mind with Kinetics.

Enjoy.