CoHMR Aggregator (a review thread)

Further adventures in CoHMR randomness!

I was going to have a look at Statesman and the Atomic Soldier (8993) but it seems to have gone missing.
Then the randomizer coughed up Chains of Blood (4829), which is averaged at 5 stars but which might be closer to 4 on, but I played it a while back and Venture likes his updates, so.
And lastly came The Brawler and the Bawler (1053). Verdict - ***. Review lower in this thread.

@GlaziusF

Playing this one on an archery/energy blaster in the high 30s. All bosses no AVs 1 hero at +1.

Also this arc description seems to think it features Praetorian Clockwork. While this is probably just database funkiness combined with arc age, for one shining instant I thought it were true.

---

So I wonder how this is going to work. Footsteps Initiative or something a little more mentory?

Huh. Interesting. So mission 1 is to make her ego into a pincushion. I can work with this.

She shows up right at the front of the mission, though. Is that intended? Seems a bit excessive to mow down all the Longbow too.

Huh. She seems to be back for a rematch after I spring the hostage. Interesting.

But this time she's at the tail end of the mission.

Whether you mixed that up or the map did, it's up to you to fix.

Also, 3K Kelvin wasn't much help. Or any help. I guess I was just supposed to lead him around all depowered?

---

Anyway, onto the next exercise. Just a routine cleanup of some Circle of Thorns.

...I wonder.

The navbar says "Ruin Mage". I'm guessing this is autotext based on his name; it should be replaced.

Also this is a reasonably-sized map for a defeat all and it helps having a proton pack hero to fight the ghosts.

But Circle aren't good for defeat alls at this level. Sticking around for the ruin mage's earthquake to go away isn't so bad, but the ghosts like to go invisible and run somewhere when the fight goes against them.

The only dialogue in this cave is the Ruin Mage wondering why my companion found him. That's it. No clue to what they're up to here or nothin'. Just dudes in a cave.

---

Hmm. A rematch. I guess Babs let on, huh? Okay, let's see what this is about.

It's about fighting somebody in the first room of a warehouse map, it would seem. When she goes down and I drop her escort on the catwalk, mission over.

I head back to investigate, but all that's there is a named Longbow Officer with no special dialogue.

I have to say, I was kind of expecting like some kind of sinister twist thing here what with the Circle.

---

And now... Wretch has invaded Paragon City and it's time to step up.

So, uh... training mission, routine Circle patrol, training mission rematch, ARACHNOS TOP BRASS.

Seems like a wee bit of a speed bump there.

Electric is running her aura, which takes out her guards by the time I zone in. Happens with all hostage-types with damage auras.

And Babs is coming along as a witness. ...is he running Assault? Someone's running Assault for +15% damage and it sure isn't me.

Fortunately I packed some lucks so when I get to the boss room I can tank Wretch long enough for my blaster buddy to zot him down.

---

Storyline - ***. In the early, heady days of MA it probably was possible to go from 15 to 50 in the time it'd take to play this arc. But I default to assuming that missions happen one right after the other, and like I said in the commentary, it goes training mission - normal patrol - training rematch - END BOSS SWEET CHRISTMAS. Now, I might have been misremembering or misinterpreting but it seemed like this was just a young hero starting out who needed some ego knocked out. The kind of progression I did see might work with a veteran hero who'd just lost confidence for whatever reason and Babs wanted her back on the front lines. I expected some kind of sinister undercurrent when she jumped up in power, because that sort of thing just doesn't happen in so short a time.

Design - **. Some pretty fundamental problems with the order stuff appears in in the warehouse missions. The stuff that's supposed to be at the end is at the beginning and vice-versa. It short-circuits mission 3 and makes mission 1 operate counter to how you'd think it ought to, with the trainee hero blocking your way to 3K and then coming back just in time to meet you again. The custom hero is pretty nice, though if you can believably take out her lightning aura you might want to do that just so she actually gets rescued in mission 4 instead of sparking her guards into oblivion.

Gameplay - ****. Aside from hunting down wayward spectrals, not a bad run overall.

Detail - ***. I got one clue, from the first time I defeated the trainee hero. Everything else was completely blank, and there really wasn't a lot of talking in the missions - idle Longbow/Arachnos chatter in 1, 3, and 4, or any talk at all in mission 2. Didn't help much to define the story.

Overall - ***. Part of this arc's problem is that it tries to do something I don't think MA supports very well - montage several moments over a stretch of (likely) months into a coherent story. But all the same, the missions could stand to be fleshed out and inspected for bugs, as the MA changes under us all.

Tonight's adventures in randomness:

The Shadowy Way Of Light (221466). Already reviewed - **.
Apples of Contention (3184). Already reviewed - *.

Tonight's random arc - Superhero Downtime (135096). Verdict - ****. Review lower in this thread.

(Another random one I've played, right after it: Talos Vice (338380) - *****.)

@GlaziusF

Taking this one on with a high-teens Peacebringer, who is old diff 1 except he fights bosses too.

---

Well, this is a promising sign for light comedy - the TV is labeled "Supergroup Relaxation Device".

So the briefing starts with "[Your show's just about over and you are about to find out what "It" is, when the reception crackles and goes blank...]" Why am I wondering what "It" is? A little description of the cheesy monster movie would help here.

But it's always good to help the nascent technologists along, so let's go.

I can't speak for everyone, but I like how the game does accept text, which is to turn some of the mission description green to indicate the most important bits, then make the accept text an objective statement of the mission goals.

Anyway, I head in to find the Council everywhere, and their scientists examining the thing I was supposed to reboot.

Oddly they both seem like melee types.

Even more oddly, the robot a decent way from the end room completes the mission with the hostage still waiting.

I go anyway... huh. Maemae? Really? I thought from the opening briefing I was dealing more with grade-schoolers.

---

Anyway, time for round 2. Judging by the patrol chatter the Council are doing the time-tested thing and getting to an inventor via his family.

Lot of patrol chatter, though. It's not exactly missable anymore, so can you maybe do one talky patrol and some greater number of quiet ones?

The mark 2 is a pretty classy machine. But... it doesn't seem to have any offensive powers? It just follows me around and stares menacingly at things.

I spring Melanie from her captors but now I have to wax that signal jammer the Mark 2 was talking about. It's somewhere in the map before I found him, which I guess is unavoidable if you set 'em both to middle. There's just so much middle.

I find the signal jammer up on a catwalk, with perhaps a guard but he is non-vocal. It's a Vanguard warhead with the standard warhead description.

Ah. The briefing clarifies that yes, the robot wasn't accepting offensive commands. Ah well, at least he was a nice distraction.

---

Huh. I don't know how that little drone's going to be a fight for me, but alright, off I go to save the day.

Oh, it's Lou's. I was expecting a pawn shop. This place is huge.

And full of very vocal patrols! Eesh. So many dialog boxes they all over you screen.

Huh. Based on the rescue dialogue and the patrols, it seems like the scientists from the first mission have worked out a way to hack my contact's bots.

Oh! He was talking about the Mk II, not the little drone from the first mission. Yes, that one's a lot more dangerous.

Good lord, how many patrols are there in this place?

I investigate a control computer and find, among other things, "Additionally, it appears they know the location of it's controller, and there are notes citing questions only the creator can answer!"

Does that mean they're planning on asking the kid a few things in a less than forthcoming manner, or does it indicate they've already pumped him for information (or he's gone open source)?

The boss of the shop is still "hapless foreman" faction, and still has the description calling him the foreman of the PTS.

Reading the end mission clue, and hoo boy. The idealism of the wireless age runs smack dab into hard cold wardriving reality.

---

Yeah, they came after him. Saw THIS coming. I wonder why I didn't try to figure out where the kid was. I mean, I knew where his signal was coming from and that the Council was after him.

Oh, interesting. Yeah, I can see this map as an apartment building.

But apparently the Council got in, got the people, and got out, leaving behind only a bomb to erase their tracks.

The exit popup is I guess referring to the rogue SAM tracer from one mission back. But why didn't I follow up on that? How much time has it been? Are the timestamps in the mission subtitles just arbitrary or do they actually MEAN something?

---

Ah, that's why there's the warning - ambushes and patrols made up entirely of lieutenants.

Which thanks to the change in custom group XP are now worth less than minions. Because there ARE no minions.

Wouldn't be hard, just mix in some Mek Men and maybe Wolfpacks if you don't have bosses from this faction.

Man, I wish I had more inspiration slots.

Anyway, I spring Jimmy's mom (the navbar is telling me to both "save the last Driskel" and "find Jimmy Driskel" now, which is odd) and then Melanie, who asks me to take her to her dad... and then runs off.

You can actually set her to Ally - follow - pacifist to get her to really tag along.

Oh! Okay, so THAT's the last Driskel. See, "Jimmy" is a viable nickname for "James", so when the trace hit I thought it was Jimmy and his single mom.

And from Jimmy's description he's in the sixth grade.

...I am pretty sure Maemae is NOT in the sixth grade.

Okay, the doc is free, another batch of ambushers taken care of...

And the destruction of robot parts changes into "purge files to protect Jimmy" when it's done? Those two things don't seem to be causally related.

And the files are two floors down from the end room where I found the last crate of parts.

Man. I was expecting a fight against like the first Beta model with the new Mark 4 for backup.

---

Storyline - ***. The big problem I have here is that, per the clues for mission 3, my hero knows the Council is going to be coming after Jimmy, and has sufficient information to find both his house and the Council base where they're controlling the robots from. I think missions 3, 4, and 5 are supposed to hit in rapid succession, but you've established that missions 1, 2, and 3 take place some arbitrary time units apart, so it's tough for me to make the jump.

Maybe if the debrief from mission 3 actually had the Council showing up, with a little narrative note about how I'd better work on pinning down those coordinates, and mission 4 started with me finishing up on the coordinates and checking the TV to see if I can see anything more. Or something like that, anyway.

Design - ***. Minor but niggling - there is no force on Earth capable of convincing me that Maemae von Whooters is in the sixth grade. Maybe you could recolor, say, Penny Yin, assuming her psi-aura could be turned off.

Several missions seemed to complete early - either there was an implied objective like rescuing a hostage that I didn't do, or the required objectives showed up a good ways before the actual end of the mission. And I'm not sure why destroying the files on Jimmy shows up after I complete my sabotage of the robot parts in the last mission.

Speaking of the last mission, it actually worked out pretty well, if you intended the player to worry about dodging around the BADGUY patrols up until the Mark 4 comes into play. But the problem is that the Mark 4 showed up for me on like the next-to-last floor and before that, there were objectives that spawned ambush groups of BADGUYs, which couldn't be avoided. Maybe if you folded in other Council robots like I suggested the ambushes could use that mix.

The custom Council scientists are a bit odd in that they focus on matrial arts. Admittedly that is standard training for Council troops but I was expecting more of an assault rifle-y thing from them.

Also, why was the level range so oddly constrained? It goes like 10-15-20-25-25 as the cap. I didn't see any enemies that needed to be in that particular range.

Finally, so many patrol dialogues. So many. And all identical. One talky patrol, N silent ones, and I can practically guarantee you the talky one will not be missed.

Gameplay - ***. Mostly for the backtracking, trying to find things that spawned in the nebulous "middle" of a map. I realize this isn't entirely your doing, as the MA loves its flaky middles. But it rankled all the same.

Detail - *****. Aside from the occasional nonstandard description or faction, everything was fairly sensical. The robots had their own "voices", the clues are fun to pick over, or appropriately dread-inducing, and there's a nonstandard contact that's pulled off very well.

Overall - ****. Pretty much greater than the sum of its parts. If it worked at a consistent level range, tightened up the story a bit, tuned down the ambushes in the last mission, and either made it about a high-schooler or bid a fond farewell to MaeMae, it'd be better, but as it is, it tells a story through non-conventional means and pulls it off very ably.

Because you asked for it -

Mistaken Identity
arc ID 349473

Yesterday night I passed out before I could get into the game. Tonight, not so much.

Tonight's random arc: Carmina Rouge (43697). Verdict - ***. Review lower in this thread.

@GlaziusF

Running this on my level 50 spine/regen scrapper, no bosses all AVs 2 heroes at +0.

---

Hmm. This is somebody who could be improved by the little bio option they give for arc contacts now. As it is she's a mystery, and I'm wondering why she's so dismissive of the scientists at Portal Corp.

Oh well, let's go see these horrors from another dimension.

Looks like DMelee/DArmor minions and DBlast/SonicR lieuts. Pretty reasonable mix so far. DMelee/DArmor bosses too.

Heh. Just checked the navbar. Dr. Joike, Dr. Bobo, and Dr. I'm Different, I presume?

Anyway, it seems like I may have been misled by the contact I've never seen before. Either that or these guys are good at mind control.

Anyway, I get the "we must understand these creatures!" explanation in a clue once all three of them come outside.

Hmm. My contact doesn't say anything about the mind control. I have a feeling I'm being lied to.

---

My contact says the plants have spoken to her. Uh... huh.

I wonder if these guys are just - gasp! - HERBIVORES.

Anyway, it's a defeat all in a short cave and everybody in it is absolutely silent. Not much to say there.

---

These briefings could use some paragraph breaks. They help break up ideas for easier consumption.

And something the canon missions tend to do that I like is generally spell out the location of the missions and what I'm expected to do there, the latter in green text, with the accept text an objective restatement of the same.

Anyway, I go in to a place to save some people. A fire controller in a suit and an elec/elec bug, who because he's running Lightning Aura speaks up as soon as I enter the door and almost takes out the guards before I get up to him.

I dunno, maybe that's intended for him?

But a couple of EBs are really overkill as allies.

Though this is like a two-floor building so I don't even get the chance to ditch them before I've cleared it out.
---

And some heroes are trying to get in our way, so my contact and her EB buddies are going to hold them off while I wreck the queen. Alone.

She's probably an EB so there should be a warning about that.

Huh. The Paragon Police are here? I don't see 'em. A talky patrol would be a good idea.

...a fire control/radiation elite boss. Ouch.

Well, there should be a warning anyway, even if it's not the queen.

But there's no real reason to believe the hero over the scientists from the first mission. Especially if my contact could hint that they're being compromised.

It does bother me a bit how I managed to MEET the villain in the first place. Neutral territory?

I let the queen get away? She was out the door before I ever got there, lady.

---

Anyway, the final mission briefing could use some commentary from my hero on what I was planning to do.

...what?

Spirit Croatoa?

How did I wind up here?

Okay, having rescued the Queen, these Oraith guys ARE psychic.

And having an Oraith boss as an ally means he's running his dark aura and killing his guards.

Anyway, with a sonic blast/DMiasma EB and two bosses and two lieutenants, the end boss (plant/psy assault) goes down like whoa.

In the end she rants about making the tough choices.

And that gets me to thinking...

---

Storyline - **. It's pretty clear from the first mission that there's a disconnect between my contact's orders and the way other people are reacting to these creatures. And my contact doesn't seem interested in addressing that disconnect, which makes me doubly suspicious. Honestly, I wouldn't voluntarily be following along after the first mission.

But here's something. These things are psychic. My contact can claim they use mind control. It actually makes what happens to her grandparents more terrifying - they were controlled into shooting these things so they could claim "self-defense".

And after the fourth mission, she's convinced I'm in on the conspiracy, so she fights me in mission 5 no matter what - and then I decide whether the queen in mission 5 gets away or not.

As it is, if I've decided to go ahead with things after mission 1, I don't think the new information in mission 4 is going to change my mind.

Design - ***. The enemy group, while small, is interesting, and the allies are pretty nice jobs too. There are things like vocal patrols for mission 4 which would help set the scene, but with the exception of the Spirit Croatoa final map I can mostly follow allong.

Gameplay - ***. On occasion when I get swarmed by lieutenants the sonic dispersion/sonic siphon proved to be too much. But this is really for the overpowering allies in the third and fifth mission, and the rather unreasonable boss in the fourth mission. I may as well have just stood still for the big climatic boss fight, and the fire/rad can kill anybody's greatest defensive strength.

Detail - **. It doesn't help that I only get two clues and both of them are about people who've talked to these dimensional creatures already. There isn't a single thing in any of the missions that isn't required, which is a real shame because I'm clearly supposed to have developed some kind of sense of both my contact and the mysterious invaders by the end. Finding clues in the lab, in the cave, in the crumbling office, and in the police warehouse can inform my decision about what I "should" be doing, even if the last mission isn't a choice at all.

Overall - ***. Overall it's an interesting concept for an arc, but the difficulty is a bit uneven and the plot is a bit more obviously railroading than I'd like.

I've submitted a couple of new arcs I've put together. They are;

• Enter Japes, ArcID: 96001
• In The Darkness Creeping, ArcID: 347709

Only because you have run out of arcs on your queue, and I'm always looking for feedback for my recent changes, I was considering asking for yet another re-review of Matchstick Women, but I looked back at your previous reviews and realized that I still haven't changed (much) your biggest gripe about the arc - the contact text, and I don't intend to. But if you have nothing else, or it comes up on random, I wouldn't turn down feedback on the new mission 2. Also Whack-a-Mole has a new version which is quite different than your last runthrough if you wanted to re-review that one.

I'd appreciate reviews of my arcs: 338575, 349034 and 350522. Thanks!

http://cohmissionreview.com/2009/12/...slumber-party/

Whenever you get back and you have the time, I'd love to get a review of An Arachnos Slumber Party #335317. In my sig is the link to my forum thread.

Well. Been a while. Job + holidays + Martian death flu = extended absence.

cohmissionreview.com has kind of faded into the twilight in the meanwhile, which is a bit sad, but I'm going to be back and posting.

Just a reminder for how things work, as it's been a while.

1) put arc up on cohmissionreview.com
2) once arc hits front page (spam moderation is done by the site owner, who is not me - repeat - not me) post here with review request
3) I pick a random arc to run every night - should I run out, I pick from the cohmissionreview.com backlog. The review goes up there, and either in this thread or a thread you've started for your arc, assuming I can find it.
4) Also, you get 5 stars in-game. I can't do anything to affect the opinion of enough people to put you in the Hall of Fame or whatever, so I may as well just be generous.

Also, since as of now a majority of my arcs have been inspired by other stuff I've seen while reviewing, this is official notice that I'm not going to be entering any dev-run or player-run contests based on arc authoring, critter design, or whatever. So submit in confidence.

Coming back in with a review, In the Darkness Creeping (347709). Verdict - **. Review in MA Forums Thread.

Last night's play, tonight's finished review.

An Arachnos Slumber Party (335317). Verdict - ****. Review in MA Forums thread.

Tonight's review. Pretty much at the end of the little queue I had saved up from being inactive -- I try to keep reviews from individual authors a week apart.

The Tangled Weave (338575). Verdict - ***. Review on MA Forums Thread.

After your reminder, I did end up submitting one of my arcs to CoHMR: Two Tickets to Westerly. Hope you'll like it.

I submitted my redone In Pursuit of Liberty to CoH Mission Review.

I know you did not much care for it's original version, but I have made a lot of changes to it since you last played it. Several of these changes were in part due to your comments.

The most major change I made was to change the contact. You and others were very unhappy with my attempt to portray Ms. Liberty.

I am still not sure that you will like this arc, but I do hope you will like it better than the previous version.

You are a very detailed reviewer with a lot of technical arc mechanics knowledge and I would very much appreciate your re-review of this arc.

As an aside, I unpublished the original version, but I did not know how to get it removed from CoHMR.

Enjoy (I hope)

Submitted my 'Time's Shadow' arc to CoHMR. Would love to see you review it when you have the time.

Friday night is game night, but Saturday night's all right for an arc.

Tonight's is Two Tickets to Westerly (374002). Verdict - ****. Review on MA Forums Thread.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ArrowRose As an aside, I unpublished the original version, but I did not know how to get it removed from CoHMR.

I imagine you'd send an email, tell, or PM to the guy in charge and ask him. That's what I did when the grand MA Forum purgening wiped the threads for my first three arcs and I had to repost and change the forum link.

'Eya,

I submitted my entry for Dr. A's second challenge to COHMR -- To Dream of Nothing

I'm about 98.72% sure I messed up the story at one point, so any criticism is welcome.


thanks,

-- Z.

Tonight's arc is Time's Shadow (371445). Verdict - ***. Review below in this thread.

@GlaziusF

Running this one on a mid-40s ice/axe tanker, no AVs all bosses 2 heroes at +0.

---

Seems to be an extraneous > before "As I was saying" in the opening briefing.

I... seem to be dealing with perhaps a Shadow Shard exile here. Someone who doesn't know what grass is. Ah well, if you can't be kind to aliens or perhaps people from the future, who can you be kind to?

Also at about level 40, anything you might describe as "hoodlums" stop being a concern.

Oh. Nemesis. Yeah, they might actually be self-described hoodlums.

Ah dear. Yes, alright, "Mender Silos" does anagram to "Lord Nemesis", but I'd suggest recoloring or renaming the troops, or at the very least making them from a different enemy group. Nemesis doesn't have a reputation for being quite this obvious.

But there's a time traveler out there, and we've just helped her.

As for the closing briefing, you probably want to put actions in bold or italics or a different color from the rest of the contact text.

---

More of those extraneous > characters in the second accept text. But alright, she's somebody else concerned with the integrity of the timestream. Let's go save some lives. That's always good, right?

...ah man. A cargo ship. I can see the sole navbar objective right when I enter, but I doubt it'll be so easy.

If this Stephan is who I think he is, his name's spelled with an F. Stefan.

He and Marcus are in the first two rooms of this cargo ship, and the mission completes.

Which I guess is alright (and the dudes who jump us are pretty spiffy-looking) but I have a look at the rest of it to see if I'm missing anything.

Nope, it's all empty.

---

Okay, so now somebody's going to cut the Rikti War off at the knees. I really don't feel like this is something that needs to be stopped, but okay, let's give this a go.

So there's some temporal weirdness still going on. Statesman isn't viewed very favorably, and I see a boss group of wraiths after I pull down some of the data on the Rikti War.

They seem to recognize me, for some reason. Defeating them wasn't required to complete the mission, even though they showed up in the navbar.

The end room for this mission is actually completely tiny, and it's got two glowies and a destructo in it, in addition to the Rikti... ambush? Patrol?

It's very busy, is my point.

Lady Starburst's signoff mentions... bane spiders? In Paragon City, yet. Hmm.

It's called a "Pyrrhic" victory, exit text.

---

The header for this mission calls it "act three", even though it's the fourth mission. I guess the first mission was a prologue?

Anyway, looks like I'm going to piggyback on an invasion and look for information.

Interesting custom troops guarding the place. Nice mix. I maneuver through a lot of fights and hit a bunch of glowies, finding a personnel file on my contact and the greater wraith who apparently started this whole thing...

To get my contact's old ID tag.

I... I wonder if it's actually her trying to stop this whole thing from going down.

---

Anyway. My contact falls down the temporal rabbit hole, and I'm going off to a crazy mixed-up world where up is clown and black is right.

Or the DE office. That's a pretty nice bit of chaos, yeah.

I find a young version of my contact, and a slightly older version a bit deeper in - she tells me to go back toward the entrance, but I met her just after I got off the elevator and the first floor is clear.

In fact it's not until the last floor that I meet the Professor. She tells me I must head for the deepest parts... but I thought I was there already. Hoo boy. Time to backtrack.

Back on the third floor I meet a meditating Starburst, who tells me that she hasn't just been fighting the Timewraiths, she IS the Timewraiths.

In fact, she's the end boss. Well well.

Unfortunately for her, I only get stronger with swarms of minions. Go Energy Absorption! The Timewraiths are a bit more of a bump, but nothing I can't handle, and she goes down.

The mission doesn't complete until the two little temporal shadow friends in her boss group are down, which seems a bit off.

Ah. Apparently I wasn't just making a John vs. the zombies joke up there, and she really was the timewraiths. Caused by repeated time-traveling until she became supremely powerful and supremely insane.

The end blurb is something about facing the consequences of my actions... this text really needs to be formatted specially. Especially since the bit about facing the consequences of my actions is really needs to be set up better, perhaps with some bolding on "your", to make it clear that it's talking about my actions as a whole rather than just my part in this storyarc.

---

Storyline - ***. I don't think the overall story is bad, but I think it's a bit wrongly paced. The first three missions are basically putting out fires and learning nothing about the big threat, with the first one rather superfluous overall. And the time interventions are a bit inexplicable. Are those her attempts to get rid of the TimeWraiths by preventing the Well of the Furies from being uncapped and turning back the Rikti War? We don't really find out. For that matter, how does the information from TimeGuard point to that odd little Nexus?

I mean, as far as I can tell I spend the first four missions just moving a pile of dirt back and forth before my contact remembers that it all ends in the Nexus and points my time-watch there. Which isn't a very satisfying way to spend the first four missions. They really need more of a connection to the overall story as revealed in the last mission, though the boss in mission 4 is a nice piece of foreshadowing.

Design - ***. The cargo ship ends a bit early, the portal lab and Time Guard HQ seem to be very heavy toward their end rooms, and the temporal duplicates of my contact misdirect me in the final mission, which is a bit worse than saying nothing at all.

The custom group is largely featureless, but that's fine considering what they are, and the photonegative clones are a nice touch.

Gameplay - ****. As a tank I was a bit frustrated that none of the customs wanted to have a punch-up. They were all ranged. And if I was playing anything but an ice tank I probably get a bit ticked off if enough minions connected with infrigidate. That's a bit of a bear to face as volley fire.

If you can put a melee minion in the group I think that'd help, assuming you've got the room.

Also, the running back and forth uselessly in the last mission as was noted.

Detail - ***. My contact has a lot of things to say, but most of them are either restated in the last mission or irrelevant to the overall story. That applies to many of the other clues I find, too. They're not out-of-place or even inauthentic, but they just don't help paint a picture of what's really going on here.

Of special interest is one largely throwaway line about bane spiders protecting things and "Statesman's thugs" messing them up. That's something I would have liked to see happening, perhaps instead of that first largely tangential mission.

Overall - ***. A generally good last mission if you can drop the misdirection by captives, but it seems to stand apart from the other four, rendering them make-work to one degree or another. If you can do more to tie the earlier missions in with the overall story, and if possible space objectives out a little more reasonably, the arc would do a better job of living up to the last mission.

Cheers for the review.

You've pointed out quite a few things that I hadn't considered - especially the pacing thing, need to look into that.

Thanks again.

Tonight's arc: In Pursuit of Liberty (344916). Verdict - ***. Review lower in this thread.