Tangler's Review Thread

The Power From Out Of Space
ID: 64800
Author: Dr. Spoon
Tags: Solo Friendly, Kid Friendly

The Power From Out Of Space is an arc where your hero follows the growth of five citizens who after being empowered by a mysterious power (spoilers: it’s in the title) manifest various super powers tailored to their own personality quirks, such as photographer Chrystyne who becomes the gadgeteer markswoman Lens Flare, and coffee aficionado Ken who transforms into the brick known as Blue Mountain. Alarm bells are set off however when this new superhero team are climbing up the security levels at an unprecedented rate (even faster the pre-nerf MA farms? Now that is something), and it’s up to your hero to discover the source of their power.


I actually had to Google the name in order to get the reference. Yes, I flunked coffeenology when I was a kid.


*Hint hint* to all you authors out there even considering using the Oranbega maps.


Our heroes ladies and gentleman. Just ignore Mind Strum, he just likes to sniff people's hair.

This is a light and enjoyable arc, with nice pacing and small maps to keep everything short and sweet, and there was also an optional clue I found that was a nice touch. There was an odd case of backtracking in mission 2* for spawned chains that really shouldn’t be, and of course heroes should expect a big bad that will be involved with the plot, though while his plan isn’t bad in theory, it does have logistical issues due to the rather ‘specific’ nature of his plan.

Final Verdict: Light and appealing.

3.5/5 Stars

*Amendment: the backtracking occurred in mission 2, not 3 as I originally wrote.

Tangler, thanks very much for the review! Looks like my revamp after getting excoriated by Lazarus (he gave me a 2 and rightly so) had at least some positive effect. Glad you enjoyed and that you noticed that optional clue. "Light and appealing" was pretty much what I was going for. Don't suppose you can send me a PM to explain the "odd case of backtracking in mission 3 for spawned chains that really shouldn’t be"? If I can find a way to fix it I'll give it a shot.

As far as your comment, I'll address that in a PM.

Awesome reviews Tangler! Are you still not accepting submissions?

The Coldest Of Wars
ID: 299972
Author: Zaphir
Tags: Canon Related, Save the World, Mystery

The Coldest of Wars is a spy thriller that has a campy, 60s silver age era influence to it. In it your hero is contacted by Agent Kellum of the FBSA, who has been investigating the ever suspicious activities of the Crey Corporation. Her inside man has reported that a major breakthrough has been made in the past 10 hours in one of their super soldier programmes, and it is up to your hero to safely extract the personnel, as well as any information pertaining to this project.


You get to play spy for the first 2 missions, breaking into systems, finding out the latest office gossip, etc.

Your hero soon discovers that the super soldier project in question is none other than the macabre Revenant Hero Project, and it was during one of Crey’s excavations for ‘samples’ at local gravesites that they discovered a mysterious unmarked tomb. Inside, they unearth several personal that have been kept in cryogenic stasis that they haul back to the labs for further study. The personal turn out to be Soviet Russia era super spies, and ones that inevitably break at that, in order to complete their decades old mission to bring back the terrors of the Cold War by putting Paragon City to its frosty doom.


'Most surprisingly, Z reports the crypt did not in anyway lead to Oranbega, or was a den for various other villain groups at all.'


'Like I haven't heard that one before, so what's your plan-'


'Ahem, well I for one, welcome our new raspberry ripple overlords.'


You'll face off with many of the operatives including their leader who is appropriately and devastatingly enough an ice dom EB. It's a shame we can't add or even customise music in MA yet, as I would have so wanted to have this played for this encounter or even the last half of the arc.

The arc is tied into the Revenant Hero Project though it is erroneously called the Paragon Protector Project here. The timeline is a bit muddled, as it never directly mentions that this arc is a precursor to the RH storyline at the start which certainly made things confusing, however its level range is set to be above the level where heroes resolve the mystery of the RH Project. Also, it is never clear how studying the Russian spies will directly aid Crey in making the RH Project a success.

Missions 1 and 2 I found to be particularly long, and since they both used the tech themed maps they also felt quite samey too. Most of the missions are timed, and while the time is usually generous save for the final one as the objectives were more demanding, it would have been better served to state the exact time allotment before accepting a mission.

That said, I enjoyed the colourful, campy, silver age adventure, the equally colourful Russian cast* and the outrageous doomsday plot that were the hallmarks of the era.


Pretty much sums up the arc.

Final Verdict: Do you have a guilty pleasure for silver age comics or even Saturday morning cartoons? If you answered yes to either one you should be giving this arc a play, and if not you should probably give it a try anyway.

4.5/5 Stars

*Which for those who have played my Mercytown arc may have realised, I do have a certain fondness for Soviet villains.

An update to my submissions: I'll be opening up a 'second batch' that authors can submit to the queue. Keep in mind, I am still planning to take a break from reviewing or at least slow down after this batch is done (though you can still jump the queue by quid pro quo), but the queue is there if you want to line up for a review when I pick it back up.

Thanks for the review, glad ya liked it!

Just a few quick notes:
- It is indeed supposed to be set before the 'original' JK arc. It's kinda tricky to tell this without breaking the fourth wall, so I used a line in the first briefing making an offhand reference to the mysterious and unresolved disappearance of Invisible Falcon as per Glazius' suggestion in his first review. It may be too subtle, but I couldn't figure out a better way. The level range is sorta arbitrary, mostly because freaks are either 20-xx or 40-xx, and I had to go with the 40-xx group to keep level ranges consistent.
- I'm very glad to see someone else got the Nuclear Winter reference this arc is supposed to be a sorta-homage to one of my favorite PC games, heheh. (I had to restrain myself from directly including quotes by NW or his lackeys)
- About timed missions: the last one is supposed to 'go both ways' (again evoking a sense of urgency common to spy thrillers), and you 'succeed' even if you fail (let me just say I spent some time on the 'net trying to find fissile materials that have a half-life under 40 years /cough). Some of the people who played the timed missions love 'em, others say they're a bit excessive, I may look into making 'em untimed later.


Thanks again!

-- Z.

If that second batch is still open for new additions, here's mine.

#338575: The Tangled Weave
Level 5-10
Learn more about how Arachnos works behind the scenes in the Rogue Isles to make Project Destiny come into fruition. You will revisit some familiar events, or events leading up to them, from a slightly different angle.

The arc was designed to be played as a VEAT, as part of a project to complement/replace the lacking VEAT epic arcs. Just keep that in mind if you play it with another type of AT.

I'll offer up my world domination arc "The Descender" ID 339222. This is an old arc of mine, but I only recently checked up on it and found it invalidated. I worked out the kinks, gave it another layer of polish, and put it back up!

In Pursuit Of Liberty
ID: 221702
Author: @Gypsy Rose
Tags: Heroic, Solo Friendly, Canon Related

In Pursuit Of Liberty can be described as an alternate canon story with a touch of fairytale flavour. Your hero is contacted by Ms. Liberty, who presumably getting tired of never winning any costume contests despite practically living there, has developed fairy godmother level insight and tasks your hero with saving ‘Liberty’. Your hero initially travels nine years into the past through a magic portal in order to rescue ‘little Liberty’ from being kidnapped by The Family, and from there your hero travels into various points of time in order to help Liberty fulfil her destiny, as well as thwarting a mysterious group that are dead set against her doing so.


Your hero will meet up with Liberty through various stages of her life, whose description amongst other things suggests she is the very incarnation of Liberty itself.


MAL is a 'mysterious' character within the arc, who is the mastermind behind all the troubles.


The lore behind the custom group is interesting, and it adds to the overall fairytale feel of the arc.


Though this one actually states as to wielding the most common superpower in her bio (the close up shot was in no way intentional by the way... honest).

Unfortunately there are a few things with this arc that don’t sit well. Ms. Liberty’s fairy godmother like insight (combined with a habit on withholding information for some unexplained reason), her ownership of a time portal and her very personality portrayed in this arc is in stark contrast to her canon representation. MAL is supposed to be a mysterious figure until the final mission, but your hero already knows he’s the cousin of a named and notorious mob boss from mission 1, so it couldn’t have been that hard to pinpoint who he was. I couldn’t really buy into MAL being the big bad he is supposed to be either. We get to see his misdeeds in the future, but his motives are just so small and petty, it’s like trying to take Superboy Prime as a serious major villain. It’s later revealed that MAL seeks to destroy Liberty due to some kind of prophecy, but the reliability of the source I found to be very questionable, seeing as how the person in question never had precognitive abilities.

There is some good groundwork to this arc, building up more on the fairytale like nature of the arc, the idea of Liberty personified, or making MAL a more badass villain would have really made this arc shine.

Final Verdict: A decent arc with some good, if undeveloped ideas.

3/5 Stars

I'll be taking a break from reviewing in order to have some free time to check out and vote for the MA Player Awards. I'd suggest checking out this neat event if you haven't done so already, and also to vote for Mercytown for best TO Range Arc.

End Game – Final Moves
ID: 17006
Author: Calash
Tags: Complex Mechanics, Challenging, Custom (Author) Characters

End Game – Final Moves is an adventure arc where your hero tries to foil a dastardly plot that one gadgeteer brother has for his sister. Your contact is a lady called Minkia, former assistant to said evil brother known as Robert “Dark” Veil, who has since had a change of heart (read: left for dead by Dark Veil after being caught embezzling) and now aids his sister, Susan Veil.

Dark Veil is in the dark that his former assistant still lives, and Minkia exploits this and easily hacks into his systems, uncovering Dark Veil’s plot to ruin his sister’s life, and so begins your mission to foil his schemes before it is too late.


With the aid of Longbow, your hero lifts the dark veil of Dark Veil's plot (I'll stop now).


Robots allies huh? That sounds nice-


Oh, hell yes.

The arc makes excellent use of mechanics, as well as the set up for it. Talking with Minkia after the initial debriefing will supply you with information on exploiting enemy weaknesses, as well as hints as to how to call for additional reinforcements if needed. While most heroes won’t need the additional allies, they can certainly help against the more powerful EBs as well as adding flavour to the arc. There was also a scene where you hero needs to hack into a network by accessing the correct computer node. There is an element of risk involved as accessing the wrong node will alert the guards, but you are able to tell which nodes are a trap and pull out before it is too late. It is in all a refreshing take on the ‘click some glowies’ objective.

In the end I was unable to stop Dark Veil, as he used the most nefarious power known to man as the bugged objective spawn. For some reason one of the two robot henchmen I had to defeat before they escaped did not spawn. I ended up clearing the entire map and he still refused to show up, and so my hero ended up just sitting there waiting for the countdown timer to go down.

Unfortunately the story isn’t much to write about. The evil brother wants revenge on her good sister, and that’s about it. Your hero never finds out much history on their sibling grudge, like say why Dark Veil blames his sister for his fall, nor does your hero makes any connections with the characters... except Minkia.

If there is one thing you can say about Minkia is that she is flirtatious, even her flirts are enveloped in pink text whenever she puts the moves on your hero. Though before the phrase ‘that’s hawt’ forms in your mind, I’ll just add that her flirtations were less Jessica Rabbit and more Sue Collini* (the last link isn’t for kids… though nor is Jessica Rabbit actually).



Final Verdict: A decent arc, it is its gameplay that carries it.

3.5/5 Stars

*Fun fact: both are performed by the same actress for those not in the know.

What's your queue right now? I can't find it.

It's listed right above the 'reviewed' list on the first post. I'll copy/paste my current queue for your convenience:

Next For Review
Gangs United
The Fall of Rapture
Glory of Moment

2nd Batch
Assault on Aru Prime
The Long Road Back
Glory Days
Hobo Rising
The Tangled Weave
The Descender

Sorry I looked around and didn't see it, but my head is fuzzy from meds.

BE Prologue: Gangs United
ID: 250480
Author: @Ozzie Arcane
Keywords: Solo Friendly (disputable), Mystery
Morality: Heroic

Gangs United is a light mystery arc that is also the first of a planned multi-arc storyline. Your contact is the oddly named Scothew, a reclusive conspiracy theorist who happens to look a bit like Alan Moore. Schothew has just stumbled upon a hot lead on a mysterious organisation in Paragon, though it’s one the Freedom Phalanx and Longbow are choosing to ignore as they assume he’s just some kind of crazy nut (again, looking like Alan Moore probably doesn’t help), so he pleads to your hero to follow the lead in their stead.

Oh, and he thinks it is the Illumanti. dun dun dunnn

Scothew fills your hero in that they’ve been arming the Hellions with something that’ll make them an even bigger threat, and so off your hero goes to investigate a warehouse where the meeting is taking place.


Super special awesome ultra special sexy transformation sequence GO!








As it turns out the organisation behind the deal are a group known as Big Evil, and along your hero’s adventures he will find out that Big Evil has been similarly levelling up other small time groups for the purpose of one Big Evil Plan.

The arc boasts various customs, from the already shown improved Hellions to the new Frost Giants for the trolls. They’ll all nicely costumed, and fit in well for the arc’s story.

The arc being lablled as ‘solo friendly’ is debatable, as each mission has A LOT of bosses with most of them being customs, and they’re all mandatory. I find this to be indulgent even post SO levels, let alone for an arc ranged between levels 10-20, and there were a few times where my hero got curb stomped because she ended up getting agro from multiple bosses at once.

Big Evil is I can only suspect the author’s SG. The reason being because there were plenty of moments where I felt I was being prodded with the ‘you should care about this cameo’ stick, to which I could only reply incredulously with “why should I?”

You find out the reason why Big Evil is amassing all these gangs near the end, as well as a bit more on Big Evil, but discovering the Big Evil Conspiracy left me with one big “oh… okay.” This was mostly a delivery issue, which as my previous comment on the Big Evil members I noted, the arc suffers from as a whole. Am I itching to play the sequel(s) to know what happens next? I honestly and brutally say I cannot. This arc has room for improvement if the author is serious about taking it beyond an arc to share with SG mates and one for public consumption.



Final Verdict: Not bad overall, but could have been better.

3/5 Stars

*shuffles in*

If you have the time, could you add the arc "Dragonslayers" to your to-do list? In the meantime, I'll happily play and review any arcs you might have in return.

Hi MartyRallner, in case you didn't know, any new submissions may be in for a long wait as I want to catch up with some other things before regularly reviewing again.

Still, if you want a more prompt review you can still opt to play and comment on one of my arcs. The two arcs are in my sig, though I should warn you that Might Makes Right is still in need of a large update to i16 (hence why I'm taking a break).

The Fall of Rapture
ID: 299507
Author: @Aristocras
Tags: Challenging, Non-Canon, Save the World
Morality: Heroic

The Fall of Rapture is an arc where your hero answers a distress call from another dimension while in Portal Corp. As he enters, your hero finds himself in a futuristic, fascist new world called Rapture, and things only get worse from here.

First, allow me to say that I really wanted to like this arc. It does a few neat things that I thought was really cool, so much so that I didn’t ended up 1 starring this arc. Just how bad can that be? It’s bad in that when it hits you with the stupid stick, you console yourself on the trail of breadcrumbs that are the redeeming values of the arc, repeating to yourself ‘well, it can’t possibly get any more stupid than this at least’, only for the arc to exceed your expectations time and time again. I am not playing for laughs when I say that I started playing this arc thinking that this was a 4+ star grade arc, only for it to drop to a 3 star arc halfway through, and then just facepalming by the end.

This review will be structured differently compared to my other reviews, in that in order to talk about the bad, I will have to pretty much detail every mission just to talk about all the stupid. If you want to keep this as a spoiler-lite review, I would recommend that you just read up to the good bits and skip over to the verdict.

First the good, the author has done a really great job in costuming the custom faction. The enemies are your usual faceless soldiers type, but their uniforms are spot on for that futuristic, fascist motif that is going on in this arc. My screens really can’t do them justice as to how stylish they look in game.




Oppression never looked this fabulous.

The arc also ties in the mission to the map much better than most arcs, with the crowning moment being mission 4. There are also some smaller but also good touches in the arc such as finding the exit in the first mission (which isn’t code for ‘fight the boss who spawned all the way back at the start’). All in all, if there’s one thing I can say that this arc does do well, it’s atmosphere.

Now onto the… stupid. As your hero explores this new dimension, he’ll rescue some stragglers who were about to be ‘purged’ by troopers of this tyrant. The stragglers tell you that this tyrant goes by the name of Lord Mesisen


*Piercing silence*

-who according to the rumours is also a shapeshifter (you can just taste the cheese twist). After freeing the stragglers and finding your way back home, you are contacted by the leader of that world’s resistance who calls itself ‘The Answer’. The Answer explains that what the hero saw was the remnant of a terrible war that Lord Mesisen waged and won against the former tyrant, Lord Recluse (wait, so are we in the Rogue Isles, or did Recluse take over Paragon, and also, what happened to all the heroes?). The resistance, who call themselves T.R.A.P.


*Piercing silence*

-are interested in recruiting you, but first they want to test that you are trustworthy before they let your hero in because apparently, saving civilians from Mesisen troops isn’t enough to prove whose side your hero is on.

The Answer tasks you to destroy one of Mesisen’s factories using bombs it has dropped off in a dumpster outside the plant (not explicitly clear what kind of factory it is, but it probably involves baby-stomping). Your hero enters the factory, which is already set to explode in 30 minutes for some reason (time limit really needs to be explicitly mentioned). Your hero plants the bombs and takes out the foreman, who was specifically ‘picked for his cruelty’ (so definitely a baby-stomping factory then), and on the way you overhear one of the troopers comment on the influx of brass being brought into the factory (HINT HINT).

After the bombing, The Answer decides it and your hero should finally meet, and tells him to go to an abandoned office where your hero will find an underground network for the resistances' hideout. Upon entering the office, your hero feels suspicious that the office feels too quiet, because abandoned offices are known for their loud background noises. Further investigation leads your hero to find The Answer, a toxic tarantula whose being held by Mesisen troops. After your hero successfully frees The Answer, he makes a passing comment that there’s something odd about Lord Mesisen, almost as if he doesn’t belong.

For your next mission, The Answer wants you to finally take down Mesisen, and by taken down I mean assassination, which your hero is totally fine with regardless of their moral background. This is the mission I’ve mentioned with the particularly good map use, it’s a hard mission but fitting considering what your about to do, and the whole thing evokes the final scene of Equilibrium which is certainly not a bad thing. Reading Mesisen’s bio, you find out that his iron rule crushes all thoughts of resistance (except there is a resistance group), he is also a noted shapeshifter but tries to hide it (if he’s already well known for this then how and why is he trying to suppress it?) as he fears the public’s knowledge of this will lead to an uprising, because being ruled by a despot I'll take grudgingly, but I'll be damned if I get lorded over by those damn dirty shifters! Mesisen does his evil monologue, fights your hero and then teleports away.

As you return, The Answer informs you that Mesisen has retreated to his main HQ and tells you to go hunt him down. Your hero finds Mesisen and beats him down again, and he proceeds to teleport away again. Your hero finds him again but this time shifted into a ‘demonic form'. As your hero defeats this version he gains a clue noting that as the body (which the clue calls a werewolf for some reason) fell, it made a ‘clunking’ sound as it hit the floor (if you haven’t guessed where this is going yet, I feel really bad for you). Your hero finally encounters Mesisen’s true form, only to discover the incredible twist that well, I’ll just let him speak for himself:


I don't think I could add anything to this.

After your hero finally puts down Nemesis for good, he returns home only to be greeted with this wonderful closing:



/em double_facepalm

Final Verdict: There are some truly good things about this arc, and there is also a lot of stupid.

2.5/5 Stars

Appropriate that the final screenshot was taken on top of the giant atom in Aeon City, since that's about the size of the Idiot Ball involved in this arc.

"Lord Mesisen". Really, @Aristocras? Really?

[QUOTE=Tangler;2415021]The Fall of Rapture
ID: 299507
Author: @Aristocras
Tags: Challenging, Non-Canon, Save the World
Morality: Heroic

First off, thanks for the, err, brutal review

Quote:

First the good, the author has done a really great job in costuming the custom faction.

Thanks, it's one point I tend to focus on the most
The enemies are your usual faceless soldiers type, but their uniforms are spot on for that futuristic, fascist motif that is going on in this arc. My screens really can’t do them justice as to how stylish they look in game.


The arc also ties in the mission to the map much better than most arcs, with the crowning moment being mission 4. There are also some smaller but also good touches in the arc such as finding the exit in the first mission (which isn’t code for ‘fight the boss who spawned all the way back at the start’). All in all, if there’s one thing I can say that this arc does do well, it’s atmosphere.

Quote:

(wait, so are we in the Rogue Isles, or did Recluse take over Paragon,

Sorry, another thing I forgot to mention. I originally had the Mission 1 Map as the Ruined Atlas Park, but changed it (for obvious reasons) and it slipped my mind to let players know where it's set.

Quote:

and also, what happened to all the heroes?).

It's assumed that they were taken out by Lord Mesisen.

Quote:

which is already set to explode in 30 minutes for some reason

That was a somewhat poor attempt at replicating the time limit of the bombs once armed. (If only we could add time limits AFTER "X" Objective)

Quote:

(which the clue calls a werewolf for some reason)

This was because it used to be a werewolf form, but I decided to switch it to try use a more interesting build. Must have forgotten to change the clue.

Quote:

there is also a lot of stupid.

So, by "a lot of stupid do you mean; "I should drop less hints about the 'twist' at the end"?