Tangler's Review Thread

Glory of Moment
Author: @MowDownJoe
ID: 328789
Tags: Challenging, Ideal for Teams, Canon Related
Morality: Heroic

Glory of Moment is an arc that explores a possible origin to the Malta’s shape-shifting operative known as Moment, delving into how a meta-human would come to be working with a meta-fearing group like Malta in the first place.

Your contact is Crimson who approaches your hero to ask for help in taking down Moment, whose shape-shifting abilities he perceives to be a particularly large threat to national security. Crimson is aware that Moment is just starting an operation as he speaks but is unable to find out anything else, and so he asks your hero to raid the Malta base over in Warburg for information on Moment’s operation, allowing your hero to catch him in the middle of the act. Crimson hands your hero a briefcase to store any Malta files, and in 60s spy fiction style it’s also rigged to explode if mishandled. It’s an eccentric habit of Crimson in this arc, where he even gave my hero an exploding pen drive later.


Tragedy on top of tragedy: the toll of being a Titan has left Joe to slurr all of his words with randoms Ls, including his own name.


Malta show off their new 'eyes in the back of their heads' technology.

After the mission, your hero discovers that Moment is in the process of infiltrating Longbow, but for what ends you’ll find out later in the arc.

This arc has two plots going on; one being about Moment’s origins, and the other about finding out what Malta are after from Longbow. In the end the advertised plot of revealing Moment’s origins are but a sub-plot to the plans against Longbow, which is disappointing given the combination of the origin plot being the one I was more interested in, that it was the plot that was advertised, and because the Longbow plot wasn’t all that unique compared to the origin plot anyway.

The arc goes downhill in the final missions. The penultimate mission reveals Moment’s ‘true origins’ but bizarrely both Moment and Crimson comment about how disappointing the reveal is, which when I read it felt like the author was apologising with the way the arc turned out, and lampshaded it. Though not completely sorry, or just having run out of ideas on how to tie this arc up but knew it has to be ‘epic’, the final mission has you running through a defeat all with the Malta group. To be fair the map used is a small one, but as if to counter that your hero is also required to defeat 3 EBs as well. I ended up dieing to each of the EBs, and had to resort to stocking up on medium insps at the ticket vendor for each fight.


You ain't kidding.

The arc would have been better just by swapping the final mission with the penultimate one so it ends on Moment’s origin reveal, or better yet just play down the Longbow plot altogether. That said the arc didn’t really pull me in anyway, and not due to the ‘disappointing’ reveal either. If anything I could have seen that reveal be pretty neat with some good, flavourful writing, which this arc lacks. There’s actually a lot of text in this arc, but most of it needs more focus and impact, if not trimming.

Final Verdict: Play up to the penultimate mission, and then just skip the last.

2.5/5 Stars

And that's the 1st batch finally done. Thanks to those that submitted, and to those that have been following this thread. I'll make a start on the 2nd batch sometime in the future.

I'll be starting up reviews on the 2nd batch soon, in the mean time here's a quick update on changes to the format for this next session:

Times are tougher than they once was in MA when it comes to getting your arcs in played. In recognition to the current climate, I will be bumping up the score I give in-game. Anything that I liked (so a 3.5 stars or higher) will get a 5 stars in-game, anything that I think needs more work (2.5-3 stars) will get a 4, and anything lower than that I won't rate in-game.

On a lighter note, playing all those heroic arcs have caused Luminyx, my unofficial reviewing char to have a dual personality, and so she will now alternate to a more appropriate costume depending on what arc she's on.*



*Actually I tell a lie: she was always supposed to be a kind of dualistic entity, it's just that only recently I actually bothered to work on her costume.

The Tangled Weave
ID: 338575
Morality: Villainous
Tags: Ideal for Teams, Complex Mechanics, Canon Related
Author: @FredrikSvanberg

The Tangled Weave is part one of a series of alternative story paths for VEATs, paralleling the official one with arcs set during different levelling brackets for different stages of your VEATs life. For the first arc at least, this is actually set before the first canon VEAT arc and even before the regular story, as your villain plays a role in setting the wheel in motion for the events that later fresh-faced villains will face upon entering Mercy.


Join Arachnos, visit exotic locations (within Mercy) and meet exotic people (to brutalise)!


Yikes, and now I'm wondering if a ghost would need a toilet.


Ha, what a bunch of suckers indeed. I’m doing this against my will!

There are some nice use of flavour text and mechanics within this arc, and it’s most noticeable in the very first mission where you enter an Arachnos complex and witness a rather humorous office like atmosphere in the base. I had to remind myself that I was playing a VEAT, so naturally that had to be SOME bases that actually don’t shoot me on sight, and even treat me as a fellow grunt in the hole. It’s an area that is never explored in the official content, and one I would definitely like to see more stuff of, if not an entire arc (think TROOPS).

Kalinda speaks in very short, single-statement sentences at the start of the arc, which I thought to be kind of odd, especially when she speaks much more naturally in the latter half of the arc.

There is a peace treaty going on with Kalinda and the Snakes, one that I found to be confusing. This is mainly because in the middle of the arc, Kalinda decides to shelter some homeless snakes in an abandoned lab – one that Kalinda will later send villains to clean out in her canon arc. There’s no mention of the truce being broken by the end of this arc, and officially the snakes invaded the lab by force. I guess you could say Kalinda will have lied to the future villains, but I find that to be a bit of a forced leap on the player’s part.

The above critiques are pretty minor however, and are easily fixable. My main problem with the arc is that the individual missions are tied together loosely at best, which is harder to fix. All the missions are based around the concept of “Hey, remember this event? *wink* *wink*” which is neat, but they all add up to Kalinda just telling you to “go there, do this”, and I thought one of the reasons why you would create an alternative Mercy arc is to get away from that in the first place?

Final Word: Overall, The Tangled Weave is a decent story alternative for VEATs. 3/5 Stars

I don't mean to sound purely self interested, but when is mine up for a play?

Glad to see you are back at it by the way

Thanks for the review!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tangler Tags: Ideal for Teams, Complex Mechanics, Canon Related

Are those my tags or yours? Because if they are mine I'll have to do something about them. My tags would be Canon Related and Drama. I had better check that.

Quote:

Yikes, and now I'm wondering if a ghost would need a toilet.

Ghost Widow's tower is supposedly also the head-quarters of the Widow corps, and most of them aren't ghosts. Of course, from how they behave it's likely that most of them never go to the bathroom either, and are thus full of... it.

Quote:

Kalinda speaks in very short, single-statement sentences at the start of the arc, which I thought to be kind of odd, especially when she speaks much more naturally in the latter half of the arc.

She's terse because she's talking to VEATs, so she doesn't have to explain things to them like they are small children. Unlike the Destined Ones. She most of all doesn't have to explain why they are going to do something, because they are soldiers and are supposed to follow orders.

Quote:

There is a peace treaty going on with Kalinda and the Snakes, one that I found to be confusing. This is mainly because in the middle of the arc, Kalinda decides to shelter some homeless snakes in an abandoned lab – one that Kalinda will later send villains to clean out in her canon arc. There’s no mention of the truce being broken by the end of this arc, and officially the snakes invaded the lab by force. I guess you could say Kalinda will have lied to the future villains, but I find that to be a bit of a forced leap on the player’s part.

Would you tell anyone that your suspicious peace treaty with the Snakes had caused some of them to invade a laboratory and then refuse to move out? The Snakes mission is the weakest part of this arc, I'll give you that.

Quote:

The above critiques are pretty minor however, and are easily fixable. My main problem with the arc is that the individual missions are tied together loosely at best, which is harder to fix. All the missions are based around the concept of “Hey, remember this event? *wink* *wink*” which is neat, but they all add up to Kalinda just telling you to “go there, do this”, and I thought one of the reasons why you would create an alternative Mercy arc is to get away from that in the first place?

If you would have played the special arcs VEATs get you'd notice that my arcs are a vast improvement. I wasn't particularly interested in telling a story really, the arc was at first a showcase of typical Arachnos activity in Mercy - "behind the scenes" of Project Destiny. The kind of missions I would have wanted to get as a VEAT, basically.

I was actually trying to make a VEAT version of Kalinda's normal arc, featuring missions that she would send Arachnos soldiers on but keep secret from the Destined Ones. Each mission would be its own little piece of story without necessarily tying into the rest.

Quote:

Final Word: Overall, The Tangled Weave is a decent story alternative for VEATs. 3/5 Stars

Thanks again.

Are you still doing reviews, Tangler? I noticed the DC that Doc Aion gave ya, so it brought me here

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Yep, though new submissions are closed for now - until I at least get rid of the backlog.

Aha, fair enough. Literally trying to chain people to desks to get feedback for Heart of Steel
Also, that was me who ran up to you in...RWZ AE, I think? Last night, either way, when in your Villain costume. DAYAMN that made me double-take. Fantastic bit of work on that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Ah, I was wondering who it was hovering over me as you was also starred, I was a bit busy just then sorry.

Assault on Aru Prime
ID: 174586
Morality: Villainous (technically, more on that)
Tags: Non-canon story, Rule the world, Sci-fi
Author: @Aisynia

Assault on Aru Prime is what appears to be a “holodeck” style arc, which now that I come to think about it is one of the few arcs that actually treats AE as it was intended (all those “a glitch in AE suddenly means it wants to kill you” arcs don’t count). The arc is set in the far future, where mankind has since mastered the secret to interstellar travel. Rather than fulfilling the Star Trek dream of holding hands and frolicking with ladies of a green persuasion however, mankind has instead opted to go for the pillaging and all round seal-clubbing route, and it’s here where your character steps in with their alternate ego, a highly regarded “commander” of the 8th Fleet, and who is what the science people call a “Meta Sapient Ranger”.

The arc starts with you having being summoned by Admiral Ayala, who leads the entire 8th Fleet. It would seem that Earth’s invasion on the Azeri Alliance is going poorly, but their spies on the neutral planet of Aru Prime have discovered that the Arusians have unearthed a piece of ancient technology that could turn the tide of the battle in a big way. Your character will be beaming down posing as an ambassador, though in truth you’ll be there to try and steal the artefact as well as their superior shield technology while you’re there.


Aru Prime is a peaceful, neutral planet, so really this shouldn’t be too hard-


Ow, filthy neutrals!


Okay, I don’t think this “ambassador” guise is working.

Assault on Aru Prime is a curious arc: it basically portrays humans as bastards, with Admiral Ayala exemplifying this characteristic by being a little too proud with the chaos she sows. It’s certainly not a story you haven’t seen before, popularised by the classic Twilight Zone and seen more recently in films such as Avatar and District 9. What it does have that separates them however is the strength of this medium, and that is to allow the character (or should I say player in this case) to interact and have a direct response to what they witness around them.

On to the more technical side of this review, I found it odd how despite being a “commander” I don’t actually have any subordinates, or even my own ship. I initially thought the Azeri and the Arusians were one of the same until halfway through the arc. It’s a common problem I always have whenever authors throw in made up names and terminologies and assume I’ll somehow remember them, and it didn’t help that both races’ names began with the letter “a”.

The Earth soldiers are recycled Malta troops that look to be mostly Sappers. This worked out quite well as to not only offering futuristic looking weapons, but also allies that didn’t killsteal which was a nice bonus. The Azeri seemed to mostly consist of Robotics users, which can get a bit old. The reasons why they can only beam my character past the planet’s shields felt contrived, the Admiral should add a reason why she couldn’t say, use the teleporters to deliver the bombardment that way then, or at the very least send in a ground invasion. I feel that the main part of the arc that could use more work is the ending. It wraps up the tale, but I feel like I should be getting more closure after everything that’s happened.

Final Word: Assault on Aru Prime teaches us the horrors of mankind, or the joys of seal-clubbing. Just pick whichever one suits your character best. 4/5 Stars

Good to see that you're back reviewing

It's good to know people are still reading it too.

The Long Road Back
ID: 340454
Morality: Villainous
Tags: Custom Characters. Canon Related, Drama
Author: @Sister Twelve

The Long Road Back is an arc born from the announcement of Going Rogue, where for various reasons your villains may have a change of heart and are trying to go straight. This arc offers a vehicle for that transition, for those villains who in the arc's own words, have grown discontent from “the constant looking over your shoulder… the flophouses and the hideouts… and the failures.”

Your villain gets into contact with Richard Savage, a mid-level operative for the Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI, though not that one it turns out), a secret branch of the CIA and someone who can help you, so long as your villain is willing to lend them a hand first. At first Savage sends you out to do some pretty standard heroics, but the deeper your villain gets into organisation, the more political and downright sinister your assignments become.

A common problem that this arc and those similar to it face is suffering from being Just A Bunch Of Stuff That Happens, though to the author's credit she has managed to avoid this reasonably well. As well as performing seemingly loosely connected missions for OSI, each mission also provides clues to the true face of the organisation, and helps to paint the grander picture. One mission for example, has you helping to break a kid out of the Outcasts. The mission appears innocent enough, until you realise the ex-gang member is displaying some pretty powerful mutant abilities like summoning fire-imps, which would explain OSI’s sudden interest in some street-punk, and tiny alarms are going off when you realise he’s going to be kept safe at somewhere the OSI ambiguously calls "the Garden," which is also later referred to in the arc under different circumstances.


Totally not jealous that you can summon your imps at level 20. Not. One. Bit.

If anything you can fault this arc for is for having too many plot threads going around, and not nearly enough of them being resolved by the end of the arc. Presumably they would be resolved in the sequel that is hinted at, though I do not think this is a good practice since players care little about multi-arcs and only how good the arc they're playing *now* is, so arcs should be mostly self-contained with only the most central theme crossing over to sequels.

I think a few of the objectives could have stood to be different as well. I wasn’t keen on the defeat-alls, it didn’t help that my client decided to crash on me as I was over half way done, and when I logged back on I had to do it again. Not a fault of the author obviously, but one of the reasons why defeat-alls can cause so much aggravation and why you should keep them on the smallest maps if you insist on having them. The last defeat all also seemed redundant since you were demolishing the site with explosives anyway, so it just seemed like a forced Shoot the Dog objective (which may have been due to this arc being entered for the Dr. Aeon Challenge now that I think about it).

I like chained objectives, especially when it comes to showing investigative moments that this arcs have several of, but there were moments in the arc where the backtracking got excessive, especially in mission 4. Ideally chained objectives should be close together, or follow a linear map that supports it well.

With all that said, overall this arc is pretty enjoyable. The story and characters are well written, and while all the little faults do add up to cause some slow spots in the arc, I would still be interested in continuing the story to see more about OSI and where my villain is heading.

Final Word: An intriguing arc on the less than idealistic road to redemption. 4/5 Stars

Thanks for the review.

Just a couple of clarifications:

Glory Days
ID: 15976
Morality: Heroic
Tags: Custom Characters. Canon Related, Mystery
Author: @Megajoule

There’s a new villain in town calling himself Marko the Mystic, only he may not be so new as 50 years ago there was also a villain that went by the name of Marko the Magician. To combat this (possibly) new threat, you contact Jack Strong, a retired hero and former “arch-nemesis” to Marko in the hopes of gleaning any information or aid. That’s the excuse Glory Days uses anyway. The real point of this arc is to trample around in an age long past, when “lumbering lummox” was the greatest insult a villain could muster against their arch-foe, and for that this arc does do that very well.


Insert horrible fist-to-face pun rebuttal here.

You enter Jack’s memories with the use of the Bands of Shu (I guess you can just take out powerful artefacts from the Midnighters like it was a library) and go for a memory walk in the hopes of finding any clues about Marko from Jack's past dealings, though it’s a different that the usual interpretations. Usually whenever an arc does this, your character either steps directly into the shoes of the witness such as in Sabrina’s Tale, or else witness the events unfold as a silent spectre like in Marconeville Horror. In Glory Days it’s Jack himself who is relieving his own memories, in a somewhat bizarre hybrid of both playing his “part” in the memory, but also completely aware and interacting with your character’s presence.

It’s the golden age part of the story where the arc is at its strongest, embracing all the corny and sometimes questionable trappings which perversely what made the era so fun. It is perhaps consequently so then when the arc proceeds to the finale back in the present day, things unfortunately feel a little more mundane, even rushed.


More people would probably be willing to play the 5TF more if the 5th all spoke like this.

To the technical side of the review: the arc lacks an explanation on how this “new” Marko arrived on the scene, and why he’s such a threat that my hero needs to go out and consult Jack instead of just going over there and defeating him already.

Some of the revelations could have been slid in more smoothly: making it more clear what happened to Marko in the final memory during the encounter, and a few lines added to present-day Marko’s speech to make it less abrupt.

Final Word: Like a golden age comic, this arc has its charms, if just a bit more in fleshing out some of its ideas. 4/5 Stars

I'm very glad you liked this arc better than the last one. You definitely got into the spirit of it. My intent was to provide a "guided tour" of the Pulp, Golden, and early Silver Ages... and hints in the last of those about how, even though the bad guys still wear silly costumes, things are getting more serious. Which leads us to how things are today.

As for the weak and/or clunky bits: I've struggled since the beginning with the limitations of my choice of contact and the in media res setup, where all the information has to come from Strong himself. It would be great if I could put in a first mission where Sister Psyche explains it all and sends you to see him (like all the "take this thing to ____" dev missions). But I can't, so I just have to imply.

I thought I'd at least made the past Marko's fate fairly clear, though. To avoid spoilers, can you offer any suggestions on improving that and/or the encounter with present Marko via a PM?

Hobo Rising
ID: 10880
Morality: Villainous
Tags: Solo Friendly, Custom Characters, Comedy
Author: @Thorny Devil

Hobo Rising is an arc about an unknown villain recruiting the homeless people of Mercy Island to take over the isle. Your contact is a “Strange Hobo”, who is secretly an Arachnos informant who had spied a villain coming ashore with a gang of armed hobos, converting the local homeless to their cause with food. He wants you to stop them, and informs you that the best place to start your search is a nearby factory, before he slips away into one of Fort Darwin’s doors (so much for his cover…) and so begins your villain’s war against homeless people.


Warrior of the Gauntlet games has +rep'd this hobo's comment.

There isn’t much for me to write about this arc, as it’s a “what it says on the tin” deal. There are some hobos, and they’re uprising, and that’s pretty much it. The arc relies heavily on its novelty, and that novelty doesn’t hold across 5 whole missions with little to no deviation or real development, though I did find the explanation of how Kalinda manages to coordinate the new villains 24/7 amusing.

Most bizarrely this is an arc about hobos—hobos with guns, but normal hobos nonetheless, and they still somehow successfully raid an Arachnos base, and attempt a take over of a local bank (not rob it, actually take over it, as in your next business loan meeting will be with a funny smelling man with a duck on his head). This is all taking place at level 30+ as well (the last mission is 45+), which as a comparison is the same level the PPD brings out Robocop to deal with you. There’s no explanation as to why, and their inexplicable power level isn’t played for laughs making it a missed opportunity.

Onto the technical side of the review: I’ve spotted quite a number of typos throughout the arc, and the sentence structure could be smoother, though I get the feeling that English may not be the author’s first language. I think the arc could be made much shorter with the current story being told, and the clues can stand to be less vague, giving the player something to sink their teeth in. Change the level to be more fitting for the context, or power them hobos up to fit the level, or lampshade the whole thing, anything really. With some extra work, it's possible to bump this arc up a star.

Final Word: Not as bad as that hobo that always follows you around cursing, but not as entertaining as that one that plays the nose flute. 3/5 Stars

First: apologies to Mr Squid, for the reaaally long delay I have taken from playing his arc to writing the review. Since it really has been a while I’ll be posting two reviews this time, that of The Descender plus the final arc in my queue, Dragonslayers.

The Descender
ID: 339222
Morality: Villainous
Tags: Non-canon Story, Rule the World, Magic
Author: @Mr Squid



The Descender is a “rule the world” style arc, though rather than holding the world hostage with nuclear arms or laser-bases on the moon, your villain instead commands the Virtea, an eon-old fish-like race (there are shark-hybrids, but they sadly lack frickin’ laser beams attached to their heads) that has since been but a footnote in the CoX lore.

The arc starts with Captain Mako contacting your villain. Apparently the Leviathan’s powers were stolen by some “Destined One”, and Captain Mako has now decided to slay the beast. I’m not quite sure if the arc is saying Capt Mako wants to slay it now that it considers it “useless”, of if Capt Mako has always wanted to slay it but only now has been given the opportunity. Regardless, you discover that your villain has unwittingly become a part of something much bigger than he thought (or not, depending on his level of egomania) and wages a war on Recluse and his lieutenants, with hints of more bloodied expansion by the arc’s end.

The Virtea are well designed and look distinct from one another, and the arc conveys its level of grandeur pretty well. The arc puts itself above other “rule the world” style arcs with its lore and some ominous revelations that hints at a sequel. One of the missions required you to hunt down several bosses on the expansive “flooded city” map (its real name escapes me), which can place an unnecessary speed bump on the arc’s pacing. I wasn’t too sure on the conveniently magical plot device to make the final mission happen, and it does all come down to an EB/AV slugfest against Recluse and his lieutenants, which is a plus or a minus depending on taste.

Final Word: Overall the Descender is a fun arc. 4/5 Stars

Dragonslayers
ID: 335375
Morality: Heroic
Tags: Custom Characters, Save the World, Magic
Author: @Marty Rallner



Dragonslayers is an arc based on the age-old premise of “would your hero work with a villain for the greater good?”

The arc starts with you being contacted by one Angie Summers, a rule-the-world-to-make-it-better villain who is also “possibly one of the most dangerous teenagers in the world”. She needs help to stop a dragon cult from bringing their master back to this world, and she’s looking to a hero for it since she doesn’t want to risk her ally doing (as she puts it) a “Starscream”.

On the technical side the arc is pretty good, but it’s the writing that needs work. The arc feels like its running two missions too long since you Save The World by mission 3, leaving mission 4 to be the obligatory villainous back-stab (I’m not even sure we can call this spoiler-worthy at this point), and mission 5 to be an absolutely nothing happens affair.

The arc weighs in a lot of its appeal onto the contact--which falls flat. If you haven’t already guessed from the short bio-bit I posted, it would come to no surprise that she subscribes to the idea that being Snarky McSmartass makes you cool, and when she’s not making sweeping generalisations on your character (to which your hero barely counters with some pretty lame lines of their own) she’s dropping pop-culture references with all the subtlety of a Ninja/Storm MM.

Finally I felt the arc seemed conflicted whether it wanted to be dramatic or silly. Not that you can’t have both since I am guilty of this in all my arcs to an extent, but it did seem tug and pull for this arc.

Final Word: Fairly decent. 3/5 Stars

*Wipes off the dust*

Well I hope everyone's been having fun with GR, things are starting to slow down a bit so I thought now is a good time to re-open this old thread for new submissions.

I've decided to go with a different format this time round: I'll write up a review like I normally do, but now I also want to write up some technical feedback directed to the author. The first part will be a player review, giving my general thoughts on the arc and how I would rate it. The second part will be a line by line examination as it were, highlighting any parts that I thought worked and what didn't, any errors or general comments. The second part will by its nature contain spoilers, and is really only for the benefit of the author and anyone interested in the craft.

Also new rules: this will be quid pro quo, and so I ask anyone that submits a review to have rated and commented on at least one of my arcs (you don't have to comment or rate my arcs as the bestest arcs evar, but I do ask that you submit a reason on why you think the arc did not work). If your board names differs from your global, do be sure to tell me as well. Lastly to ensure that the reviews are done in some semblance of reasonable time, I will only have 5 arcs queued for review at any one time.

Happy MA'ing everyone.