Voidstar: Kahl Fight Good

[Part of the Voidstar: Warframe-128 story]

Explosions continued across the battlefield as more demolishers did their suicidal work. The Jackal survived its encounter with the bursa demolisher with heavy damage as did Grustag-3 member Shik Tal who barely scraped by against the machinist demolisher thanks to his rockets and giant shield. His brother Leekter was exploded by the hyena demolisher - a fate shared by the Valkyr specter whose talons took her too close and her paralysis skill too ineffective against the satyr demolyst. The Stalker was also obliterated when trying to melee the anti-MOA demolisher, but afterwards he just reconstituted himself to become the Shadow Stalker!

Elsewhere the sniper Ven'kra Tel was torn apart by Amaryn and her ancients, the Bonewidow defeated Misery who was self limited with only his scythe, Raptor RX had no chance against the Profit-Taker, Executioner Zura burned the Paris wielding Trinity specter to death with his Ignis, Executioner Gorth's Ogris rocketed the students of Cephalon Suda, the Sergeant [how did this guy even survive the landing] was easily handled by Parvos' time altering Protea, Zenith Galactical Tia Mayn was sniped by Executioner Harkonar, and the duel between specters Excalibur with dual skanas versus the Volt with a heat sword ended with victory for the latter.

Up on the ridge Kahl-175 faced off against Tyl Regor. "Would you look at you?" Tyl asked. "So fascinating. Tell me, why would you fight someone of your blood? Someone that loves you?" Kahl grunted, "You not like Kahl. Only Kahl like Kahl." Regor just laughed. "Foolish tube man, I AM YOUR FATHER!".  "Kahl has no father!" Kahl growled as he opened fire with his Grakata, but couldn't land a hit against the fast teleporting, hammer wielding scientist who thwacked him right in the chest plate. Kahl quickly rolled aside to evade Regor's follow up flying fist and in a smooth motion hacked through him with his Slaytra machete before sheathing it again.

"Kahl protect brothers."

"I'm not... done with you," the injured Regor coughed, suddenly unable to stand. "You done," Kahl answered. "Bleed to death. Kahl no need waste time on you." Grimacing, Tyl finally collapsed dead as Kahl walked away.

Warframe: Oberon and Nekros

The paladin and the necromancer.

Before we get into the frames there's currently a code for two free weapons (and weapon slots) you can redeem on the warframe website on in-game market (use the button on the bottom right): WF-DEATH-BATTLE

Not sure if that's due to the upcoming Tennocon or thanks to the recent Death Battle involving an Excalibur, but either way its a win for us - use it quick before it expires! On to the frames...

Oberon

Not sure how I got my hands on this paladin class warframe as it was waiting for me upon my return, and I found it to be just ok. No super strong offensive abilities but it can buff and heal allies while being pretty sturdy itself. After completing mastery on it I let it go because I'm usually a lone wolf type player anyway.

Then Wrothak shows up in a prime version to help me on a few missions (those freaking Orb Mother Heists on Venus) which just proved I was using it completely wrong (guaranteed I'm using 90% of all warframes wrong anyway since they have to "shine" for me before they get forma or potatoed/reactor) and while I was hiding from the Corpus army doing my sneaky Loki thing he was just tanking them AND the Orb Mother for a time. Definitely a frame I underestimated, just still not one for my playstyle.

Nekros

Easily farmable from Lephantis on Deimos (who is basically a pinata when fighting fairy Titania) the Nekros' main draw is his ability to make corpses cough up more loot. Oh, he can also punch enemy souls from out of them, summon ghosts of killed enemies as allies and scare badddies into running away which doesn't go well with any of his other abilities.

If I needed a word to describe him it would be: boring. For the most part Nekros is a warframe without powers. His punch is weak, the summoned dead expire, and what you will be doing most of the time is double looting corpses. Bleh, not a frame for me. Luckily he's an easy one to reclaim if I ever want to.

Warframe: Excalibur and Zephyr

The swordsman and the eagle.

Excalibur

The poster boy for Warframe is one you can grab from defeating Lech Kril on Mars (aim for the coolants on his back) or select as your starter frame. Excalibur is an OK all-rounder with powers that strongly lead to being up close and personal which works very well for plenty of early game missions. His ability to summon an exalted blade exemplifies this for those times you really want to chop things up and upon completing the Sacrifice quest, you will gain an Excalibur Umbra who is an improved version and is better suited to the enemies introduced at that point.

However I feel that's all the Excalibur is, which lets it get eclipsed by more specialized or simply more superior frames later on. I think I've used the Umbra in three missions since I've gotten it and have just stowed it away ever since.

Zephyr

Available from your clan's Tenno lab, this frame is all about flight gliding as she enjoys great bonuses while doing so (do more damage, enemies have a shit time hitting flying) and can stay airborne longer and glide faster than any other frame without using energy. Zephyr can also summon tornadoes which is great visually and decent crowd control, and can even redirect projectiles that have her targeted.  

These actually make Zephyr pretty sturdy and very agile in the right players hands. I only gave her up because she doesn't have the true flight of Titania's fairy mode (which handles like an archwing) nor Titania's status cleanse which is super handy against toxic infested.

King Arthur (2017)

That time King Arthur was Robin Hood.

You know the regular Arthurian tale goes out the window when the opening involves gigantically monstrous CGI pachyderm. This sets the tone for the rest of the film which has amazing fight scenes (especially when Excalibur is involved) followed by massive turds of cinematography. Expect montages a plenty. Also in one dialogue section I was starting to get a migraine due to how many cuts were involved. Seriously what idiot edited this?

"Are you calling me an idiot!?" Yes I am.

That aside, it also suffers from the problem of having a weak / bored female lead and the plot doesn't really help the main villain of the show who would have been better served being a pacifist to get to victory. At least Arthur himself is OK, even if he is in more of a Robin Hood type tale. Such mixed results with this one, but I don't think the good out weights the bad.

I'd watch the fight scenes again, but everything else? Pass. I give it 2 stone sheaths out of 5.

Shadows Over Camelot

Join the Knights of the Round Table and save Camelot from doom!

With invaders all around and magic items slowly slipping from reach, Camelot is in need of 3 to 7 (8 with the Merlin's Company Expansion) brave knights of the round table to save it. The mechanics of this coop/semi-coop game are simple. On your turn you do something bad, then do something good - and complete quests by playing poker. Sounds odd but it's a pretty decent system.

The other fun thing is that the game encourages the lack of sharing information by hiding cards from your allies and speaking in character. So no "I am running out of cards to help here", instead its "My friends, I will soon need to travel elsewhere" or some other nonsense. It's silly, but one of the best things of the game is this silliness. The very first win my group had happened when on the brink of winning (or losing) a war, Guinevere tried to call all of us off the field so my brother controlling King Arthur killed her with Excalibur. "Silence thou unfaithful strumpet!"

Other than everything trying to kill us, it's a pretty place!

The artwork is pretty cool and the game can feel oppressive at times but it seems to me that if the knights are really working as a team, the game is comparatively easy when compared to Arkham/Eldrich Horror or Xenoshyft. I guess that's why it has the traitor "feature" where one knight actually works for the bad guys (in secret) which I've not yet tried since my regular players prefer full co-op.

Currently I give this game three siege engines out of five (full co-op only). It's a fun two hour(ish) romp once people know how to play with quick setup and quick cleanup after. However if you are really looking for a full cooperative game, I'd recommend going for any of the D&D board games instead.

Score after re-review: Two siege engines out of five (full co-op only). 

Warframe: Trinity's "Secret" Combo

Despite being a "healer" Warframe with all four powers geared to restoring the Health and Shields of her allies, the Trinity has one nasty combo that makes her a very efficient boss hunting machine (against some bosses anyway). It all has to do with the math of her first and second of her abilities, which is conveniently the sequence you need to remember to use her secret "attack".

Step 1: Cast Well of Life on Target.
Effect: Target will GAIN a health multiplier (x10).
Effect: Anyone that hits it will regain health.

Step 2: Wait for Well of Life timer to reach near 1 second.

Step 3: Cast Energy Vampire on same Target (that should still have Well of Life)
Effect: Deals pulse damage based on enemy's remaining amount of health and shields.
Effect: Anyone that hits it will regain Energy.

Step 4: Well of Life expires.
Effect: Target will lose the health multiplier, returning to original values.
Effect: Energy Vampire will still do damage based on the original, boosted values.

Result: Target very owned.

Using this I soloed Ambulas, the Corpus MOA boss on Pluto to farm up some Excaliber parts even though my Trinity was still under leveled. Alas, the bosses that require soft spots to be shot will probably be immune to this and on the many normal mobs it's generally faster to kill them with your weapons.

On a side note, that's an interesting design decision Digital Extremes made there. If you didn't pick Excaliber as your "starting" frame the only way to get it later on is to fight your way from Mercury outwards, beating all the bosses to unlock more planets and satellites until you reach Pluto which is home to some pretty high level Corpus.

I can't think of any other game off hand where something you are offered right at the start can be so difficult to get later on. :P

Today I Smiled: Then got slightly Worried :P

[Post number eleven of the Blaugust Challenge!]

No blaugust bonus in this post since it's about real life anyway.

While cleaning around the house today I discovered EXCALIBUR in the garden! Who knew such a legendary weapon was just lying underneath some dried leaves? I did expect it to be longer and perhaps have some wet, gorgeous lady guarding it or have it lodged in some rock but oh well. Silliness aside it's obviously not King Arthur's blade, but what are the odds I'd find a similarly named thing just lying around?

Insert Fanfare music and beams of sunlight as I held it up high! :P

The blade is rather dull and the hinge that lets the blade fold into the handle has rusted severely. Obviously I'm curious as to how and when it came to be in my garden. None of you happen to be stalking me right? For some strange reason as much as I love swords and want to learn proper long sword technique, I've always been afraid of knives. Especially my father's knives. He liked keeping all of them razor sharp and often warned that each blade was always seeking out blood so you had to be careful. The same with all his cutting tools. I learned quite quickly not to mess with any of them.

MMOs: Where Equipment is more Heroic than You

[Part of my MMO Design Folder]
 
In MMO's usually what you wear is more important than who you are.

One of my main gripes in most MMOs is that regardless of who your character is, in the end you are defined by the gear you use - and often that gear despite having some level of rarity will never be unique. It's kind of like saying, to make the knights of the round table better you should equip each of them with an Excalibur and a Holy Grail. Suddenly such artefacts become cheapened simply by having duplicates. Why this is the case I'm not sure, as it surely isn't that hard to simply code that a particular item is unique, there is only ONE of them in the game. Maybe its magic properties expires after a week, regardless of the owners log in time, upon which it vanishes or reverts to a more common item resetting the flag for someone else to be able to get the magic shishkebob or whatever.

That is of course beside the point. If everyone can have all the gear then basically you are a storm trooper. Yeah you might think you are unique, with all those hard earned skills and levels behind you but guess what - everyone else can attain those too. In the end if you come across your counterpart of equivalent ability it will come down to the +1 underwear one of you is wearing to have an edge on the other. At least the way you play can still define you right?

Some games try to combat this by either going crazy with their available skill tree (Path of Exile) or simply adding an element of player skill (GW2, NWO) much like how flight and combat sims do it, yet even there exist tiers upon tiers of items locked behind abstract level requirements. Why? To take your time and money mainly. I just wish there were more games where a sword is just a sword and what makes your character better is his (and your) skill with it, instead of one sword being slightly more magical than the other. Yeah ok, that's plausible too but not when -every- person in the game (barring newbies) has a variation of magic sword.

What's really funny is when "gear score" comes into play. Basically your arms and armor become the hero, the only thing of importance, instead of the person underneath it.

We'll take the one with the +10 belt?