Warframe - Ninjas in Space!

For awhile now I've been seeing some of my steam buddies play this "Warframe" game. It never really was on my radar until my brother specifically said "get it", and damn it is awesome! Basically it is a 4 person co-op action/shooter where everyone is a space ninja pirate, and you must complete varying missions to keep the solar system safe, starting from Mercury and pushing outwards into the darkness. As you gain affinity (proficiency) in your gear it levels up, allowing you to slot more collectable card upgrade modifications that enhance your abilities. For example a rifle might get a card that give it a faster rate of fire. Said card can also be upgraded to make it more potent, but by ranking it up it will eat up more enhancement points making you want to rank up your rifle more.

Give me my affinity, alien scum!

Item wise the game is very grindy unless you like spending money in the cash shop for platinum, however that isn't really a problem since the game play is super fun. You can play it like Metal Gear, with patience and silent killing all the way, or just go loud and slay everything - be it methodical and purposeful or a fast paced maddening sprint. The maps are sprawlingly huge, but fortunately as your characters can move pretty fast. Random elements also keep you on your toes, like a rescue mission suddenly evolving into a data collection task - or having an evil warframe appear out of nowhere and begin hunting you down. As to be expected the enemy fodder is limitless much like the zombie horde in Left 4 Dead, with baddies literally coming out of every orifice of the map at some parts.

Important to note: you are just slightly less fragile than them, which makes dying a real concern because if your allies can't get you up before you bleed out, you are out of the game unless you wish to self-revive (which you can only do four times a day). Good thing finding online assistance is really easy, even if you have no friends on (or just have no friends). Anywho, if you enjoy co-op shooters you should probably give Warframe a look. It's not that big a download and more importantly, it's free! :)