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I review Stranded (obvious spoilers) and, a bonus...

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Lorric:
I've played it now. It was different from what I expected, I expected gauntlets, I expected survival missions and point A to point B missions. In a way, this is in there, but not as I expected. This is more about telling a story than providing missions to play. Than the test of survival skill I was expecting. And I enjoyed it. Especially the characters, I really hope this is like a little preview of WoD2, and we will be seeing them again. I thought it was a lovely story really. I wish it had lasted longer, but that’s an assertion of how much I liked it, rather than a criticism of the length.

There seems to be some talk in the release thread about Slyphia being “Un-Cyrvan” I personally didn't think Slyphia was un-Cyrvan at all. Not at her core. She refers to Lightning and Silver as "her cute, lost little Terrans" so she still has that Cyrvan superiority complex in place. I think she was fond of Lightning and Silver, but in the way you would be fond of a pet rather than an equal. They were a curiosity to her, so she investigated. It is of course hard to pin those words down properly without hearing them. They can be said just as easily in a fun, harmless way as a condescending one. Or even both at the same time, which is what I’m going with. Some clarification on that would be nice if possible. Also, she said she would "allow us to be impressed" at the asteroid base and acted as though it's a given that the base could do all it could do. She later became impressed by them, and even Cyrvans are not so pig headed as to not recognise real ability when they see it. And of course, let's not forget despite all that, Cyrvans are still a "good" race at the end of the day. I'd expect them to treat an alliance seriously. Circumstance really brought her to go and see the Terrans in the first place. We don't know if she would engage with Terrans under normal circumstances. Being possibly lonesome would also have helped her along with social interaction too. She was a bit cold to me at first but soon warmed up.

I like Silver a lot. I really wanted to get her home safely. She’s a lovely girl. And you really got that whole all alone camaraderie thing spot on I thought. It’s cute when she comes to sleep with you. I wonder what the odds are if we get to quiz the new characters, if the first question will be “Hey Silver, did you have sex with Lightning?” *rolls eyes* I am certain nothing happened that way. I expect they just slept. Even if they had to do it in the same bed, though there was probably more than one bed in there anyway. Hey Spoon, regular old Terrans not interesting enough for you anymore, eh? Silver hair and silver eyes through genetic engineering…

Lightning is rather a bland character. The other two definitely take the lead. However, this is perfectly understandable when he is the player character. If he was supposed to be another character like those two, he would have got a head animation too.

I actually played this twice due to a mistake I made and I think I understand some triggers perhaps. The first time I jumped out after taking out the two Nordera fighters, and the Zy ace never showed. I predict it’s the destruction of the Zy patrol that gets his attention. And perhaps you figure it’s a test to see who is worthy of facing the ace, you have to clean the area. So the first time, I got to having to choose to save a particular person. I chose Silver, figuring Slyphia in her far superior ship would have the greater chance of survival alone. But I couldn’t win the fight, because I’d left that little popgun on my ship back at the Dauntless which the fighters could just soak up damage from for ages while they were destroying Silver. Those Cyrvan missiles only get you so far, so I had to start over. I also missed the bit where Silver comes to sleep with you the first time. As there’s a bright bit on the 8 for the pages, and I took it for a 6 and it seemed like the briefing was over at the 6th page.

This time, I took out everything, the Nordera, the Battleaxe and the Zy. So I attracted the attention of the Ace, and awaited his arrival. We cleaned him up pretty easily as well. Slyphia and her Aestival largely to do with it, it’s just a walkover with her around. However, when you have to face Mr. I want 100 kills yourself, it’s a real challenge. I was obliterated several times before beating him the first time I got his stealth down. I wasn’t looking forward to having to rescue my companions after my victory, but they jumped in safe and sound. So what happened to the ambush? Where did it go? Why do you get ambushed after not facing the trophy hunter, but no ambush with him in the mix as well? Not that I’m complaining.

Cutscene kicked in, slowed to a crawl with no sound (intentional or not I don’t know, 3.6.14 is giving me audio issues, and maybe this was an issue too) then my machine crashed. But I did get to see the Cyrvan fleet obliterate the enemy, so I presume there was no action and we won. I used ctrl-shift-s to see the other endings. I was surprised there was more to the true ending, as it hadn’t appeared in my list before. I liked them. I thought they were all very good ways to end it depending on what happened.

As with WoD, I love the new music choices. Especially the one for the parts where the companions are together interacting. And the artwork really sucked me in. This time, there was more utility to it, you actually fleshed out the interior of the Dauntless and the base which I thought was a great touch, really nice work. I think my favourite one of these was the one on the base where you can see outside into space, I really like that one. I’ve already pulled the pictures from the VP file. The music will be following soon enough.

EDIT: Love those new large head anis! A ban needs to be put in place in both the Terran and Cyrvan militaries on flight helmets immediately! :)

My one disappointment was nothing showed up in the techroom. I was hoping for some info on Silver and Slyphia and perhaps Lightning too. Other minor issues, I don’t like that blaring alarm on the Dauntless when you’re destroying it. It’s annoying, but that ship shouldn’t be doing anything at all, there’s no one aboard! Oh and transspace, you can’t read the messages, but maybe you couldn’t do anything about that. At least you can stop to read them. Oh, I spotted a typo too if you’re interested, Slyphia says “amongs the stars” when talking about dealing with the fura’ngle patrol.

So yes, very enjoyable, and pumps up anticipation for WoD2 all the more now.

Oh, how do you pronounce Emetal? I’m going with “Ehmataal”.




And now, a bonus. A bit of fun, “Lightning”, or rather “Stormageddon” shall give his report to his Terran superiors on what happened. Remember, history is written by the victors…

   “So, what do you want us to do with this stray Cyrvan we picked up?”

The Ravi system was lost. Or so they told us as they hit their jump drives and fled like cowards from the system. But we could not leave. Leaving our home would be as alien a concept to us as not breathing. So we stayed, and stood tall before the foe, spitting in the face of adversity. And when the Hertak fleet arrived, we were unafraid. And we hurled ourselves into battle. We launched our assault upon the Hertak fleet, and first we drew their fighters away from the main fleet. We were vastly outnumbered and outclassed, but how could they stand before men and women unafraid of death and defending their homes? We wiped out the fighters and with screams of wild exultation got in among the capital ships. They could not touch us with their turrets, we were beyond the Hertak’s reach. We were newborn Gods among insects that day. We were unstoppable. And we were scraping the turrets off their ugly as sin ships. Victory was near. Soon they would be helpless before us. But then the Hertak used a desperate move against us, unleashing a weapon we have not seen before. The battle had fallen into Transpace, and I believe that is the only place it could be used. It scattered us away. I don’t know where the rest of my team ended up. But I ended up in the Fromel system. I soon found one of my comrades, Silver, of Wolf Wing. We engaged various enemies together, and destroyed them all. We then came upon the LSF Dauntless. After we cleared away the Pillagers and Battleaxes that were towing the ship away, we landed and took stock. Clearly the weapon worked upon capital ships too. And had a far more devastating effect than on us. Silver had lost some of her things, including her helmet, but the ship was barely holding together. And as for the crew, there was no one there. I can only presume they were scattered into space somewhere and perished, but I cannot know for sure. We landed and ate, slept, and took on supplies and fresh fighters. Strangely, all the flight helmets were gone from this ship too. We then scuttled the ship and headed out.

   It was at this point we picked up this stray Cyrvan. Slyphia was her name. She would have been helpless without us, my cute little lost Cyrvan. She had been trying to get away to a hidden asteroid base in the next system, Haupt, and hide there, but she was intimidated by the large enemy fleet surrounding the starlancer. I gave her a pep talk and assured her we could get through if we worked together and trusted our instincts, they would not be able to touch us. First, under a plan I devised, we knocked out one of the Fura’ngle’s sensor arrays to punch a hole in their sensor grid so they wouldn’t see us coming as we made our move on the jump point. There was plenty of enemy resistance, including a Zy ace, but under my leadership, we prevailed, and sent him packing with his tail tucked between his legs. Thus after showing my strength and skill to her in that engagement, she trusted me, and we flew right through the heart of their fleet together, laying waste to their ships and dodging fire. What a rush it was! Some pursued us, and we ambushed and obliterated them, leaving the area littered with the shattered remains of their ships. It was nothing compared to the battle against the Hertak though. Compared to that, this was just an exercise. She worships me as a hero now. She wants me to join her as a “Deepseeker”. She won’t leave me alone!

   So anyway, we arrived at the Cyrvan asteroid base. There was a repair facility there, and under my guidance, we were able to reprogram the computers to patch up our ships. I even managed to fix it so we could use the Cyrvans’ secondary weapons on our fighters, which greatly impressed Slyphia. Again we set out to compromise the sensor grid, but the Zy ace was lying in wait. He knew we would split up, and singled me out, since I had been so instrumental in the victory previous. But he and his five wingmen were no match for me and I destroyed them all. At this point, I changed my callsign from “Lightning” to “Stormageddon”.

   The next stage was escape, and under my direction, Slyphia had managed to contact the Cyrvans on the other side of the Emetal star lancer. And so, once we had distracted their attention away from the Starlancer and on to us, the Cyrvans were able to come in and attack the enemy from behind, and thanks to us and our distraction tactics, they suffered no casualties. And so, here we are. I am very happy to hear of the JGASF’s victory over the main Hertak fleet. Our weakening of said fleet earlier is sure to have played a crucial role in this victory.

   Johan “Stormageddon” Sturmritter



   Here’s a Lightning I think my created version of Lightning and this Lightning have much in common with…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=madEJzYUxZo#t=1m47s

Legate Damar:
This human's delusions of grandeur would be amusing if they were not so banal...

(And am I the only one who takes apart and examines all of the mission files in FRED of every campaign I play after I finish it?)

An4ximandros:
Mizisu thought she didn't need a helmet either... That's how she got that giant scar on her forehead... :p headcanon

Legate Damar:
The helmet look is actually an improvement over most of these faces, IMO. (No offense, sadly scaleless friends).

We need more Zy headanis, though. Possibly Cordi and Fur'angle too.

Would like to see what Nordera and Hertak look like, as well. IIRC the latter were simply described as "unpleasant to look at." That could mean anything. For example, it's pretty obvious that most of the people on this board have a very different idea of what is "pleasant to look at" than I do.

Lorric:

--- Quote from: Legate Damar on December 03, 2012, 06:24:26 am ---This human's delusions of grandeur would be amusing if they were not so banal...

(And am I the only one who takes apart and examines all of the mission files in FRED of every campaign I play after I finish it?)

--- End quote ---

Banal, huh? Alien scum!  :lol:

I look into the odd mission in FRED, but not all of them.

Oh, and the Fura'ngle ARE the ships. You're looking at them.

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