Happy new year, have an update

Gaming rewind poster is being made.
I got a nintendo switch.
I'm writing my Rainbow six Year 3 wrap up post.
I'm writing the Saya's Vigil review while playing it on my switch with screenshots from my switch gameplay
COLORS WEAVE INTO A SPIRE OF FLAME
and i need to get to this blog more often, have a happy new year.
(also my nightmare season at work is over)

Knock it off pedleck! You LAUGH like an Electrocuted Hampster!

Vor's Prize review, Part 2. Wake up Tenno.

So Chimera is out, and this is overdue. yeah.....
Fortuna this week too

Tenno, you're safe. But your work isn't done yet

Now that you've escaped Vor, you need to prepare a counter attack. First you need to get that Ascaris off your leg. After completing the previous mission you have extracted with the arsenal segment to your ship. It turns out that while Ordis and your ship were impounded, the Grineer looted everything, except for the somatic link and the helminth rooms (not important and wont open yet). Lotus plans to help you by finding someone to remove the Ascaris. First you have to make contact with him. Lotus has found a replacement for your lost communications segment on E Prime ( a mission node on Earth.)

When deploying to this mission you get your first taste of the SPY mission type; where you go to Data vaults and hack them. this is a decent tutorial for alarms.

Now that your communications are back up you install them into the market segment, ignore it that's a bad choice to install it into and I think DE actually for once TRIES to get you to spend.
But this gets you in contact with the system, and here you can invite friends to your session and have them help you. Next thing to do is rescue Darvo "Deal" Bek, a Corpus Black Market man, from the Grineer.

Darvo is a very interesting well made con man of a character (he has a pretty cool accent to the likes of Cassian Andor and Helmut Zemo, but not as thick, and less fluent in english feeling)

Darvo is in prison because he wouldn't sell his wares to the Grineer. This is a rescue mission which requires you to go through the tileset, but once you get close you gotta be careful, if the WARDEN EXIMUS guards see you and trigger the alarms it will begin a  countdown to kill the prisoner. you have to hack the door to let Darvo out.

 There's a bit of a problem during this. Vor's Ascaris has made it's way into the void energy in the warframe. Nothing too bad yet, but he's going to half your shields for now. Once you get back you get a plan to get out of Vor's Grip.

Soon the worm will be in your spine and I will control this Warframe of yours... I will purge your doting mother and bring you home

So Darvo has given you a blueprint to take care of the Ascaris. But you don't have a way to make it. so you'll need to get back the Foundry segment for your Orbiter. You've also recovered the mods segment so you can equip and upgrade mods for weapons and warframes in your arsenal.

Throughout this quest you've been getting cracked/flawed mods which are less powerful than their regular counterparts and these are a good starting way to understand how they can boost your equipment. 

Lotus (Space Mom) has contacted some miners who will have a foundry segment for you, no trouble right? Turns out the Grineer got here and slaughtered the miners. So grab the segment, and begin your first ever Exterminate mission type. Kill a certain amount of baddies, then extract. (it's counted as an endless mission so they'll keep spawning) You'll get a normal mod named Fury It's for melee weapons and increases swing speed. This is in addition to more flawed mods.

So you CAN build it, but with what? Your foundry can't work with no resources. So Darvo gives you info on a Corpus outpost. This is the only corpus node you'll ever play on earth as it's a Grineer-controlled planet. 

Now you're probably wondering, who are the Corpus? Well the Corpus are like the Trade Federation, they're a commercial military with robotic proxy units. They wear spacesuits usually and use energy weapons over ballistics and animals.

This mission is not any specific type. You are tasked with locating and opening resource caches which will contain an exact amount of resources that you will need. This will mainly be a chance to practice against these baddies. Darvo mentions that the Corpus are moral garbage compared to the fact that you're stealing. They'll sell anything to anyone. 

You thought we were done with Vor? nope!

Vor's cut of all transmissions from Darvo and Lotus, He's insisting that you will come to him over your own will. You will need to get back to the ship and craft the negator.

Once you craft it and remove it you run into its final hiccup.

"What a waste"

The Ascaris has a tamper failsafe built in, and it will detonate if you cant deactivate it by killing the guy with the controller. Yep, VOR HIMSELF. You must find him, and quickly. Your next mission will acquire your navigation segment (even though you already have it?) and give you the location of Vor.

You will board a Grineer Galleon (green spaceship) and recover it. Then you get your first chance to try a sabotage mission type. Once you have recovered the segment Lotus tells you that the ship is on a path to attack a colony. You can save them by destroying the ships reactor or you can extract, Lotus tells you to extract but it's your choice. however inconsequential the choice is. Seriously no repercussions at all for rewards or anything.

Now to face Vor: He's on the asteroid tileset on earth (much like the original mission on Tolstoj Mercury) You will get your first taste of an Assassination Mission. You make your way to Vor and Fight him.

"Foolish Tenno, Do you realize Your Lotus has sent you to DIE?"

Vor has a pistol and the Janus Key. He will fire rounds at you and use the key to spit energy orbs onto the floor, these will latch to you and drain health and shields quickly so stay away from those, stay at range on the platform and don't use melee combat. There will be additional Grineer trying to kill you.

When you smack down his health he will gain an invulnerable state and get more Grineer to attack you. Vor will tend to teleport around to keep you off guard so make sure you can keep moving. In addition he will use the Key as a beam attack. Once you hit him enough you will have killed him (although for continuity mess-ups, he wont truly die until you get to Ceres, even though he gets CUT IN HALF)
You will have Finished Vor's Prize upon extraction. Excellent job, the system needs you. and the next quests you can do are Saya's Vigil and Once Awake.
but for now that's all I have to write. Dream, not of what you are, but of what you want to be.

Look at them, they come to this place when they know they are not pure. Tenno use the keys, but they are mere trespassers. Only I, Vor, know the true power of the Void. I was cut in half, destroyed, but through its Janus Key, the Void called to me. It brought me here and here I was reborn. We cannot blame these creatures, they are being led by a false prophet, an impostor who knows not the secrets of the Void. Behold the Tenno, come to scavenge and desecrate this sacred realm. My brothers, did I not tell of this day? Did I not prophesize this moment? Now, I will stop them. Now I am changed, reborn through the energy of the Janus Key. Forever bound to the Void. Let it be known, if the Tenno want true salvation, they will lay down their arms, and wait for the baptism of my Janus key. It is time. I will teach these trespassers the redemptive power of my Janus key. They will learn its simple truth. The Tenno are lost, and they will resist. But I, Vor, will cleanse this place of their impurity.

I felt i should make this

RIP LAWBREAKERS.
servers shut down

oh, Vor's prize pt. 2 on the way

Also, their marketing said Rise or Fall, i think it did one

Vor's Prize: Review. (not a bad tutorial, not a great one neither) Warframe Part 1

For generations you've slept, no purpose, no call to wake you. But now, something has arisen from the ruins of the Old War.

The Twin Queens, the sisters, have sent their most beloved commander, Vor, on an urgent mission. To protect the twisted crusade they have begun. To transform the scattered colonies into an empire. To see that the Tenno, hidden and asleep, will never awaken.


Wake up, Tenno.


That line has stuck in my head for a while now. I started playing Warframe just before the Sacrifice released. I had been told it was one of those universally great games, that DE had the best microtransaction system, and that I should give it a try. I am truly glad I did.

This quest isn't so integral to the story so it wont make that much of a splash for you to read this, nonetheless, spoiler alert.

When you first launch warframe, you are thrust into Vor's prize, your very first quest. Here you will choose your first Warframe, your first weapons, and your first keybind prompts(like every tutorial...) You will also complete the Liset, defeat your first grineer, destroy your first boss, and meet Ordis Cephalon (that won't shut up)






Wake Up: Captain Vor lands on earth (yes he's ugly) here to take you. You are a Tenno, one of the only threats to The Grineer Empire's crusade to take over the Origin System (where the game takes place, almost identical to our solar system). Vor wants to take you for his own to present to the Grineer Queens as a mind controlled soldier (it isn't as cheesy as I'm writing it to be). He's so dedicated to taking you that he will take out another Grineer official using ancient void technology, called the Janus Key. He goes to a Void gate and opens it using the key, and behind the gate is you in cryosleep.


The Lotus wakes you up from cryosleep. She refuses to lose another Tenno. The Lotus is your guide and exposition dispenser for the game, She'll tell you vital information (whatever waypoints and the hud don't tell you) as well as story clues.

Lotus wakes you up from your cryopod and you now get to pick your very first Warframe



HARNESS YOUR TENNO POWER:

You now get to pick one out of three Warframes:
Excalibur: kinda the faceless face of the game,

Excalibur Prime

Excalibur is arguably the easiest and best of the three, His abilities focus on damaging the opponents with as much sword as possible, so much sword. (yes these photos are from the fan kit). Excalibur is a versatile platform that doesn't do much aside from damage.

His first ability is Slash Dash: He lunges and does damage.

Second ability: Radial Blind is much more interesting, it blinds nearby opponents (which stuns them and stops them from firing at you, it also allows you to do a melee finisher on them (epic looking melee animation that often does lethal damage).

Third Ability: Radial Javelin summons javelins, and when he slams his sword into the ground they launch and deal damage, potentially pinning enemies to walls.

Fourth Ability: Exalted Blade swaps out your weapon for this massive sword that is channeled, it does more damage and and launches waves of energy with every swing. It. is. epic.

And lastly his passive allows him to gain bonus swing speed and damage from using swords. so yeah, swords.

The Second Warframe: MAG (My chosen starter)

Mag Prime

This is one of the worst Warframes in the game, honestly, I love her so much but she just stinks. She's decent at removing shields but just lacks everywhere except shield-based combat.

Mag's Passive is really helpful though: Bullet jumping (a mobility option, extremely fun and cool) will draw in nearby loot and items (you auto collect items on contact).

Ability One: Pull is kinda meh overall, damage enemies and pull them closer while wiping them off their feet, kinda cool.

Ability Two: Magnetize creates a bubble around the target, drawing bullets in, doing slight damage over time, and preventing them from shooting back (all bullets they shoot get pulled back into them), this slightly enhances damage done by Pull. If an enemy dies in the bubble it will explode on ending.

Ability Three: Polarize is probably the most useful ability in her kit. It depletes shields of enemies nearby. It reduces armor of enemy units which then deals damage for the stripped armor (but I'll be honest I didn't know this happened because I've never noticed it), The main use of this ability is it boosts allied shields a bit. It synchronizes with Magnetize by making shards out of the stripped armor. which are boosted by magnetized targets.

Volt Prime

Ability Four: Crush is the most epic looking of her abilities. She picks up enemies in a radius, and then crushes them together for big damage, boosted against magnetized targets as well. Mildly restores friendly shields, great against one type of baddie but not another (explain later)

The Third Warframe: Volt, probably the most engaging of the three.
I haven't played as this warframe ever so, relying on external info.

 Volt has the potential to do the most sustained damage and Burst damage out of the three.  Speed, control of the field, and damage. The description states he's for those that want an amazing alternative to gunplay.

His Passive builds up electric damage for running on the ground (static charge) and boosts the next gunshot or melee swing

The First Ability: Shock is a simple lightning chain.

Second Ability is really fun: Speed gives you and allies a speed boost, and it can get really fast. attack speed and reload too.

Ability Three: Electric Shield deploys an obstacle that you can shoot through but enemies cant. Your damage is amplified as it goes through the shield. You can pick it up to become a smaller more ballistic-shield styled mobile zappy boi. You can even run people down!

And lastly, Ability 4: Discharge makes you go all UNLIMITED POWER on your enemies, they get stunned in a radius, then charged, and then they start zapping other baddies as well as themselves. ZAAAAP

GET OUT OF THERE

Now that you've chosen your warframe you emerge from your cryopod. You are very weak. You try to get up, remember what you're doing. Vor walks through the void gate and surrounds you with guards. He walks over to your prone warframe and attaches a device called an Ascaris to your leg.(this is so far unused outside of this quest, wasted potential.)

"What has he done to you? I can't lose another Tenno. I am surging your Warframe's power systems."
Now you get to fight, You're standing now, Vor wants his soldiers to stop you as he leaves.

You now get to fight using only your first ability (with unlimited energy) as you have no weapons yet, and this is where you should PAUSE

Go edit the keybindings,

I personally think most of the default keybindings are not good and you should edit them at once, I've picked ones that go with my gameplay rhythm. Keep in mind for some reason these are hardware based not account based. Also melee is not Mouse 1 (most important keybind that you don't expect to not be where it is)

What do you remember?

Once you've butchered everyone, you will have completed Part 1: Warframe Power. In this tutorial mission only there's a "progress bar" showing how far along you are, this appears nowhere else in the game. After learning some movement you will choose your melee

You can pick between a BO staff, and a Skana (katana). one is slower more damage and reach, one is quicker and more mobile. The pick is up to you.

Lotus will guide you through several ways to use your weapon. and you will complete Part 2: Melee Combat.

You will now learn more mobility and how to stealth attack (keep in mind this isn't a stealth game). You now will grab your Secondary, The Lato Pistol, or The Kunai Throwing knives. (pick the Lato, The Kunai are hard to aim, and you'll want a different secondary. even if it isn't quiet)  This will complete Part 3: Secondary Weapons.

Now you will learn some gunplay, standard stuff, While learning some mobility and shooting stuff like aim gliding, you'll kill some Grineer Bad Guys, and now Vor knows you're trying to escape.
You find your first resource caches and loot your first crafting materials as a start to your looter adventure.

The Extraction ship comes to get you and VOR BLASTS IT OUT OF THE SKY using the Janus Key, there goes your escape plan. You're too weak to face Vor head on so you are tasked with getting around him and blocking his energy beams. By now you've likely leveled something up, don't worry about it. There's no skill tree or anything and gun stats don't get better, Leveling will be explained by me later in the quest.

You get close to Vor, but you cant harm him, instead you're targeting a panel that you need to operate.

 This will complete Part 4 : Release Lockdown. Have you noticed by now Vor can talk directly to you no matter where you are? Important villains tend to be able to do this. And almost all of them talk in english so even though there are subtitles you won't need them as much. 

You will learn some parkour, like double jumping, wall running, wall climbing, bullet jumping, wall clinging, etc. On completion of this tiny room you will have completed part 5: Advanced mobility. Now you've earned your Primary weapon.

 You can pick between the Braton assault rifle, or the Paris Bow. Both are usable depending on playstyle, The Braton is loud, rapid fire, fully automatic.
The Paris is a charged, long range, projectile, silent bow that can one shot the low level enemies you encounter in this (on a charged shot or headshot). Picking yours out completes part 6: Primary Weapon. You will now go through some more shooting.

Thanks warframe wiki

Now you've found the old Liset craft, your new way out. It's been locked down by the grineer for years, maybe centuries. So time to disable the Parking boot on your spaceship. fight your way to it, silently can be fun. You go to the console and begin your first Hack. Hacks are pretty straightforward. They're minigames that involve solving a line puzzle or lock puzzle. Completing the hack Finishes Part 7: Security Systems. You aren't done with this yet though.

Guess who? It's Ordis Cephalon!
"who?"
You'll wish you never knew him by the endgame. Ordis is the onboard computer of the Ship you just unlocked. He first mistakes you for a Grineer soldier, then realizes. You are his old operator!
Ordis begins the takeoff sequence and you are tasked with "defending the ship." Just don't die. Once you fly out of there you've done it!
Now to get that Ascaris out of your leg.
The following missions of Vor's Prize will be detailed in a post coming soon.
Until then.....

the art recycling is getting annoying (little red marks don't count as new art.) NO I'm not becoming an xwing blog, definitely not entirely.

like, wow so different
 ok, i'm done with this meme now (until i see the next art recycle), sorry

Also, if you like X-wing as much as I do check out this blog for good tactics as 2.0 opens with a BANG. (http://stayontheleader.blogspot.com/)

So yeah: I got my Second Edition core set with the promo damage deck.

Jungle Inferno, the real TF3.0 Day 3

TIME FOR NEW WEAPONS SOLDIER TO GET HIS THINGS

DAY 3
We got, The Dragon's fury, the Pyro jetpack, and the meme hand.
wait a second, dragons fury, jetpack, jungle cosmetics.....

BEHOLD, THE DRAGON'S FURY!
can't tell the difference can you?
So let's go over the weapons

The Dragon's spam nerfy:
This gun made pyros start calling EACH OTHER W+M1s. This is a good combo weapon that is designed as a non-afterburn based flamethrower. In addition it's fun. It's stupidly fun. And this has become a high health melter if you can get those hitbox hits, in addition, it's a non-airblast gun.

The Jetpack, This is..... niche at worst and memey at best. This becomes a new mobility option and gains use from being a suprise weapon. also tauntkills.

Gas Jarate, Welcome to teamwork 101, so it's basically only used in mvm, but it's a decent pyro dueler and an area denial tool, but isn't very feasible.

The Thot Hand: this weapon is a meme, not even super feasible in medieval, just a thot hand.
MEME

The Banana: oh yeah, heavy got a sandvich item 
It's really just a utility item for heavy, and it's actually very good. but not the best.

And lastly for this day. They released flamethrower improvements visual and mechanical. afterburn, particles, and airblast are improved and now pyro is a reliable class.

I'm working on these posts as we type

I want to work on
Jungle inferno, days 3 & 4 so i can get them outta the way, then do the aftermath
Operation para bellum and Grim Sky of R6
an Arkham Origins review

Then in the future i want to do something on Warframe (probs when i hit the 100 hour mark)
A farewell to the Division
The Crew 2 FULL review
Ghost Recon Wildlands review
Just Cause 3(bcuz just cause 4 is coming this december :) )

and maybe I'll review Paladins after Battle pass 2 ends
Speaking of which the new Ruckus and Bolt skin looks great
and Skylanders called, someone from spyro's adventures named Wrecking Ball is suing for ability copy

"Let's do it again!"
But we barely-
"AGAIN! AGAIN!"

I'm STREAMING

in about 45 minutes
twitch.tv/the_trains13
seeya there

it happened again......

1 month isn't so bad
but i'm outta ideas right now and i'm waiting on stuff, like xwing second edition and the like
i finally started playing warframe right before the sacrifice went live
as well as upgraded my internet i might start twitch streaming
hang in there
and check out Nerdstreet at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4zJSVDPX7_X-WfCvjqEEQQ

Ladies and Gentlemen: for your consideration, The Crew 2 Early review

Let's roll, 5-10s

Welcome to a Ubisoft experience that takes a lot of good things from as many games as possible but somehow neglecting some great old features from Crew 1. 

Let's start with some good
This game is gorgeous. Weather looking like they borrowed the snowdrop engine from MASSIVE entertainment.
This game's world detail is intense.
But it comes with some bad, they center around player models but they aren't that fantastic. as well as car destruction taking a step down.

SECOND: driving has been fine tuned for EVERYTHING.
Just like how the LIVE EXTREM series levels test all your driving skills.
HOWEVER
no more "tutorial missions" on how to drive them The Crew featured levels where your first time in a dirt car a character would give you an idea of how it would work.
not here, and i still can't  drive a hypercar to save my life

THIRD: The sheer amount of vehicle types is astounding, now with all these vehicles. collecting seems useful. But this is good and bad
The Crew 1 allowed you to buy a car then apply different perf kits to it essentially turning one car into 6 copies. and while I miss this level of customization, it's good to entice collection. AND fullstock cars are gone, so  no worries there

Fourth: performance part picking has been made simpler with the menu and added some RPG mechanics behind the faux-lootbox system it has for drops which now have improved on quantity per race.

The Not so good:
STORY really took a hit, the main thing that made The Crew special was it's story of revenge and of a street gang out of your hot wheels dreams. Now we have remnants of that. We don't get a lot of story, it's generic.

Side menu has been made useless basically only radio and quit features. picking out which car and such to switch to WHILE driving was a great feature.

Useless races: The entirety of the Crew was story missions of some sort. With the boring and long one hour races reserved to faction races and such.

AND lastly: for as many planes and boats as there are and could be there's far too few race types for planes and boats compared to cars.

Overall this game is still the Crew It's fun, and it takes great stuff from Wild Run and adds to it. no pvp, and i hope it gets readded with Calling All Units. and this is a great racing game and a living breathing open world that begs to be explored.
But the Crew 1 is still better.

My early review (at icon 3) what's my score
763/1000
BRING BACK THE 5-10s

Don't forget about my Discord : https://discord.gg/3xnPwMx  

Youtube (new Crew 2 Video editor content!):  youtube
I am on a show called Nerdstreet, where i'm a guest: NERD STREET

Twitch.tv (i plan to stream some great singleplayer games)https://www.twitch.tv/the_trains13:   

Splinter Cell Conviction :A Professional Review

What do you get when you get a good story, but it's told as a picture book instead of describing things?

That's the kind of handholding that made splintercell easier than it should be. But none the less Conviction is a story for the boys who grew up through the years of SC. This IS you dad's Splintercell in story, but not mechanics.

Enviroment

So the environment is a very beautiful set-piece due to the lighting and the storytelling. When in the darkness you see everything in gray-scale except for important objects and Enemies This causes a really nice focusing tool. Objectives, storytelling, memories, all those things appear on the environment as well

RUN! IT'S FISHER!

You are the man the boogeyman's afraid of.

This game makes you the one everyone's afraid of, this game allows you to blend in, but stand out to those who are looking for you. They're afraid of you. You can make them nervous
"what do you think you're some sorta ninja? give me a break!" -said every nervous enemy before you pounce them
in classic SC fashion, the environment is your playground. Drop a chandelier on someone, blow up a generator, turn off the lights, kick down a door, wait for them to walk under the balcony you're hanging from. take a human shield, headshot.

Open encounters.

if you aren't familiar with how most modern splintercell games go. think of it as a massive predator encounter from the Batman Arkham games, but the size of an entire level. In this game there is no diplomatic or non lethal option. You're Sam Fisher, you're angry, kick butt.

Soundtrack: While amazing as usual, I didn't find it as memorable. But the Conviction theme is a must-have for any ubisoft playlist.

Story

A retired Sam Fisher is being hunted after by Third Echelon (y'know, his old employer) He's retired because his daughter was killed by a drunk driver. Anna Grimsdottir is here to change hairdo and overall profile again. But she gives you help under the table as her hands are tied.

Andriy Kobin, the guy who hit Sarah (Sam's Daughter) is here too as a bad guy.

Deniable OPS

The Game's Co-op missions that CAN be played in singleplayer but remove all story from it.

This is a proving grounds, with gamemodes that rely on your best infiltration skills,even when this game works best if you're spotted at least once.

This is where you can customize an agent to hunt the baddies as. 

The Story revolves around Archer and Kestrel, a Third Echelon Agent and Voron respectively.
You go around doing co-op based missions through multiple locations while getting the intel you can for your agency's own interests.

Your costumes with their custom upgrades will be accquired using points, and points get accquired through one of the biggest features of this game based on it's Montra

PREPARE AND EXECUTE.

The games biggest feature, while not the best part of it. Is its Prepare and Execute Challenges. Do things in game that are specifically tailored to be stealth or just boss.

Points will give you the ability to buy upgrades for guns and new guns. In addition you can upgrade those costumes for Deniable Ops.

FINAL MEASURES

While not as slow paced as early games, Nor as beautiful and modern as Blacklist.

My Rating? 782/1000

Don't forget about my Discord : https://discord.gg/3xnPwMx  

Youtube (new Crew 2 Video editor content!):  youtube

Twitch.tv (i plan to stream some great singleplayer games)https://www.twitch.tv/the_trains13: