Pumping Irony

Warning: Spoilers!

Cryptic’s teaser for Aftershock: Issue 2: Hang On reads:

The investigation of Camp Lantern revealed that dark and powerful forces are at work here. A force so evil that the VIPER commander has ordered his own men sealed inside the fort’s bunker to prevent its escape. Major Okonkwo and a handful of UNTIL troopers are fighting for their lives. Beset by VIPER and UNTIL troops possessed by an otherworldly force, their chances of survival are slim. It’s up to the heroes to enter the bunker and ensure Okonkwo and her men make it out alive!

After defeating Ripper then hearing Major Okonkwo call for backup while she and her team were locked underneath Camp Lantern in last week’s Issue 1: Dead Air, UNTIL rounded up all the VIPER bad guys at Camp Lantern. Ripper was none to pleased to be placed in a secure containment field and paced about, yelling threats. Captain Urqhart had his men re-open the door to the fort’s lower levels that Golden Nest Leader had sealed earlier, then Drayvin went inside to make his way to Major Okonkwo.

Once inside the fort’s upper level, Drayvin eventually finds a locked door. A computer terminal nearby allows us to talk to Major Okonkwo, who explains a power shutdown locked up some of the systems. She will ping the security servers to put them into diagnostic mode. Drayvin has to repeat to her the diagnostic sequences so she can access the server to restart it and open the door for Drayvin. Three sequences in all, and a fun little Simon-like memory game.

Once inside, the further we progress into the fort, occasionally a purple-glowing ghostly soldier appears. He apparently thinks Drayvin is someone named “Jim” and he’s very displeased, asking why Jim allowed him to die and so forth. VIPER has a few baddies stationed in here, including a few Draysha Enforcers to defeat.

Eventually, Drayvin comes across another door to unlock. Inside is a VIPER team commanded by Captain Jarvis. He’s not happy to see a hero but will take any help he can get at this point. He commands his men to stand down, but one of them misunderstands and starts shooting. Jarvis shoots his own soldier then presents Drayvin with the possibility of allying with them against the UNTIL soldiers who appear to be zombified or otherwise turned into some type of warped monstrosities. A dialogue box appears offering the choice to accept the alliance terms or not. I figured that’s how the story was intended to play out Drayvin agreed, under the condition that they would only fight the UNTIL soldiers who were “turned” and the VIPER team would be allowed to leave the fort afterward. Fair enough. How about that? UNTIL and VIPER cooperating? What next? Dogs and cats living together? Mass hysteria?

Once in combat, it turns out Captain Jarvis has a handy trick up his sleeve. Actually, on his sleeve. He activates a device on his wrist which summons two additional companions! One is a Munitions Bot that fights along with us, the other is a super-sweet Drone which flies around and heals the team! Cute little guy, eh? I want one! The healing effect is a green pulsing beam that reminds me of the Medic in Global Agenda. From what I could tell the Drone prioritized the players, then the other NPC’s. With the addition of these three NPC’s to the team, combat gets stepped up half a notch or so from here.

After defeating several groups of possessed soldiers, we speak to Okonkwo from another computer terminal. From running sensor scans, she’s found a lab with several Qliphothic artifacts and guesses there is a connection between that and the current happenings. Her men confirm: all the now-zombified UNTIL soldiers were also veterans of Operation Demonflame. She will continue searching for information while Drayvin and his VIPER allies make their way to where Okonkow and her men are holed up. She asks them to also pick up repair parts for their two generators to get them back online.

After several more encounters against the zombified soldiers, we find the room Okonkwo and her team are secured in. They let us in, and we repair the generator then Okonkwo relays more information she’s found. In the Operation Demonflame personnel files, a Sergeant James Collins is mentioned often, and it is presumed he is the “Jim” the purple-glowing spirit we’ve met is angry with. Collins was also treated for depression and night terrors following Demonflame and blames himself for the death of his best friend, Carl Robinson while the UNTIL team was in the Qliphothic realm. She also notes that Collins had scored unusually high on psychic aptitude and was highly sensitive to the moods of others nearby but UNTIL files indicate he never learned to develop them to consciously control them. She believes Collins is a victim of Qliphothic entities who are using his mood sensitivity to influence and control him. She said Collins was indeed one of the soldiers she saw entering the lab where Qliphothic artifacts are contained, so Dravin sets off to get inside that lab! Along the way we see the purple-glowing spirit of Robinson still angry at Collins, but a red-glowing spirit zooms down the hallway towards — then through! — us yelling in in his best Admiral Ackbar voice, “It’s … a … trap!”

Opening the laboratory door, another cut-scene plays. Collins is in a chair facing a dais with the Qliphothic artifacts and the spirit of Robinson speaks to him, trying to manipulate Collins into opening his mind and trading places with him, since Collins believes it’s his fault Robinson died. Suddenly the red spirit appears again, apparently another of their team named Ramirez, warning Collins that the purple spirit is not really Robinson. It’s too late, though, Collins is too far gone in his depression and influence of the “Robinson” spirit, who destroys or absorbs the essence (I’m guessing?) of the Ramirez spirit. Collins breaks down and opens his mind to “Robinson” who absorbs Collins’ essence as well, using the power to open a portal to the Qliphothic realm then finally transforming into its true identity: Despair Incarnate!

Three Harbingers of Woe also fly out of the newly-opened Qliphothic portal and the fight is on! The Harbingers of Woe are only henchmen level enemies but if they are defeated, three more fly out of the portal to take their place. Despair Incarnate, however, is Super Villain level! I thought Ripper was tough last week, but he doesn’t hold a candle to this guy. He hits very hard, and has a few special attacks such as creating some dark mystic cloud-looking thing over your head that places a heavy DoT and his “absorbing” attack seemed to strip Drayvin’s shield and health extremely fast. He also has a special attack that he cues with a voiceover which slows time to 15% normal. Everything switches to slow-motion, which is super-cool to watch, though I’m not sure it provides him with any bonus since he is slowed as well. Regardless, it’s an awesome effect and really showcases some of the cool animations and attack effects. Back to the fight though, even with the additional help of Captain Jarvis and his two bots, this demon ripped Drayvin to shreds at least seven times. Badly. Saying Drayvin got his ass kicked is understating things. One negative is that if you’re defeated once, the demon kills Jarvis so all future attempts are fully solo, which is probably the biggest reason Drayvin was defeated so handily the other times as he had no heals or additional dps. If I broke combat to try to heal, the demon instantly went to 100% health again. It finally took some creative use of terrain, retreating further back through the fort, and putting priority into keeping Drayvin’s Protective Shield up with only carefully planned use of his two heavy dps attacks to finally defeat Despair Incarnate. I was starting to think I’d have to exit the mission and go craft some healing items then come back and replay the mission when I finally got him, so defeating the demon was very rewarding for me!

Once Despair Incarnate is defeated, the entire fort starts shaking. Walls collapse, parts of the ceiling drop, and so forth. There is no specific reason we can see for this to be happening other than B-movie style cliche, so maybe something more is going on that we’re unaware of? Regardless, we need to quickly escape this bunker before it comes down on our head! As Drayvin tries to run out the emergency exit halls, more Qliphothic portals open, streaming demonic enemies in groups of five or so with more coming out every few seconds. Drayvin suffered several more defeats during this sequence simply from being overwhelmed while he was trying to shut down the portals.

Finally reaching the exit, a final cut-scene plays. Drayvin steps outside the bunker in relief only to see everything now has a purple hue to it. “Uh oh…” he says, as the camera begins to zoom out, finally showing the true reason for the bunker shaking and collapsing: the entire fort has been violently transported into the Qliphothic realm!

Final thoughts: just like Star Trek Online‘s Featured Episodes where each week improves upon the last, this is no different. Even though this time everything took place inside the Camp Lantern bunker, all the environments were very well done compared to the few warehouse or sewer hideouts I’ve done in the standard Champions Online missions so far. The layouts, terrain features, and especially lighting and particle effects were great, as was the story and combat. The cut-scenes were also very well-done as also being well-placed just when I felt I was ready for a brief respite from the action and ready for the story to progress. In other words, “Hang On” nails the pacing. Also the issue last week of the NPC’s out-dpsing me did not exist this time. There were a few times when the VIPER NPC’s would have aggro but it was easy enough to get it back so that Drayvin got credit for the defeat, and therefore the loot. During the Ripper fight last week, there were just so many NPC’s hitting him there was no way I was going to out-dps them all solo. Perhaps in a team the players would have enough dps to turn the tide and get the boss drop?

Anyway, while I loved “Dead Air” last week, for me it pales to the layers of pure awesomeness of “Hang On.” I enjoyed every second of it and if I was looking forward to more last week… now I am figuratively quivering in anticipation for next week’s issue!

Here’s the full screenshot play-by-play of the story in the Picasa Gallery.

Oh, and: *DING!* Level 20!

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 9th, 2011 at 12:28 pm and is filed under Champions Online, MMO. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.