User:Misterhaan/HUAR

Ancestral Spirit - Prologue

type: Story author: Damnagoras captain: Ape Rahim

summary: The adventure title says prologue and that’s mostly all this is. It seems to be focused on giving you some background before you get into what is probably meant to be an adventure series.

story: It’s very Grox-focused and not very detailed or original. It could have benefit from some more inspect text in the city to explain what the statues are, etc. Talk-to objective text was split in the middle of a sentence with ... a couple times — I prefer to re-work the sentences so that doesn’t need to happen.

spelling/grammar: Just a couple errors: [i]wich[/i], and [i]erease[/i].

creations: The Mysterious Kernavoris’ robes looked a little odd. I liked the Dera Guards’ outfits. The buildings in the city looked great! The vehicles I didn’t see very closely but they looked good from a distance at least.

environment: The city environment was well designed — I liked the statues on pedestals and the way the lamps lined the roadway. The war scenes didn’t seem to have much action — just some vehicles wandering around slowly while troops stood around. The destroyed city had normal-looking roads except with some cracks, and no buildings. I would have thought the roads would have been more damaged since the buildings were completely decimated.

captain competence: Any captain can complete this adventure.

puzzles: Most acts have you walk through a nearby portal and then talk to a character, so you should always know what to do.

overall: average

Occupation

type: Story author: Harlequin2 captain: Automatt

summary: A quick adventure suitable for a captain with some combat abilities.

story: A political struggle where you’re brought in to take down an official of the occupying force. It feels like there’s more to the story but the good stuff is still in the author’s head, maybe to be revealed in later sequel adventures. Lots of inspect text on characters, signs, etc. I was surprised that the statue in the town square didn’t have any inspect text though. Most of it gives you an idea of what people think of the occupation. I like to read everything so I spent some more time looking around once I had reached the next objective.

spelling/grammar: I only noticed one spelling error: [i]alligence[/i].

creations: Some of the outfitting was interesting, but I wasn’t that into the creatures themselves. I liked the pictures on the wall inside the building. The buildings could have benefit from more details and the paint didn’t always make the most sense. Vehicles were pretty good.

environments: I liked the starting area, town square, checkpoints, and the tower building interior. Coming out onto the roof and seeing the town square down below made for a nice view! The buildings of the city felt more like walls than buildings though.

captain competence: You’ll need either sneak or some basic fighting skills to get past the checkpoints, then you’ll definitely need some fighting skills for later objectives that require you to take out some guards. There are powerups around but no grenades and you’re up against three enemies at once.

puzzles: There’s one hidden objective where you have to find something, but the area to search isn’t that large and I pretty much went straight to it.

overall: average

Moneygrubber(TM)

type: Collect author: Xenopologist captain: Automatt

summary: A minigame that just wasn’t fun or interesting to me, maybe because I was bad at it.

story: It’s a minigame, so the story is that you’re going to play the game.

spelling/grammar: No errors!

creations: There’s a round-walled building you start in but the rest is built-in props. The one creation isn’t all that interesting but does its job just fine.

environment: The planet appears to be completely flat. There’s a starting area and then the pile of coins, both of which were very simple.

captain competence: There’s a pile of coins on top of some mines and you need to collect them, so a skinnier captain will probably have an easier time moving around the mines.

puzzles: There’s a time limit, so you’ll need a strategy for getting close but not too close to those mines so you can grab all the coins. Maybe there’s a trick to it I didn’t get, but I didn’t stand much of a chance!

overall: bad

A W☯rld Devoid

type: quest author: doozerdude captain: Ape Rahim

summary: A nice balance between story and small battles. I really got into the conflict going on here, but there are still a couple little things that could get in the way of having a truly amazing adventure experience. This is version 2 of an adventure I’d played before, so I knew what to do. I liked the previous version, and when doozerdude told me he‘d made a version 2 I actually installed Spore to check it out.

story: The story really drew me in — the history behind each of the factions was interesting. It felt like there may have been a larger story (a matter of days / weeks / months elsewhere lasted 200 years on this planet) that was only just hinted at. While there was room for more story, there was enough of it to satisfy. There were a few minor inconsistencies such as the mechanic saying the explosives are C4 but you they’re labelled grenade, and the mafia / thug guy saying you can take 2 weapons even though you have 3 crew slots (I think there’s only enough money around for 2). Mezior said he would escort me to the door but he was already at the door since he gets to the captain and then takes off for the door right away.

spelling/grammar: Elite is spelled with £ instead of an E, but £ is actually a stylized L. Only had two spelling/grammar errors of [i]anyways[/i]/[i]anyway[/i], [i]passed[/i]/[i]past[/i]. Hunes Jr. sometimes has the dot and sometimes doesn’t.

creations: Creatures and buildings look awesome! I like the steampunk style of the city, the godfather’s mansion, the scientist’s cavern, and the bikers . . . which is almost all the creations in the adventure. Basically that means you see lots of great-looking stuff when you play this.

environment: The music fit well with what was going on and added to the mood. My captain was shorter than the tables in the bar, but he was able to take an object off the table without any trouble. Same with the book on the scientist’s table. I had a little trouble getting up the stairs in the godfather’s mansion, but managed it without jump. It seemed odd that the guy running the town would have a set of stairs boarded off in his mansion ― shouldn’t he be able to get it fixed? It was hard to see during the battle if you have a low camera angle, probably because of the thick atmosphere. There’s a teleporter still intact after the building it’s for has been blown up.

captain competence: There are weapon creatures you can ally with in case you don’t have much firepower of your own. I tried three of the four (in two plays, since I can only find enough cash for two) and they all did level 1 sing so any captain should be able to handle that. You have to socialize with them twice to ally though ― would have been nice if they had started out friendly. There’s a biker fight which your side tells you they would appreciate your help, and even with a little help from my captain only one of my side survived. You need to finish off the enemy. Everyone has a lot of health (especially you) and there are respawning powerups on the battlefield, so you could probably make it without warrior/shaman weapons, especially if you allied a couple weapon creatures.

puzzles: The first objectives are hidden, which means you need to explore the well-designed city. Most of it is pretty straightforward, though there is a bit of a puzzle in Act VII with some strong hints. In Act VIII you go through a portal but it’s unclear that after you take care of business there you need to go back through the portal behind you, not into the city.

overall: good