As I mentioned at the end of Day 1,
Kodiak sent me on some “go here, do stuff” missions before I went
into my first instance. What's interesting about this mentality is
that when City of Heroes launched, they had many “go to location,
defeat X amount of Y gang.” When Paragon Studios took over from
Cryptic, they drifted away from that... and then back towards it with
the launch of their Free to Play conversion in the starter zones.
Playing Champions, I see why not having everything instanced is a
good idea: you can see that, yes, there are other players playing and
this isn't a ghost town.
After two missions where I take the
fight to the Purple Gang in the over world, I'm sent into the sewers
to... take the fight to the Purple Gang. I don't mind, I'm curious to
see how their instances look.
And I'm
treated to a cutscene right away. Not the best, but they make the
great move to have my character show up at the end and give the two
featured villains a reason to run. (I didn't grab a picture of myself
showing up, sadly. Hindsight and what have you.)
After I take out the two runners and a
handful of other guards in the room, I take in my surroundings. Yep,
it's a sewer all right.
Most of the items in this trash heap can be picked up and thrown at enemies with the Z key.
After
working through several rooms of Purple Goons, I come to an end
chamber with no discernable exit. Taking a lesson learned in City, I
hug the walls and am surprised to see rungs highlight with the blue
tone that means I can interact with them. Getting closer, I get a pop
up tool tip saying I can use this to exit the sewer. Cool, so it's
like an elevator in City.
But it's not just like an
elevator. The map changes to a warehouse, giving me new surroundings
to further beat down the Purple Gang.
Eventually, I come to the end where an object gives me
the information to take back to Kodiak. Doing this, he informs me
that there is something big going down and I'm to head there and team
up with Defender. Cool, didn't expect to be working with the top dog
of Millenium City again so soon. I head that way, and work my way
through the warehouse before I find another
object.
Thankfully, the chump taking a nap on
the left had a keycard on hand. Activating the object unlocks a rear
entrance for Defender while I keep going on ahead. Another door later
leads to another rather well done cutscene.
Hello there, Lo- er... Hi-Pan. How's Little China?
It looks as if the various gangs of Westside are talking about teaming up. But, Defender enters as promised and we beat
the snot out of those gathered. Hi-Pan teleports away, but we take in
several of his men. So, success? Sure.
Next,
I'm to go after a guy supplying arms to the Purple Gang. Some guy
named Wayland Talos. I beat up Purple Gang members until they drop
the material needed to fake an outfit and then use the temporary
power (called a Device here) to sneak into Talos's warehouse and past
his guards. He isn't fooled, so I beat him to half health and he
yields.
A sewer instance is up next, rescuing
scientists that were working on/with/something psi bombs. Sounds
nasty. I save three (and don't even have to escort them out,
fantastic!) and return to Kodiak.
Another instance, but I don't mind.
These guys are proving to be pretty fun. I enter another warehouse
(yes, you can tell these guys developed City of Heroes alright) and
pursue the Purple Gang's leader, Kevin Poe.
Nearing the end, I find
Poe has a Psi Bomb. A big, big Psi bomb.
Kevin Poe has a terrible
voice actor. However, his powers are cool. Some very, very well
choreographed dual pistol attacks followed with darkness powers. But
it's not enough to take down THE FIST.
One Hundred Hands later, Poe is in jail
and I break the psi bomb. Since the Day is saved (and I have to
return to work in a mere 7 hours,) I call it a day and log off. But
fighting Poe has stirred something inside me, and I get the feeling I
won't be playing as the Fist for a whole lot longer.
- @Epsicon
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