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On Weapon Variety

Warframe has a very large number of weapons. There are currently over 100 primary weapons, almost as many secondaries, and more melee weapons than I care to count. While it’s true that many of these are variations of each other (there are 4 versions of the basic Braton assault rifle for example) there’s still a relatively large number of unique weapons. Here are a few primaries that I like:

Vectis


The most standard weapon in this list, the Vectis is one of the first sniper rifles that you can get in the game. It only has one round so you have to like reloading, but does good damage with great critical stats and is capable of killing things from when you get it through some of the hardest content in the game. There is a somewhat difficult to get prime variant that does somewhat more damage and loads two rounds, but the normal one is still an amazing choice if what you want to do is kill enemies before they can even see you.

Supra


The Supra is a hand-held plasma minigun, and is my most-used weapon overall. In sharp contrast to the Vectis, this one’s for pointing at a group of enemies that you want to go away. A significant amount of travel time and spread make this unsuitable for anything longer than mid-range, but for anything in the same room this can clean up amazingly. This also has a mod that can make it give you energy, cause an AOE explosion, and boost your max energy slightly.

Quanta


There are a few cases of weapons that make it incredibly obvious that Digital Extremes worked on the Unreal Tournament series before making Dark Sector and Warframe. The Drakgoon bears a more than superficial similarity to the UT flak cannon (without the secondary fire, unfortunately). The Angstrum (which is a secondary weapon somehow) has a similar charge mechanic as the UT rocket launcher. Along these lines, the Quanta is a re-implementation of the shock rifle. Primary fire is a perfectly accurate continuous beam; secondary fire shoots floating cubes that explode when touched by enemies. If you shoot a cube before it blows up naturally, it does additional damage. This union of great AOE weapon and great single-target weapon is useful for just about anything.

Others


This is just scratching the surface. There are shotguns that shoot exploding shells. There’s a giant cannon that you’re going to probably blow yourself up with more often than the enemy. There’s an energy bow that shoots arrows that explode into a giant cloud that freezes and then blows up your enemies. There are several highly-effective normal bows. I’m not sure where this statement was going.

The giant variety of weapons on offer here is one of my favorite parts about the game. The variety in Warframes and their abilities is a close second; the combination ensures that many different playstyles are possible. If you tried Warframe forever ago, now might be a reasonable time to give it another shot.

P.S. You have one week to finish the FFV Four Job Fiesta. Get to it!

Gaming

On Honorable Mentions, 2016

As is becoming tradition, for the end of January we recorded a two-part “Games of the Year” show, in which we talk about the things we enjoyed playing in 2016. Both parts are now out, but here are some things that I thought were amazing, but didn’t make the cut.

Warframe

Stumbling into this game was a bit of a fluke. The game chosen for Game of the Month in January was pretty boring, and there was a lot of desire for co-op, so a few of us gave this another try.

It turns out that space ninjas are actually pretty cool. There are a variety of characters with different abilities, gun variety that gives Borderlands a run for its money, and a movement system and level design that emphasizes how acrobatic the playable characters can be. Unexpectedly, there’s also an actual plot.

Owlboy

I did mention this one on the podcast a few weeks ago, but it’s worth repeating. Owlboy is one of several games with a very long development history to release in 2016, and the only one so far that I’ve finished. (For the record, it was announced between Final Fantasy Versus XIII and The Last Guardian and released slightly before both.) It’s a platformer that superficially resembles a metroidvania, but is much more linear than most examples of that genre. There’s also not a lot of actual platforming, as the main character has unlimited flight.

This game looks amazing art-wise; the music is also excellent. There’s a lot of humor in some of the dialogue, but other parts are much more serious. I didn’t mention this because I thought it might become a game of the month, but that seems unlikely at this point.

Stories: The Path of Destinies

This probably isn’t going to make any “Best of” lists for 2016, but I still think it’s worth a mention. Stories is a mostly isometric action-RPG of sorts, that looks like diablo but plays kind of like the Arkham games when fighting things. There’s a heavy emphasis on positioning, counterattacks, and keeping your combo string going which makes it pretty fun.

The main draw of this game is that it plays like a choose-your-own-adventure book. A complete playthrough from the start to an ending is probably between 60-90 minutes, and is shaped by the decisions you make (usually at the start of each chapter). When you start, these are all going to be Bad Ends in some way or another, but each to you get to one, you can learn a “Truth” that can help guide you toward endings that you haven’t seen yet. Once you have all 4, you can get to the real ending (you can’t stumble into it before that). It’s not the first time I’ve seen this concept, but it is one of the best executions I’ve played.