I've been meaning to write about this for a while and just haven't gotten to it yet. In an effort to make up for yesterday, then, I present you with a review for Warframe that nobody asked nor paid me to write. How lucky for you that you're here to read it!
Having no PC with the appropriate guts for a game like Warframe, which is fairly impressive-looking, I was blessed with its presence in the PlayStation store the night I drunkenly came home with my brand new PS4 (something that I pre-ordered, don'cha know). A free-to-play (FtP) third person shooter, it has turned into the PS4 game I play the most because, erm, there aren't any really good PS4 games out there yet. Not to worry! It turns that Warframe, when given enough time to worm its way into your consciousness, winds up being a hell of a freebie.
I say this knowing that many in the nerd realm have turned its nose up at the FtP model, and for good reason. Most games are not handled in what we'll call a polite way when it comes to the consumer, and while you can certainly download something, the odds of you wanting to play it for nothing turns out to be a total lie (here is some damning evidence). Warframe, then, stands as the least cynical game to carry this business plan.
Here's the setup: you are a sort of space ninja packing a machine gun, a pistol, and a sword. You and three other space ninjas go on missions that range from killing all of the foolish enemies of space ninja-dom to simply surviving for a long time (with a fair amount of other stuff in between). Strewn about the environment, and as a reward for doing space ninja stuff, are various materials for constructing various things like new weapons or new ninja suits, and the cash it takes to build them. You can play missions as much and as often as you want, and repeat them if it tickles you to grind for said materials. As you dispatch your foes, your weapons and suit gain experience that can be used as a sort of currency to attach various modifications to them. All of these have a level cap, though, so eventually, you're going to want to trade up when it comes to your gear.
That winds up being sort of the point; constant mission-going, component looting, a little bit of R&D, and then repeat. Missions by themselves can a mixed bag of entertainment. The levels that require you to exterminate your enemies for the sake of just that are just kind of mediocre, while the defense missions that charge you with putting up with endless waives of bad guys can be fun in small doses with the right team. The modification farming and building of new gear can get pretty addictive, though, and that forms the basis for whatever mileage you can probably glean from Warframe.
Thankfully, everything functions pretty well, too. There never seems to be a ton of people playing at any given time, which can make unlocking certain missions without a dedicated team a little bit of a hassle. The combat, though, is fluid and speedy. Players can basically parkour around the environments, but in a more controlled, simplistic way than in an Assassin's Creed sort of way. Weapons have a pretty wide variety, and feel weighty when wielded, especially the melee stuff when you're close enough to use them. The levels are procedurally built, so the layout of them will never repeat, though sections of them certainly do and get a little same-y. Eventually, you're going to get a little tired of seeing that same stair well no matter what it's connected to.
Let's get back to the FtP thing, then, which, strangely, is Warframe's best feature. Think back to when spoke about Tekken Revolution, a very good fighting game that makes money --as most FtP games do-- banking against your patience and force of will. You get only so many fights before you have to wait it out or pony up some dough. Not Warframe. You can run and repeat missions as often as you like, and the game will never stop you to open your wallet or force you to wait 30 minutes while your space ninja "rests" or something. While developer Digital Extremes certainly wants to make money from you playing it, the real world currency in the game is only used if you don't want to wait for weapons to finish being built in the foundry, or just want to shell out for new gear in the market. Since the point of the game is to, essentially, farm the materials and blueprints to forge them yourself, it's basically like paying them to take some of the fun away from the game. This is great for you and me, but totally baffling from a business standpoint. Whatever.
If you're the typical PS4 owner --which I, evidently, am not-- you're probably served just as well by playing Resogun, Don't Starve, or any of the shoulder shrug-inducing retail games on the market at the moment, and have perhaps waited for moments in your busy schedule to screw around with Warframe while biding your time until something else comes along. That's probably the best that it can hope for, really. While a good game and a hell of a bargain, it's hard to be compelled to play Warframe for long stretches after finishing whatever specialty missions Digital Extremes release for any given month. The game can feel a bit redundant over time, and can even be a grind at higher levels when it's just a matter of getting a few more materials or cash to build a new helmet or something.
Still, as a between game filler, you could do a lot worse, and getting involved with a competent team can make some missions pretty thrilling (especially when it means scoring rare mods for your stuff). Since most reviews usually have an underlying subtext of "should you pay for this game or not," it's tough not to recommend that you play Warframe if you have some time to kill before, say, Infamous: Second Son or any of the spectacular releases coming out in the next two months for PS3 and 360. Faint praise, sure, but praise all the same.
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