Warframe: A game about futuristic space ninjas with mommy issues
A bit of background:
I came home after a longish day at the office, being made to spend an extra 20 minutes in the traffic because a truck was going 20 km/h in the fast lane, for my latest daily fix, something that has given my life a sense of meaning and purpose.
What is it, you may ask?
Coffee?
Chocolate?
Manga?
Nope, those are all cool, but they don’t quite scratch the particular itch the way Warframe does.
Warframe is a free-to-play MMO that’s available on most gaming platforms.
Story
You, the titular ‘Tenno’ wake up thousands of years in the future. Mars has been terraformed, Venus is a winter wonderland, and every living thing has seemingly made it their mission to kill you.
Guided only by The Lotus, your ‘Space mother’ and Cephalon Ordis, your new BFF (he has no voice in the matter), aman named Teshin (we don’t talk about him because he’s an a-hole), and Clem; as you embark on a journey to make your mark on the galaxy in one of three “Warframes” – Mag, Volt or Excalibur (kind of like a puppeteered bodysuit, but I’m getting ahead of myself).
Gameplay
Being a free-to-play game, you might expect such a game to be very simplistic, or janky.
No, that ain’t it. As far as third-person shooters go, this is one of the better ones.
Being a free-to-play game, you might expect such a game to hide its best feature behind a paywall.
No, almost everything you see can be earned in-game. All other warframes, weapons, augments and cosmetics can be earned in-game. If you’re smart, you won’t need to spend a single cent of real-world money, thought that’s a discussion for another day.
Being a free-to-play game, you might expect such a game to have an unruly, toxic player-base.
No, not really. I’m sure, somewhere in the community, there is a basement-dweller typing out profanity in the chat, but I haven’t encountered such a type in recent memory.
It really is amazing, the sort of positive community you can foster, when you remove friendly-fire, and incentivise working together.
You can play solo, but it’s more worthwhile working in a squad, in that you get both an XP boost, as well as a resource boost, speaking as someone who prefers working alone.
Speaking of which, you are also strongly incentivised to join a clan, as there is gear that’s only available at a clan dojo: the clan HQ if you will.
Game modes include
Exterminate:
Kill (X) amount of enemies.
Capture:
Take-down a certain adversary on the map.
Spy:
Infiltrate an enemy stronghold to steal data
Excavate:
Defend excavators from enemy adversaries
Survival:
Stay alive as long as possible, while your (in game) oxygen is cut off
Defence:
Defend your target against waves of hordes for as long as possible.
Rescue:
A standard, run-of-the-mill escort mission.
Defection:
Escort defectors to extraction.
Mobile Defence:
Defending three separate targets against enemy hordes.
Assassination:
Take down a single tough opponent.
Many more that I cannot mention, without spoiling more of the story.
Negatives
Of course there are negatives, because we can’t always have nice things.
The grind. THE GRIND!!!! The @#$%ing grind! Playing the same tile-sets over,
and over,
and over,
and over.
Just to get that one set of rare gear that you cannot get anywhere else.
Oh yeah, and that insufferable family on Deimos, but once again, that is a story for another day, I cannot say much more without spinning a major plot point.
Conclusion
This game won’t be for everyone, but for me, it has turned into a commitment, and I have no regrets. PS, if you, dear reader, happen to see me in the game (I go by DaPeHam), feel free to say hello, I usually play with the Xaku Prime frame
P.S. Special shoutout to Clem; he doesn’t say much, but he has a lot of character.
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