Wow.... just... wow.

I am INCREDIBLY impressed by the work made on this episode. Immersion its the key and they got it right. The music its just perfect for the ambient of paranoia that this episode reeks, it just gives you a chill to your spine when needed.

The length was definitely appropriate, and larger than #1. The part inside of the bunker (not gonna spoil) its very very fun, and the lighting along with the fog omg... perfect. The texture work on the "certain alien thing" on the corner, its very very impressive.

Overall I am very happy with the work that Cryptic made on this comic series this far. Was DEFINITELY worth the wait.

Keep the hard work Cryptic, I am very very happy to spend my money in here ^^.

Please keep spoilers for others at minimum.

As good as #1, in a different way. Actually seems they put some real time on it.

Pluses of note:

* New quality sounding ambient music. (Quality ambient music in Champs?? shocked)

* As far as I know, the internal environments are new, not more recycled Viper bunker tunnels. And are well done.

* Effective use of blizzards.

Minuses of note:

*Ran the thing on Elite and the ONLY drop I got (as well as final boss reward) was a limited charges disposable green. TWICE

?????


Doesn't change the fact I'm still profoundly disappointed about other things. Good things Comics are free.

Obviously a lot of thought went into this mission. I like how story focused it is and i like the decision making in the mission, but it seems to be a bit of a double edged sword when it comes to teaming.

My issue is this:
I like to team with these kind of missions (especially on the first time) but whenever i get a PUG together and run missions like this, it never fails that some one is rushing through all the text to get to the objectives. This made it difficult to let the team keep an organic pace and still make well informed decisions about who i wanted to label as a "suspect".
This puts me in a position where i would prefer to run the mission as a team (PUG) but i know that i will be better be able to digest the story if i run it solo and take my time.

Can we get more voice over for NPCs involved in puzzle/ decision making mechanics?

I just came from DCUO and the thing that i noticed was that because it had VO for everything, i didn't have to do much reading when going from mission to mission and carrying out objectives. Even in alerts (the DCUO raid) all objectives were explained in VO so that the pace of the mission was was never interrupted by reading, the objectives were done in the context of the story plot, (mission objectives done without the context of the story are just empty tasks) and there was little confusion (even though most of us were new FTP players).

What im asking for here is not more unscippable cut scenes, but for NPC dialog tied to key objectives to be VOed & triggered when you interact with them so that PUGs can go at a pace that's organic and the members can still grasp whats going on in the story.

For example:
There are several scientist that say things that help you make decisions on who to label as a suspect. There is also an NPC that asks you to choose a suspect. All is is a key mechanic in the mission but if you have skimmed through the mission text, the decisions that you make will be hallow, and if these decisions impact the story, then that impact will not be felt. If these NPCs had VO then you could go through the mission full speed and still make informed decisions and fully grasp the story.

Overall, the mission is good but the increased emphasis on story leads to more reading which can bottle neck the pace of a team or cause the subtle nuances of the story to be over looked. This encourages solo play to get the full impact of story immersion at the cost of a full story driven team experience.
I think its better if people feel comfortable doing these missions the 1st time as a team because it is a good way to make friends and you are more likely to stick with a MMO longer if you have friends there.

IMO - Great job; but I think the person coming up with the scientist's and NPC names watrches a bit too much Stargate ;) "Samatha Cartier" et al. ;)

Very nice job with the background music and overall atmosphere too. It was kind of light on the item drops from aliens though this time around (IMO.); but that's a minor quibble. Enjoyed it front to back 9and so nice NIOT to see a supernatural/magic slant to anything so far - just good old creepy comic book sci-gfi with a touch of horror.

Atmospheric Yes but it has so many characters from the Thing and is set in an ice station in a blizzard with an alien shape shifter. I still found it fun though.

Overall I liked Whiteout 2 better than Whiteout 1 with one exception... there's no real loot to speak of in Whiteout 2 currently.
[Spoiler]Sure there's the bracers and flamethrower, but where's my slidered drop after beating up the end boss?[/spoiler]
The pacing good. The atmosphere was great. The ending wasn't quite the same quality of cliffhanger as Whiteout 1 but I still am looking forward to what happens next.

And I'm off to Skyrim for another week. Good thing I'm a LTS...

I liked that McReady and Childs, etc were in there despite it taking away from the immersion.

Plot panned out nicely although we didn't get to see any of the repercussions from our choices, hopefully I can use my TPs again next episode though.

I was actually wondering if someone could capture a screenshot of the last group of people coming in, the "Backup" as they called it, because my computer loads objects very slowly and was not able to see the people running in...

I can if you give me a few moments to get there with an alt.

Edit: Aaaaand there you go

Spooooooooooooooooooooooooilerrrrr!!!

Link

Eeeeend of spoooooiler!!!! =p

I ran it 4 times with my shape changer character on elite. The fights were challenging, and the length was a little longer than the first one, however the rewards seemed reduced in comparison. A blue only dropped once in all 4 times, as did the bracers and symbiote. All other drops were whites and greens.

It was good overall. I liked the base, and the blizzard effect, and the music. I really liked the mystery part of it, and it wasn't too difficult to solve if you paid attention (and took notes in my case). The several references to The Thing was also sweet!