Sunday, March 13, 2011

Blizzard Entertainment

In which our hero Iron Will returns from a long absence to assist with the perils in Canada!


In case you missed it the first time, this is no ordinary storm!

After warning me once again that the storm we're experiencing isn't ordinary, the crippled superhero known as Justiciar lays out what he'd actually like me to do to help in this less-than-ordinary storm. Much to my surprise, he actually seems to have a pretty good emergency response plan.

So apparently not only did a plane get forced down by this completely ordinary storm, but the passengers who survived are stuck out there in the blizzard and, because freezing to death isn't really that big a deal on it's own, are being menaced by freakin' ice demons.

So, Justiciar wants me to head out there and help them escape, presumably since he himself can't move through the snow due to his disability. That actually sounds like a perfectly reasonable use for the superpowered help. I throw him a quick salute and head out the gate to find this crash site.

It actually winds up being a pretty short jog away, as the snow is apparently hard-packed enough that I don't sink into it at all despite weighing about a ton and a half at this point, and I can see plane pieces almost immediately on the other side of the wall. Some of which have struggling figures underneath them. Hrm.

My radio suddenly chimes in.


According to the little robotic voice that I used to think was Dr. Silverback but might actually be Justiciar or Ravenspeark or my own conscious or something, there are quite a few survivors trapped under various pieces of wreckage in the vicinity. Right in front of me, two ice demons are crouched over a guy stuck under a plane wing, taunting him and telling him to give up and die.

... So wait. There are who knows how many of these spikey ice demons with claws and fangs and horns and the like running through the hills menacing people... and all they do is stand near them and taunt them?

These guys are such dicks.

I run over and beat the two of them senseless, which actually winds up being about as easy as beating up mutants back in the desert. Apparently their bizarre supernatural powers mostly consist of being ugly and the ability to throw snowballs without first balling up snow. It's a really cold snowball, mind, but it just doesn't seem very impressive. Of course, it might be really devastating to somebody who still had blood flow in their skin or something... I dunno. Point is, they go down really easily.


I haul the plane wing off the guy, who springs right up and thanks me, assuring me that he'll be okay from here, and then runs off. ... Wait a second. So this guy, who was just on a passenger airline that crashed in the mountains, somehow survived falling out of the sky and an impact that tore an airplane in half, then getting crushed by several tons of metal, being stuck in the snow in the middle of a blizzard for half an hour, and after being freed he's perfectly confident that the roving bands of ice demons between him and safety won't be a problem?

This guy is amazing. I need to find him later and give him my card.

There are a few dozen others either trapped under debris or cowering in a small circle of demons scattered around the wreckage of the airliner, which seems to have broken in half and left it's rear section stuck in a lake that's frozen completely solid, as it hasn't sunk or anything. Convenient. I punch the demons until they quit breathing and lift wreckage off of survivors for a few minutes until it seems like I've gotten just about everyone.


That messy situation dealt with, I head back to base, stopping by to rescue what appears to be the pilot of the unfortunate aircraft, huddling next to a campfire and being menaced by demons. I take care of them.


This is one of the few missable missions in the Canada Crisis, so you might want to watch for it. It's also an escort mission, but it's less of a pain in the neck than most of them will be.


For whatever reason, the demons seem more interested in getting the pilot than any of the individual passengers. He asks me if I'll escort him back to base, so I do. A few of the monsters pop out of nowhere to throw themselves at my knuckles every couple of minutes, but they don't get past me, and we make it back to base without too much trouble.

So far, stopping ancient magical forces of evil from engulfing the land of the living in frozen darkness seems surprisingly similar to stopping crazy irradiates from blowing up a piece of the desert. I think I've got this.


UP NEXT: Yeah, pretty much.

2 comments:

  1. I love your blog. I'm thinking about starting Champions Online because of this. I've also been wanting to try EQ2 since it went F2P. Do you have a LP on that one yet?

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  2. And I love that somebody reads it besides me!

    I don't know much about EQ2, alas. Judging by screenshots alone, it's a very pretty game that most certainly won't fit on my hard drive.

    LPs are pretty fun to make, though. Why not try EQ2 and show us know how it goes?

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