Hey, how are you liking WARFRAME?

Hey there, it's Menow.

WARFRAME is not a game I was planning to pick up. There are guns. And a reticle. But it's free right now on the Switch eShop, and my pals are playing it! Since I Fight for my Friends™, I'm giving it an honest try. Much to my surprise I do not hate it.

SUP TENNO

I chose the Excalibur warframe to start, as I favor loud, melee combat styles. I played the tutorial blind and I made it through just fine. I only wish I knew beforehand which weapons to choose initially. I foolishly picked the bow and arrow because it was pretty and I wanted to feel like Susan from The Chronicles of Narnia, even though I certainly am not a stealth player. Very soon after I built the market, I spent all my credits on the Braton so I could spray bullets instead of trying too hard.

This is the gun that I have! I think

Apparently there is some lore in this game, but so far I've been too busy trying to keep track of what my abilities are and how to use them to pay attention to any of it. All I know is Lotus is my Space Mom, Ordis is my Space Bro and potentially also my organic ship being, Captain Vor is my Space Grandpa, and Darvo is my Space Uncle. I had to murder my Space Grandpa because he was leading a merchant cult, but I think The Space Family is going to hold up just fine in spite of our loss.

RIP Space Grandpa

Although online multiplayer third-person parkour shooters are not my genre of choice, I truly am enjoying the gameplay. The lightning fast HP regen and responsive controls give me greater confidence to take more time aiming to shoot, or to just charge into the fray and slice Grineer in half with my disappointingly tiny sword. There's treasure everywhere. I can sort of scale walls like Spiderman. Much to my delight, I often I find myself accidentally heading in the right direction or haphazardly stumbling onto my objective. Lotus knows if there's one thing I don't like, it's getting lost in video games. I just really need a bigger sword like stat.

My sword is too smol. Pls send bigger sword

 
The big bummers of this game are customization, crafting, and weapon acquisition. I was so happy when I found I could customize the colors of my warframe and my ship, then quickly disappointed to find there are so few free colors. I love colors. This selection, like my Skana, is too smol. 

Ugh my gad lookit all them padlocks and unavailable palettes! I wannem.

There are...a lot of things to craft, and no matter how many space rocks I smash and space chests I open, I don't seem to be acquiring enough of the things I need for the blueprints. And the blueprints cost a lot of credits. I'm at a threshold, staring down a long spiraling path of grinding for mats, and I haven't decided yet if I'm going to launch myself downward. (Haha I totes probably will.)

Aw man lookit these SCYTHES there's TWO OF EM

Instead of waiting ages to 3D-print my own weapons, I can buy ready-made ones!...with actual human currency. I do not spend my cold hard USD cash money on freemium games. But I could I guess, if I wanted to. This isn't really something to complain about, but contrasting it with how seemingly long it's going to take me to craft anything is perhaps worthwhile.

Ugh I can't screenshot the eShop? Pls enjoy this iPhone 8 Plus photo of my television screen lol sry

Despite its material flaws and its potentially overly complex upgrading systems, WARFRAME is a good game. I log in, squad up with my dudes, and we kill some aliebns or whatever. We started our own clan called The Space Family. We're 3D printing a dojo or something. We're space ninjas. It's fun.

The Space Family Dojo, feat. Kach and our #blessed Message of the Day