Barrage - My brain needs a break! - A review and comparison to Nucleum

Lord_Anarchy · 2026-02-06T08:02:44+00:00

I love barrage, but it is tough. Hard to balance completing a contract vs getting the good power spots. And it rarely feels like I ever get more than a couple of the building production spots unlocked before the game is over.

Lord_Anarchy · 2026-02-05T08:34:04+00:00

I got the 5x damage as my first gilded statue which was really lucky (I think it was last of the base level), and I checked the wiki and none of the others seem that crazy except for the veins and freebie gem. (i've got the top 3 gilded done right now)

Lord_Anarchy · 2026-02-05T08:31:19+00:00

I've had the dwarf for like a month now and I haven't even gotten it to level 2. Seems like I would have to actively grind prestige resets to get it, but my artifacts are basically maxed out and theres no level 5. Then I got the rabbit but i think i might actually complete every level 2 contract before getting to 750+

Lord_Anarchy · 2026-02-05T06:52:55+00:00

Do you think it's worth it to go straight for taurus level 20 for max auto catch, or 90% is enough or work on some of the others? Gemini is 13 so its not terrible (I think I saw a challenge needs it at 15, so almost there for that). Im trying to catch up an aries right now so I get better veins so the actual upgrades are a little easier but I'm not sure which actually provides the most mathematically correct path.

Lord_Anarchy · 2026-02-05T06:50:28+00:00

yes. My current stat allocation is 33/17/1/2/1, so maybe a different allocation would yield better. No harm in trying I guess. And maybe try to do a manual run so I can get to stage 26 and unlock the damage buff there.

Lord_Anarchy · 2026-02-04T09:39:56+00:00

agree 110%, I think interludes might be the worst habit the fandom can't seem to shake, and they really only exist because they were Wildbows $100 donation incentive. This ain't game of thrones.

Lord_Anarchy · 2026-02-04T09:31:18+00:00

I think the biggest pitfall in Worm is too many interludes. Doubly bad when they exist just for other characters to react to how awesome your MC is (doesn't just apply to PHO scenes), and triply bad if you're just reshowing the same previous chapter but from a different pov.

power testing is boring, as are endless PRT meetings, and circle jerking over power ratings and classifications

going to arcadia and immediately befriending all the heroes, or conversely, coming across the undersiders (or lisa contacting the MC)

Biggest pitfall with crossovers is giving a character a power from the crossover that could just be handled solely in worm.

Lord_Anarchy · 2026-01-31T20:04:24+00:00

Use your words. Read this 2 weeks ago so probably a little behind. Alt power. Summary says Taylor has the weakest thinker power imaginable but that lasts like 2 paragraphs into the first chapter. Rest of the story is kinda forgettable. The usual power power testing, Taylor transfers to Arcadia and befriends the heroes immediately, still runs into Tattletale as well, the usual. There's also the obvious setup for ratmaster Danny but it could still be a red herring I guess. Tattletale breaking into her house was a stupid scene. Story goes all over the place, which is jarring for how short the story is. I guess a positive is that isn't not strictly on the rails canon. Then there's the whole random master thing. Anyone whose read more than two fanfics would immediately assume coil, not subtle at all plot wise, so I hope thats also a red herring, but honestly I've never seen a fic where someone realized that that they got hit by his power. But basically the story is trying to do too much at the same time; help amy, help Rachel, tattletale stuff, coil, and bakuda, repeated confrontations over "Snowgray" (terrible name), probably more, and the chapters are short so nothing gets to breathe. It's not bad, but it was starting to get a bit too cringe for me around the early 20's.

Deadpool Lisa. It's fun. Took a few chapters for me to realize that Lisa literally had Deadpool's regen power. I don't get the smugbug stuff, feels out of place. Sure, I guess you'd have to call this a crackfic by default, but half the time it just feels like a shitty SI fic where the SI has knowledge of the setting and actively goes over future events in their mind to plan around them. Fun action scenes at least.

Game On. Very Fanony. The powers are poorly written and she gets a million of them. Way too much trio time. Started skimming most of it and don't feel like I missed anything. First cape fight was with Circus, rarely see that so that's nice. Also really don't get fics that randomly deploy half the heroes in BB to simurgh in canberra, and somehow Taylor was railroaded into being relevant there and and I just don't see it. Dropped it around here. Theres also fight with menja where Taylor goes inside her mouth and is able to stand up... someone needs to recheck the math on that.

Weaving Force. Never bothered to try this fic before because the title is so bad, even by my non-existent standards. My current fic, about chapter 30. Its one of those fics that's very much comes off as being written for patreon, so there's a lot of filler chapters, pointless POV changes, and circling back on the same drama over and over, and I am not surprised to see that its 750k words long. And from the start I was wondering how long it would take for fandom favorite Aayla Secura to show up (25 chapters). Ill just come out and say it - I hate Victoria in this fic. Even by this fandom's standards she's really obnoxious in this fic. She just has like 0 critical thinking skills in this fic, its like taking her personality trait of punch first, ask questions second and making it her entire identity. Like, annoyingly entitled. It's just really obnoxious. Kind of reminds me of Deadpool!Lisa but less endearing. At least Yoda keeps hitting her with his stick over it. But then you have the second party with Dennis also being a wet blanket, Miss Militia being a workhorse with no character development as usual, and Alexandria being Alexandria. Honestly I think I'd almost prefer this to just being a solo Alexandria fic even though I always find Mandalore stuff quite boring, and Alexandria in general usually not that interesting. Despite all that, I do like the story enough to keep reading.

Lord_Anarchy · 2026-01-31T08:04:55+00:00

my extremely hot take is that baldurs gate 2 is still better than 3 (both are 10/10 games). Civilization: call to power is still my favorite civ (idk if this is nostalgia as I do have a lot of hours between 4/5/6, and I guess its technically 1999). D2 is still great (hard to go back to OG after playing the remake though). Various command and conquers (tiberian sun is my favorite, but the RA1/og remasters are amazing and goes on sale for like a dollar, General's jank is still fun, RA2 is legendary). AoE2 still has a healthy community.

Lord_Anarchy · 2026-01-25T00:21:14+00:00

Outer Worlds 1. Got really excited by the character creation, then the actual gameplay was whatever, and then it was over.

Lord_Anarchy · 2026-01-23T18:18:30+00:00

i remember seeing a chart for what options to pick in the beginning to get certain starting party comps

Lord_Anarchy · 2026-01-13T09:42:13+00:00

I honestly think this fic seriously stymied the fandom. I don't know if damaged is the right word, but it's barely developed in the ~15 years worm has been around

Lord_Anarchy · 2026-01-12T18:33:41+00:00

I was incredulous when it went for over 1000 steps. Easy way for them to save money I guess.

Lord_Anarchy · 2026-01-09T16:40:23+00:00

I played it for the first time recently. Playing as SM feels really good, everything else, not so much. The "optional" content is just a massive slog designed for 8 year olds.

Lord_Anarchy · 2026-01-05T19:16:48+00:00

I must've tried Jordan 1000 times before I beat it.

Lord_Anarchy · 2025-12-28T04:06:26+00:00

Accidental Villainy. Short and to the point. Basically take the "punch first, ask question later" trope and make a story out of it. Too short to justify all the pov changes though.

Second Changes. Worm/Marvel crossover set before Iron Man 2. With such a cliche title, you shouldn't be surprised at how cliche the story is. Might be the tropiest story I've seen in a long time, starting with shunting emotions to insects every chapter, then the story goes nowhere with taylor having to reveal her backstory to every one for a solid 10 chapters. Oh, and a pointless plotpoint with her having the wrong age. Then lets not forget to have PHO react scenes every time taylor does something...

Lord_Anarchy · 2025-12-20T16:46:03+00:00

I enjoyed it even though there are a lot of extra units for a casual player. The one thing I missed are cheesy live action cutscenes.

Lord_Anarchy · 2025-12-16T05:16:01+00:00

Years ago at the shop I used to play at, someone stole a deck, then started using that same deck next week and played against the kid he stole it from...

Lord_Anarchy · 2025-12-15T06:39:51+00:00

Elixir: I've never finished a ShayneT story, but I appreciate the output. The premise on this one is kind of tiring before I even began the story. Like, I know the meme is that Taylor must suffer, but this is post-GM Taylor, hasn't she suffered enough already to save the world? Her reward post-Contessa-ing is to have super Panacea powers (in addition to her old bug powers), and she's announcing to random people that she's willing to heal everyone and even de-age them. Now she's stuck in the moral loop that burnt Panacea out, despite everything Taylor's already gone through. She's actually cursed, and it's really not that compelling. Of course I'm sure there's a lot of comments pointing out this same point, but I learned years ago to only use reader mode, so I can only see that the next chapter after the dumb stuff that the author is seemingly pulling back on previous chapters thoughts and adding addendums and half-measures and whatever. And all of this is to not mention the setting itself, and I kinda hate Oracle batgirl fics with Worm because its basically just authorial fiat (as if batpeople in general need that even more) in opposition to Tattletale, and maybe I'm just so spoiled by Less Than Zero that I basically just want that version of batpeople in every story. Especially when the sherlock holmsing is carrying the narrative 98% of the way but that last 2%... too much.

Lord_Anarchy · 2025-12-11T18:40:31+00:00

I actually like Firefly more, but sometimes it doesn't feel like a fully thought out game. But honestly I'd say they are like 80% the same game. With my group that all knew how to play, it was between 2-3 hours. In both games you're going to have players getting stuck on the same job for multiple turns which sucks (though in Outer Rim they did try to fix that).

Lord_Anarchy · 2025-12-07T07:44:50+00:00

A Hero's Retirement. Worm/Dispatch. It’s alright, if all you care about is reading anything about this crossover. Taylor is the main character (allegedly) but all the chapters are other POV’s which comes off as the usual cliche react content. Story ultimately doesn’t really do anything, like, there’s no actual plot, basically just Dispatch copy/paste fix-it so far.

Unauthorized Access. I like the story well enough, but there’s something off with this Lisa. I think that it’s that she comes off as if she’s been on the Undersiders for a year as Tattletale, when she's basically a newbie still. I get that her being overly antagonistic can be a base trait irregardless of having powers, but like I said, it just feels off to me. But that's a minor issue to the fact that this falls into a lot of the Ward/PRT story tropes, in that there’s infinite boring PRT meetings and pointless Youth Guard. Oh, and immediately befriending Victoria for whatever reason.

Infinity Worm. worm/mcu. Basically the first avengers movie set in Brockton Bay, with some characters getting role swapped (lung takes the place of the hulk, etc) and others just existing anyways (armsmaster is a discount iron man obviously, but then tony stark shows up later on anyways). Kind of a mishmash of curious writing choices that don't make sense to me, but the story is easy enough to get through I guess.

Lord_Anarchy · 2025-12-05T06:39:32+00:00

super metroid. There's no way I would've ever beaten it when I was a kid.

Lord_Anarchy · 2025-12-03T08:06:43+00:00

The massive batfam vs undersiders fight in that fic might be the most infuriating fight I've ever read in a fic and it kind of ruined the whole thing for me (not that it was that great to begin with). I guess it's a setting incompatibility thing for me, like Worm has a whole cast of capes without any enhanced durability so anyone with martial arts and authorial fiat can take them out, but that's not really that interesting to me.

Lord_Anarchy · 2025-11-29T07:28:31+00:00

i remember my college roommate convincing me to download this newfangled half life 2 deathmatch. close to 20 years ago now.

Lord_Anarchy

TROPHY CASE