Phew. Been a while. A combination of life and computer issues meant that I wasn’t playing much Dark Mod for a bit, much less working on reviews. I’m a little more caught up now, so hopefully I can provide some more content while playing my next block of missions. Thank you all for your support, it really does mean a lot to me to know that people enjoy reading these.
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My reputation as a reviewer is riding on this!
A Reputation to Uphold (by Springheel) is a sequel to A Score to Settle. (Although you don't need to play that mission to understand what’s going on here, barring a readable reference to those events.) This time, Corbin is after something of actual value: a necklace that was swiped before he could get at it and is now in the possession of a criminal organization. It’s due to be sold to a fence, forcing Corbin to follow the seller and buyer...or not.
Reputation’s main gimmick is that it has three different play styles, similar to Fieldmedic’s “Not an Ordinary Guest.” On “Shadow” it’s a traditional follow and then steal mission (although you don’t have to follow very closely), “Timed Shadow” keeps things the same but gives you a time limit to steal the necklace, and “Break-In” forgoes the stalking altogether in favor of making you at least partially visible, even in shadows. It lacks the same variation as the above mentioned mission, but does provide some replay value. The problem is that, to me, there wasn’t enough variation. Timed Shadow was an interesting curiosity, but because I had no idea what the limit was during the mission (about eight minutes, as I found out in the thread), it’s hard to tell if I blazed through it with time to spare or if it was much tighter than I thought. Break-In is the most interesting, but once you’ve played the mission twice getting to it (as I did), you know what you’re doing, although I know one item is slightly moved around across difficulty levels.
Graphics-wise, it’s similar to A Score to Settle: Lots of dim, uneven streets and doing an excellent job of selling the fact that you’re creeping around in gang territory, with a few “handy” touches here and there to sell it. Like its predecessor, I wish that there was a little more to do, although there is a neat little Easter Egg and reference to a previous mission, if you can find it.
Difficulty-wise, it’s fair. Like I mentioned, after going through all the difficulty levels, you’ll have a pretty good grasp on this straightforward mission. There aren’t as many unique parts as Score, but it’s still well-done, and the latter two difficulties do present a fair challenge, especially to the ghoster. Of note for said ghoster is one piece of loot in particular that’s impossible to get without at least swinging the blackjack with wild abandon, or firing an arrow into the darkness. Getting the loot goal isn’t super difficult though, even on Break-In where it’s a required objective.
All an all, a slightly over ambitious but still very solid mission. Recommended.