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Warframe

Warframe is a 3D sci-fi third person MMO shooter with an emphasis on cooperative gameplay. Players assume the role of Tenno, space ninjas with powerful exoskeletons called Warframes, as they hack-n-slash their way through armies of enemies.

Publisher: Digital Extremes
Playerbase: High
Type: MMORPG
PvP: Duels / Conclave (Arenas) / Solar Rail
Release Date: Mar 25, 2013 (NA/EU)
Pros: +Fun cooperative gameplay. +Good variety of Warframes. +Great production value (Music/Visuals).
Cons: -TONS of grinding required. -Repetitive missions. -Feels too easy sometimes. -Limited PvP options.

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Overview

Warframe Overview

Warframe is a cooperative online third person shooter where players take on the role of Tenno, space ninjas in technologically-advanced exoskeletons that give them superhuman powers. Engage in action-packed combat as you run along walls, go down zip lines, perform acrobatics, and cut down enemies with your sword, or blast them all to kingdom come with the vast arsenal of weapons at your disposal. While Warframe does have several PvP options, Warframe is primarily a PvE game. Choose from three starting classes and 17 advanced classes, each with their own roles and playstyles. Work together with friends as you take on armies of space grunts, walking turrets, and hordes of mindless zombies in a stunning futuristic sci-fi world.

Warframe Key Features:

  • Good Variety of Warframes – choose from a large pool of warframes and customize them with mods to match your needs.
  • Smooth Moves – play with familiar FPS controls and use ninja/parkour moves to position yourself.
  • Constant Updates – the dev team is always tweaking and updating the game based on players' comments.
  • Awesome Graphics and SFX – the graphics are amazingly fluid and the music heightens the action-packed atmosphere of the game.

Warframe Screenshots

Warframe Featured Video

Warframe - The Rebirth E3 2014 Trailer

Classes

Starting Warframes:

  • Excalibur – the very first Warframe ever created. The Excalibur possesses a balanced set of capabilities perfect for new players.
  • Volt – has the ability to control electricity. A Warframe with high damage output that can easily take out enemies even without the use of guns.
  • Mag – a support Warframe with the ability to manipulate magnetic energy. A Mag can deplete or replenish shields as well as crush enemies using a magnetic field.

Full Review

Warframe Review

By Marc Marasigan

Warframe is a free-to-play sci-fi 3D MMO action shooter game developed and published by Canadian studio Digital Extremes. The game’s open beta was launched on March 21, 2013. The game borrows heavily from Digital Extreme’s Dark Sector, and features the same character and level design, as well as a few notable personas from the game. Warframe's success on the PC led to its launch on the Playstation 4 and Xbox One consoles.

Warframe is set in our solar system, thousands of years into the future. The Tenno, a race of ancient warriors, are awakened from cryostasis without any memory of their past. The Lotus teach them how to use their exoskeletons, called Warframes (reminds me of Gray Fox in the Metal Gear games), and send them out on missions to maintain balance between the Grineer, a race of humanoid clones, and the Corpus, a technologically advanced race of robots. The Lotus also work with the Teeno to subdue the Infested Corpus and Grineer units who have been infected with a plague that turns them into mindless zombies. It’s important to note that the game is constantly tweaked and updated with new content based on player requests and feedback, so what’s current now might be entirely different by the next update.

Waking Up

After a short cut scene, players start off with a choice of three starter Warframes: Excalibur, Mag, or Volt. Other Warframes can be purchased using Platinum or crafted in the Foundry later on in the game. The game starts off with a tutorial mission that walks players through the basics of movement and combat. Unfortunately, there is no option to skip the tutorial since the tutorial mission is part of the game’s story. The tutorial mission will have players trying to evade capture and escape Grineer forces with help from the Lotus. After successfully escaping on the player’s old ship, they then proceed to go on missions to repair the ship’s damaged segments. Oris, the ship’s AI, literally has a few screws loose. Whether it’s from sustaining damage or from being abandoned and left alone for too long, we’ll never know for sure, but that AI definitely has some issues. Some of his lines really had me cracking up, especially the part about being self-destructed during a bout of depression early in the game. Replacement segments for the ship are acquired by completing the first few missions. The first mission to retrieve the communications segment can only be done solo. Succeeding missions can then be completed alone or with help the help of friends through the game’s cooperative mode.

Carrying Out Orders

After the tutorial mission, the game continues as a campaign that slowly acquaints players with Warframe's gameplay features, such as crafting and upgrading, while revealing the story of the Grineer’s plans for domination and why the Tenno need to stop them. Missions can be accessed through the ship’s cockpit. After completing the campaign, players can choose from a variety of missions located in different planets and moons across the solar system. Missions range from simple extermination and sabotage to more difficult ones, like survival and rescue missions. Some missions also take place in space. Space missions, however, require that a player’s Warframe be equipped with Archwings the first of which can be acquired by completing a quest upon reaching Mastery Rank 2. Aside from the loot that players pick up during the course of the mission, successfully completing missions also rewards players with credits, items for crafting, as well as Modules (Mods for short) to upgrade their Warframe parts. Achievements, like getting a certain number of stealth kills or killing a certain number of enemies, are also automatically awarded to players once they meet the requirements.

The Way of the Ninja

Warframe’s controls are easy enough to get used to, and is quite similar to typical FPSs. The environment allows players to sprint, slide, jump, do backflips, and run on walls to gain advantage over enemies during combat. Combat can be as fast or slow as players want it to be. They can opt for the shock and awe method or they can use stealth to their advantage, depending on their preferred playstyle. Mission levels and enemy positions are randomly generated using pre-designed rooms and halls, so no two missions are the same. However, some of the levels still look pretty much the same, even if they’re randomly generated, and tend to get old fast, especially when grinding for that rare item needed to craft the weapon of your dreams. Even though combat is fast-paced and fun, Warframe feels a bit too easy sometimes.

Tricking Out Your Warframe

Warframe features an in-depth customization system that lets players customize basically everything about their Warframes, from the type of helmets and shoulder pads to their overall color scheme. Players can also choose from a variety of weapons depending on the mission or their playstyle. Feel like going Rambo on the Grineer? Strap on an assault rifle and a sub-machine gun, and blast your way through their ranks. Want to take on a rescue mission with a bit of stealth and finesse? Equip a bow, throwing knives, and a futuristic katana and stealth-kill your way through the whole mission.

Bigger and Better

Weapons and Warframes can both be customized and upgraded using Mods that players acquire as loot, as rewards for completing missions, or by purchasing the from the item shop. Mods can also be bought, sold, or traded with other players. Rare mods can even be sold for Platinum, the game’s premium currency. Another way to get Mods is to Transmute four unranked Mods to generate one random Mod. Weapon Mods are different from those used for Warframes and are automatically sorted in the Arsenal menu. Mods, when equipped, give bonuses to a weapon or to a Warframe’s stats or abilities. Keep in mind, though, that the number of equippable Mods are limited by the available Mod capacity. The number of Capacity points a Mod uses up is shown on the Mod description. Mods can be swapped out at any time by visiting the ship’s Arsenal bay.

Weapons gain Affinity or XP when used in combat and increase in rank when the Affinity points reach a certain level (up to a maximum of 30 levels). Mastery Points are also awarded to players when one of their weapons levels up. Players gain Mastery Ranks when their Mastery Points reach a certain level. Higher Mastery Ranks unlock additional weapons and Warframes, and increases a player’s daily trade limit.

Like weapons, Warframes also gain Affinity points and gain rank up to Level 30. Warframes are rewarded Affinity points by using abilities, killing enemies, reviving fallen teammates, completing objectives, or by simply completing the mission. Aside from getting additional Mod capacity, Warframes also get passive increases to health, shields, and energy capacity as well as Mastery Points. Warframe abilities are also unlocked automatically and improve every few levels.

Visuals and Audio

Warframe’s visuals are absolutely stunning and reminiscent of games like Planetside 2 and Mass Effect 3. Character animations are downright awesome and very fluid, especially when blocking bullets with your melee weapon or when performing acrobatics and ninja/parkour moves. The water texture, which, as I mentioned in other reviews, is one of the things I like to look at when gauging the graphics quality of a game, is beautifully done. The sound effects aren’t great, but they’re not bad, either. The music is also nothing special, but picks up during combat. Combined with the fast-paced combat, the BGM works to create an adrenaline-pumping and heart-pounding experience.

Foundry

The Foundry is a section of a player’s ship where crafting takes place. Player can craft Weapons, Warframes, Archwings, and Sentinels (mechanical “pets” that assist in combat), provided that they have the items and blueprints required for crafting. Players then have to wait for the crafting process to finish, which happens in real time. Items with long build times can be left building since the process continues even when the player is offline. Players can also spend Platinum to instantly complete the process. Different items, however, require different amounts of Platinum to instantly finish.

Market

The Market, Warframe’s item shop, contains everything from Warframes and weapons, to Mod bundles, cosmetic items, prime parts, and crystals that virtually double Mod capacity. Items can be bought using Platinum, the game’s premium currency. These premium items could easily break the game, if not for the fact that Warframe leans more towards cooperative play rather than PvP. The hefty price tag, even for simple cosmetic items like changing the color of your gear, also serves as a deterrent for players thinking about buying premium items. Items in the Market can also be obtained without spending anything. It just takes a mixture of luck, patience, and a whole lot of grinding. Players can also sell rare mods and prime parts for Platinum in the Trading tab of the Market. Finding these rare goodies involves a lot of PvE grinding. Trying to farm mods in Warframe reminded me of my Diablo 2 loot run days. I'd do Baal runs all day, trying to get the best uniques.

Final Verdict – Great

For a free-to-play game, Warframe is a great MMO that can keep players entertained and hold their attention for hours on end, unless you’re the type that’s easily put off by grinding for items because this game has more than its fair share of repetitive grinding. The lack of endgame content and goals may also deter hardcore players. Even so, it’s still worth checking out, even if it’s just for the campaign or for players looking for a change of pace from their usual mainstream games. Overall, Warframe is a fun game with huge potential. Aside from the visual eye-candy, the fast-paced gameplay and ninja/parkour combat alone should be enough to entice even the most finicky player. I mean, who doesn’t love ninjas?

Screenshots

Warframe Screenshots

Videos

Warframe Videos

System Requirements

Warframe System Requirements

Minimum Requirements:

Operating System: Windows XP / Vista / 7 / 8
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 6400 / AMD Athlon 4000
Video Card: GeForce 8600 GT / ATI Radeon HD 3600
RAM: 2 GB
Hard Disk Space: 10 GB

Recommended Requirements:

Operating System: Windows XP / Vista / 7 / 8
CPU: Dual Core 2.5 GHz CPU or better
Video Card: GeForce 300 series
RAM: 4 GB
Hard Disk Space: 10 GB

Warframe only lists minimum system requirements on their official website. The recommended requirements we provide are based on our estimate to run the game at max settings at high resolutions.

Music

Warframe Music & Soundtrack


Additional Info

Warframe Additional Information

Developer: Digital Extremes
Game Engine: Evolution Engine
Other Platforms: Platstation 4 and Xbox One
Closed Beta Date: October 24, 2012
Open Beta: March 21, 2013

Other Platform Release Dates:

Playstation 4: November 15, 2013
Xbox One: September 2, 2014

Development History / Background:

Warframe was developed by Canadian game studio Digital Extremes and built on the Evolution engine. Development for Warframe began in late 2011 and early 2012, several years after Digital Extreme's last sci-fi game, Dark Sector. Warframe borrowed many elements from Dark Sector, including character and level designs. Since Warframe launched on Steam, the game's popularity exploded, making it one of the most successful free-to-play games on the entire Steam network upon launch. They maintained this lead for years and Digital Extremes continues to support the game with regular updates. Given the game's success on the PC, Digital Extremes launched a console version of Warframe both on the Playstation 4 and Xbox One. Warframe's success didn't go unnoticed. The company announced that they were in negotiations to be purchased by two Chinese companies Perfect World Entertainment (Arc Games) and Sumpo Food Holdings. On October 14, 2014, the deal was signed and Digital Extremes was sold to these two companies. Despite the sale, Digital Extremes still operates as a stand-alone company, but with additional funding and support from Perfect World.