What are two things that everybody loves? Answer: ninjas and fighting in space.

So, imagine what happens when you combine those two. Well, the answer to that is Warframe by Digital Extremes. Warframe is a hard game to pin down in terms of genre. It has strong MMO elements like a player based trading system and massive "raid-like" activities and prominently featuring guilds. It also has strong RPG elements like leveling systems and a library of elements and status effects that can be used to fight enemies. There are also strong parts of third-person shooter and freerunning mechanics. So, I guess, I'll call it a third-person MMORPG shooter. Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, but it's what I have.

The combat is the most prominent aspect of the game and is also the best part of the game. You play as a Tenno an ancient group of warriors that use Warframes to fight. A little on the nose there don't ya think Digital Extremes? Each of the Warframes has a different theme to their abilities. They range from simple and useful to tricky to master but all of them are very good at slaughtering your foes.

Simple ones like Excalibur, which focuses his abilities around swords, and Rhino, which focuses on being a behemoth and treating his enemies like ragdolls going so far as to momentarily turn off gravity, are easier to get and are just a matter of grinding out the parts. The more intriguing types of Warframes, on the other hand, are a bit more of an issue. Some even require a quest to be completed, but those quests reward Warframes that are immensely powerful.

After completing the quest "Limbo Theorem" players are awarded the Limbo Warframe which has mastery over the space between spaces which he uses to wreak havoc on the battlefield. The game is not great about explaining how to get these quests or how to get the parts to make these quests. The game doesn't explain much to the player.

Warframes are a big part of how combat works in this game, but they are far from the only thing. The player is allowed 3 weapons: a primary, a secondary, and a melee weapon. The fun part is that you don't have to take all of those. Feel like taking just a hammer to bash people around with? Totally doable. Feel like impersonating Hawkeye and just want a bow? Strange fetish but I don't judge and neither does the game. On top of all of that, there are mods. Mods can do basically nothing like marginally upgrade puncture damage or they can do amazing things like giving you 40% more health. So, to say they are a little all over the place is a wee bit of an understatement.

Look at that, I spent the last two paragraphs talking about the combat. Guess its time to talk about the story, or in Warframe's case, the lack of story. The game is pretty vague for the first 15-20 hours. We were brought out of stasis by the Lotus, some computer-woman-hybrid-thing, to fight the bad guys. Why they are bad is never really established and the only thing that indicates that they are bad is that they shoot you on sight. The story doesn't really do much until about the 4th planet. So the game is not a strong storyteller at all.

Overall, Warframe's greatest sin is frontloading too much onto the player and expecting that to tide them over till the story starts revving up. The combat and freerunning work well together and can be a very enjoyable experience. The Warframes are distinct and very individual so you can tailor your experience to what you want it to be. The story is on the back burner for a good chunk of the game. Come for the combat and stay for more combat but with slightly better mods equipped.