Part 25: Chapter 9, Stages 1 & 2

• Chapter 9, Stages 1 & 2, Blind Sally, nine-gear crow, and CJacobs
  
• Chapter 9, All Cutscenes (No Commentary)

9.1

At a Helghast Occupied ISA mountain base.

Enter Templar, Velasquez, Luger, Hakha, Lente, and guards. The two opposing sides meet and a brief firefight occurs. Lente (and guards) fall.

LENTE
Is it truly thou, Hakha?

VELASQUEZ
You know this guy

HAKHA
Tis but the general of the Third Army.

LENTE
And there is yet nothing else? There was a time, Hakha.
There was once a time I trusted thou with my army,
With my security, my very life and limb.

VELASQUEZ
You were chief of staff for this bastard?

HAKHA
Aye.

LENTE
Together we crushed our enemies,
Saw them driven before us,
And heard the lamentations of their women.
We were like gods--invincible, elite.
Dear Hakha, he could have been a general,
Nay, but he changed, grew soft.
Thy bleeding heart damns thee!

HAKHA
Nay, it is thee who hath changed, Lente.
Your soul, sold to a devil for a taste of power.

LENTE
And yet a hero's funeral lay in wait for me.
Your family doth not speak thy name.
Thy mother? She pretends you art dead.
None but your brother praise your name.
No longer, I fear. I had him executed.

Hakha shoots Lente

HAKHA
The uplink is thirty minutes by air. Let us away.

Exit all

Enter Adams

Stage is framed so that Adams is seen to be observing the events from a screen.

ADAMS
Ah, General Lente. What dost thou think?
Does it matter now what Visari thinks of thee?

Enter Caliban

ADAMS
Seal the platform. Double the guard.
Visitors will be approaching henceforth.



Our little squad of merry warriors has been pretty isolated from the war effort for a while now. Templar was fighting on the frontlines in the very first level, but since then we've managed to get out of the way of the Third Army's blitz. Since then we've been striking small patrols or bases that were, fortunately for us, largely empty--though perhaps that is more a fault of the game. Still, we haven't been at the forefront of the great war effort. (As an aside, this is something that will be addressed in the sequels. Killzone 2 and 3 have a number of setpieces that are fantastic at giving you the impression that you are just a single piece in a greater war effort fighting on a vast front line, attempting to push back the enemy--but we'll get to that). For the most part, we have been sneaking through Helghast-occupied territory, separate from the larger conflict. This stage helps to remind us that there is a great war at stake.



Case in point, this missile base. Our first impression and we see it's already in ruins. Inside, ISA corpses will be strewn about. The battle is already over here, but we're reminded that it rages else where by the missiles being launched.



Several missiles.



Note: the ISA logo on the missiles is the, now largely forgotten and unused, ISA sun logo that crow pointed out waaaaay back in our first few updates:



Our villains are also being re-connected with the proper war experience. Up until this point, the various Generals we've seen in the game have been separated from combat. Adams, Vaughton, Lente--like all generals, they command from behind the lines, but do not live the same experience their soldiers do, or more specifically, Jan and co's experience. After Adams' repeated mistakes, Lente believes he can stop Templar's Heroes if he led his forces from planetside.



A mistake, of course, because he only finds himself on the wrong end of their guns. As we see in the game, the shoot-out with Lente is much the same as the shoot-outs with any other Helghast. That's because Lente is no different.He is treated as a standard Helghast soldier. He's got a bit more health than standard troops, but that only means he needs a handful more bullets to put down. When he does die, it's the same as any other Helghast death, his body splaying in a most inhuman manner. There's no ceremony. No pomp. It just is.


^Puns!

Why does Templar and co. win? Is it merely because we are the heroes? Of course, that is part of the answer. We are the protagonists in this narrative, so convention demands we win this boss fight. The game will not progress otherwise. It may be because we're better trained, though presumably the guards for Lente were also highly trained. No, I prefer to believe it's because our characters are more destructive. There is, of course, a massive war effort going on, and the Helghas war-machine is wreaking vast swaths of havoc across the surface of Vekta. That said, in the course of a single playthrough, your chosen main character will kill hundreds of Helghast, and dozens of their machines. As pointed out in much earlier videos, you will destroy food sources, water sources, sources of shelter, and sources of light. You are, quite simply, a destroyer of life. A sad fact, for FPS protagonists, but true nonetheless, and as we continue our way through the Killzone series, we will become even more destructive.


^{Crotch shot!}

What I'm trying to say is, General Lente didn't stand a chance.






CJacobs

CJacobs doesn't know anything about Killzone, but enjoys long walks on the beach and shooting bulky men in the penis, so he was a good fit for this Let's Play. For more shooting things in their various extremities, watch his ongoing playthrough of Dead Space 3 ^{Now featuring 100% more Blind Sally, nine-gear crow, and JamieTheD}

CJacobs has also done a thorough Let's Play of some of Dead Space 3's stranger DLC Max Payne 3

Altman be praised!





We haven't had a chance to play with these terminals in the LP, and likely won't. I believe they only appear in two other locations besides here (one also at the Firebase in the Misty Waters chapter, and one in the mountains in the next chapter). Remember how each character was supposed to have unique gameplay segments? This is a Hakha-only moment. He can "hack" the terminals to cause Sentry Bots to target Helghast. As I've mentioned before, the changes in gameplay between characters are largely token. On occasion, they are interesting or unique, but this isn't really one of those moments.




VnD-10M Siren

It's a mounted infinite grenade launcher. Yup. Infinite. It'll overheat if you go nuts, but man. Infinite grenades! This is really the only time we get to use it. Much like the Scylla Mounted Machine Gun, this thing is super rare. Unlike the Scyllas we see in the game, they are actually located in a useful position. The biggest draw back of the Scylla, aside from its poor accuracy, is that it's almost never found in a situation where you can adequately utilize it against the enemy. So despite only appearing here, the Siren winds up being a much better and more fun mounted weapon!






Uhhh, 20th century warning stickers?!



Also, Caliban lives?



After a beat down like the last video, I would've thought he was dead and buried. To be honest, he I didn't realize he appeared again. He doesn't get any more speaking lines. In fact, this little scene will be the last we ever see of him. Still, crazy. Caliban lives.