Part 7: Episode VII: Spirit Fingers
Episode VII: Spirit Fingers
When last we left our hero, he was walking up some stairs. What kind of jerks have a seven second stair walking animation and then the loading screen? With that said, let's finish this half...
Oh, it seems the mystery stairway leads up to the Titanic rip-off hallway. So why in the hell were they leading people through the boiler room to get to that conference area?
Bruce transverses back to the bar area. I almost had to actually fight this zombie. But then I hit the X button and it clipped right past me.
The club/recreation key unlocks an area with a staircase. This game is fucking in love with its stair walking animation.
Since it makes too much sense to have the stairs to the third floor be in the same room as the one leading up to this floor, Bruce is going to have to take a round about trip to the other side of the area.
Specifically, through the Captain's room. Take a nice, long look at this room. This is the last decently rendered place we're going to see for a while. On the old captain's desk we have the final file of this half of the game. Don't worry, there's about three times as many in the second half.
Ship's Log
"Four months without a catastrophic accident causing the deaths of hundreds? You're a class act, Captain."
Well, they are the loneliest number that you'll ever do.
Days Without a Workplace Accident:
By the way, the Captain decided to meet his destiny by hiding in his room and hoping the scary monsters would wander off. It didn't go well.
The old captain is the single toughest zombie in the entire game. Mostly, since it seems impossible. Or, at least very difficult, to score a critical hit and kill the prick. As such, you're pretty much stuck unloading round after round into in hopes that the sixth time it crumples to the floor will be its last.
Alternatively, you can just shoot him a few times, run in his room, steal his magnum, and be on your way.
Bruce finds the stair well leading to the top floor. All that is left is the bridge and the obvious boss fight area.
Resident Evil and its love of electronic signals just as someone is opening a door.
Someone isn't getting a Silent Assassin ranking.
"BAH!"
"No, behind that."
Wasn't he looking straight in that direction when he walked in? How did he overlook a fucking mountain?!
Bruce struggles with the wheel. He quickly gives up after two or three meek tugs. Attempting to shut the boat down or anything else to slow its course is cast aside.
No second grader level catty dialogue this time? I'm disappointed.
Just then, a banging at the door...
Quadruplets who all got a job as sailors on an Umbrella cruise liner and all became zombies? What are the odds of that.
Despite the fact that both of them have likely seen a few dozen zombies each, these four mean business.
And they do. They have the ability to spew brown textures at will.
Bruce does the manly thing and runs right out the door after Fongling.
Seems Fongling, too, has managed to be ambushed in the middle of twenty yards of open ground.
Well, I think her leg is broken. And possibly collapsing in upon itself...
Bruce rushes in and produces a healing arm funk to mend her leg.
So, we have the source of the beef jerky bitch slap earlier. T-091. The last Tyrant that cropped up, chronologically, was T-078 back in Code Veronica. So, they went from 78+ Tyrants produced in half a year to 13 produced over the course of the following four years. And they went from huge bruisers with no weak points to...
A thing with noodle arms and a heart on the back of its neck...
Run after Morpheus? The same Morpheus we were running away terrified from twenty minutes ago? The one we have absolutely no idea of the location of? Yeah, get on top of that.
Fongling wanders off at random.
Bruce McGivern and his patchy ass goatee are out for blood.
Boss Fight 1: Bruce McGivern vs. Salad Fingers
Old Slim Jim Hands is the game's obligatory timer counting down until doom boss fight. There's really not much to say about him. He takes a ton of hits to bring down. He has a weak point at the back of the neck where his heart has...somehow...migrated to. Trouble is, the camera and aiming system sucks so badly and the monster's AI is pretty much walking toward you and attacking. So it's near impossible to effectively score an attack, unless its stunned, at which point it's just approaching impossible.
His attacks include the "Thank God this game isn't popular among hentai artists" strike.
Slim Jim Backhand.
And the infamous "Make your dick fingers look like a huge testicle" bash.
After getting shot in the face a few dozen times, his spine heart decides to explode.
Just so you don't have to wonder, no. It doesn't jump several miles for onto the back of a plane or a helicopter or anything dramatic like that. It just falls over dead and that's the end of it. No missiles, laser cannons, bombs, or anything else. Just small arms fire from a wiry southerner.
Meanwhile, Bruce decides to climb even higher on the boat to get a better view of his impending doom.
Or... To jump off the fourth story of the ship. Since the third story is for pussies.
You'd think if he were just going to jump off the ship, he ought to have just done that five minutes ago and ignored the Tyrant. I'd wager giant hands made of lasagna aren't particularly made for swimming.
The End.
Ah Christ, I'm not getting out of it that easy.
The ship running ashore causes it to explode as if the entire thing was wired with blocks of C4, there were fireworks in the cargo holds, and all the zombies were really gassy. Though, believe it or not, that isn't the most ridiculous explosion the game has to offer.
The drop also caused our hero to age thirty years.
So err...is Fongling dead? Or did her definition of 'following Morpheus' involve just jumping off the ship and hoping for the best too.
Resident Evil: Dead Aim. So easy a caveman can do it!
Bruce turns around to find the second half of the game has appeared behind him.
This place actually looks like it would be interesting to explore and fight some zombies. Too bad it's nothing but murky identical corridors from here on out.
We're now treated to a long sequence of Bruce wandering through the abandoned complex to a spooky loop of six second MIDI music off a X-Files fan site on Geocities from 1997.
Either something has caught Bruce's eye or he's joined the ranks of the undead and this is the big reveal. Like the part with Michael Jackson in Thriller.
Bruce rushes toward some vague electrical whatsit.
I'd just like to mention, if you're having some secret laboratory or base. It might not be a good idea to stick your company logo on a water tower. Sheena Island was probably shaped like a giant Umbrella.
A chain link fence with a big sparking hole in it... Bruce, forget Morpheus...
You could be facing some real trouble...
Tune in next time for a fucking sewer level!
Bonus Content:
The developers spent their budget on cinematics and all they got was this lousy t-shirt:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkdHBkPNaJA