Part 6: Chapter 1, Levels 8 & 9

"The Cabalco Industries Model 1701D Airship is one of the finest, and certainly, most-versatile, flying vessels ever to grace our soiled-skies. Versatility is the key word here, as our airship can be used simultaneously for both connoisseur-class business travel and military purposes. Why bother to make two trips? Carpet-bomb that nasty little Third-World country, while keeping your most important clients flying in style! Beneath its armored exterior the Cabalco Airship truly has a heart of gold. Spacious seating, relaxing cabins, well-armed stewardesses, and the best nuts in the sky! Fly Cabalco. Fly in style."

I do like the design of the airship, at least as far as its exterior goes. Maybe I'll have to take a shot at seeing if it'll fly in SimplePlanes, although if my attempt at an A-10 for that SSLP contest thing a year back is any indication, it'll probably break under its own weight the instant I try it out even if I resist the urge to put three tons of guns on it. The level itself is also quick and simple, and it turns out the requisite Life Seed is easy to get, so it's pretty good even despite the lack of cover.




"We are going down! Assume Crash Positions! Please bring your seats and tray tables to their upright and locked positions. Place your head between your own legs. If you are smoking, please put yourself out. Have a nice day and thank you for choosing Cabalco Air."

I figured I'd like this level, too, and then I had to play it approximately five hundred times trying to get both a test run where I actually completed the level and then a recorded run where DXTory recorded above 10 FPS (note for future reference: load level, start record, then restart level). Even ignoring the technical issues, Fanatics taking over as the most common enemy makes things overly painful with their fully-automatic weapons - then add on that they only drop life essences or armor, at best, about a fourth as often as cultists, who themselves only drop health about half as often as scientists or other civilians. And the medkit is getting wonky now, too; I was under the impression it just disappears between map changes for some reason until I was doing a test run through this level and I saw the fucking thing actually disappear from my inventory just as I noticed I had use for it - rather anticlimactically, in my first attempt at recording I managed to use it up entirely only to still die in the last real combat section (and then my game crashed), and then in the good recording thanks to the Life Seed I picked up in the previous level I never needed it, which probably means it's going to disappear from my inventory for no reason again when I do need it two levels from now. Short version is I am pretty much a master at this game at this point, or at least this level. It's my personal philosophy that I haven't fully mastered a game until I manage to somehow clip the camera and/or my character model through level geometry in a way that the devs didn't account for, but that's actually surprisingly easy to do when you have the Bilders touch* like I do, so I think I count.



*_{Bilders touch: opposite of the Midas touch, wherein anything one comes in contact with will immediately begin to destroy itself. Named for Frank Bilders from Far Cry 2, a game in which weapons go from pristine shiny new models to corroded jam-happy and explosive-prone wrecks in less than a full hour's worth of use. Distinct from the Dresden touch, where the end result is the same but an actual reason for it is given, e.g. magic interfering with technology as with that phenomenon's namesake Harry Dresden. Also seems to effect economic decisions made by the individual with the touch, if the Steam Market's insistence on ruining the value of everything I own is any indication.}

On a lighter note, this update comes right off the heels of an announcement that Atari is done just sitting on the series' rights and demanding unreasonable costs to do anything with them and is, in fact, working on a remaster of the first game with Night Dive Studios.


The Weapons


"Die, Bug, Die!" Insect-a-cutioner

A combined chemical and flamethrower weapon, an old-fashioned hand-pump pesticide sprayer with a lighter taped on top of it, serving as the replacement for the aerosol can and Zippo from the first game. Primary fire simply sprays pesticide, dealing high damage but with a low rate of fire and at a short range. Secondary flips it over to put the flame from the lighter in the path of the pesticide, decreasing the fire rate even further but from what I've read it's bugged and deals even less damage, and knowing how the guns work in this game it probably doesn't ignite them. Really, even for the high damage, grenades from the M16's alt-fire are a better use of its ammo; the only reason to keep one on-hand is so you can get more ammo for that on the rare occasion you find another one of these rather than just loose ammo. Uses pesticide, which Caleb can carry a max of 150 of.