Part 3

To the guy who didn't like my speech bubbles: sorry, I'm going to be using them quite a lot. This, I decided, would be my LP gimmick. They're admittedly thick on the ground in places but I'm sure they won't spoil the action for you.

As for difficulty setting, I think it's on Normal, but I forgot to check when I started the game (shh).

Anyway, we left Conrad in the starting area.

This time, we head this way. I didn't demonstrate it earlier but Conrad can do the whole 'jump up and grab ledge' thing from Prince of Persia, which explains how he got back up to the first screen. I guess most of you already knew that but just in case, y'know

And here we run into the first, and possibly one of the more irritating, enemies: the little security robot.

The robots attack by trundling slowly up to you and extending a little sparkly probe that hurts you if you touch it. If you started off right next to the little bastard then it's very difficult to avoid.

But if there's a fair bit of distance between you he'll erect his little friend occasionally to sniff the air as he moves, giving you the opportunity to crouch and shoot it off.

After which the droid loses its will to live and self-destructs.

Of course, the droid is very easily foiled by putting a gap in the floor between you and it. All it can do from over there is shake his little robot wang in fury.

Debuts are coming fast because the very next room introduces the Mutant. They have guns and dress like smurfs, and when they see you, they spend a few seconds fumbling the gun into position before they can shoot. They're pleasantly straightforward enemies that die in one measly hit so it's all about being quicker on the draw.

Fortunately I happen to know that drawing your gun and walking off a ledge causes you to land in a perfect crouching/firing position, and the mutants are easily dealt with.

Mutants are only ever really a problem if they're on a ledge above you, because they can easily gun you down as you're climbing up. That won't become an issue for a while, though; in the forests of Titan you pretty much always have higher ground advantage.

Conrad takes a moment to remember those lost (click here for the less mature version of this image)

Dropping down another screen we're faced with a bit of a puzzler. There's a closed door blocking a clear shot to the mutant, and dropping down would put you at the mercy of the droid.

In this tiny alcove to the left, we find a single solitary stone.

The only thing you can do with stones is throw them, as Conrad demonstrates now. So it's pretty fair game that the developers intended you to fling the stone.

Which activates the tripswitch and opens the door, so we can...

...can...

Okay, I'll be honest: I've got no fupping idea how to do this without losing health. I can't use Conrad's trademark Drop because the robot will stick his probe up my arse. So I usually just throw strategy to the wind at this point:

The mutant gets in a shot. Sometimes he misses; mutants miss something like one in three shots. It's OK, though, because Conrad has a shield that absorbs four hits before something can kill him.

So we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves down and blow the motherfuckers away.

This is what the mutant was guarding; it comes in handy later. In the meantime, we head downwards again.

Route to the left, no hostiles; route to the right, mutant guard. Path of least resistance, people.

Here's where the cartridge comes in handy. It's supposed to activate a swanky futuristic laser bridge. Unfortunately it needs to be charged before it'll work.

So I guess it's going to have to be the guarded route.

The Drop saves us once again. Incidentally, Flashback has aspirations to being cinematic so all the bad guys (and indeed Conrad himself) react in a hugely flamboyant manner to being shot. In this case, the mutant has hurled himself off-screen, presumably to spite anyone who is trying to take screenshots of the action.

Now then, here's a curious thing that occurs regularly throughout the game: a curtain of sparkly green mist emerging from the ground. We'll just see what happens when you walk into it.

An ambiguous death animation, okay. I couldn't even venture a guess as to what this green stuff is supposed to be so I'll just call them Little Green Showers of Bastard, or LGSBs. They're always instant death regardless of how much shield you have left, so we'll take the long route over the ledge and avoid it this time.

Okay, you can't see them very well in this shot but embedded into the ground at regular intervals are little flashes of green light. Choosing to disregard the established fact that green = bad, Conrad steps on one.

And is promptly atomised. Again, instant death. They made games to CHALLENGE you back in my day.

Instead we hop over the flashy mines and onto the tripswitch, which brings the elevator down, allowing access to territories above.

The generator is our friend and restores your shield to full capacity. It's like a little island of courtesy in this ocean of green flashy murder.

We can also use Conrad's sausage fingers to insert the cartridge, charging it. At this point we could go back to the bridge and activate it, but instead we'll see where the path up above leads.

If you just walk into the scene it's almost certain that the mutant will shoot you before you can get your own gun out, so the trick is to cleverly know beforehand that the mutant is there and roll into the scene, stopping in the crouchy shooty position. Rolling can get you out of a lot of trouble in Flashback; in the later levels Conrad barely has a chance to stand up.

The path takes us to this mouthy sod.

Do WHAT to the wounded man?

Why don't you just walk away?

Oh.

Incidentally, this seems a good a time as any to point out that

Conrad's got one SHAPELY arse. I'm not prejudiced or anything but damn, people

So we have our first sub-objective: fetch teleporter for whining guy. Will Conrad prevail? Find out in our next update!

Next update: Conrad prevails