Part 10: The Reckoning
cirvante joines nine-gear crow and myself once again as the ISA reach their lowest point and the game wraps up it's conflict between Narville and Velasquez.
First thing's first: Chekhov's Massive Energy Spike. You better believe we're going to deal with whatever it is Jammer's scanners have found. Until then, we get a bit of classic Killzone 2-style combat a la Salamun Bridge.
The lead tank here is our marker of progress. As with these stages in Killzone 2, if you let the Helghast entrench themselves you can easily get bogged down in a drawn out battle. If you can rush ahead and prevent them from getting a solid foothold, then your troops and tank will quickly follow.
Also, if you're paying close attention to your radio chatter, you'll see that the plot between Narville and Velasquez is continuing. As the highest ranking ISA officer, Naville is currently leading the charge, but Rico still can't seem to help himself—he's become used to command and has his own style of attack; operating under the command of Narville again is beginning to chafe. Still, when Narville denies his request, Rico sticks to the plan.
Which is good, because Narville's charge succeeds and the ISA push through.
And now we're introduced to Chekhov's Bunker Full of Helghast Ordnance. You better believe we're going to use it to deal with the Massive Energy Spike. Speaking of which:
This mission chapter is simply amazing for
facial expressions. But, yes, there's clearly lingering mistrust between Narvile and Velasquez. I mean, Rico has been questioning his orders at every turn—not to mention there's the whole Visari thing that arguably has led them, all of them, the Helghast and the ISA, to this point. That said, Sev is correct: Rico did save all of them from Stahl. The man has made mistakes (many mistakes (mistakes that have needlessly prolonged this conflict and arguably have condemned an uncountable number of people to death)), but he's 
Though before Narville can respond, Jammer's Massive Energy Spike shows up. Yep. It's the MAWLR. Did you honestly think after the showing it put in in Chapter 3 that we'd be getting out this game without SOME sort of climactic confrontation with it?
Narville issues the order to rush to the space elevator, in a fitting parallel to the orders he issued six months earlier to rush to the ISA extraction point. The question remains whether he will be able to commit to these orders or if he'll order a withdrawal. Remember, after the failure to capture Visari, Narville's priority has been to save as many ISA lives as possible and get them home. He lost many lives six months earlier making a mad dash for the extraction point, but the alternative was being left to die on Helghan. Right now, the space elevator offers no such escape from the planet, merely the slim possibility at halting the invasion of Earth. In the face of the MAWLR, there's the distinct possibility that Narville is simply expediting his forces to a quick death from a giant mecha's death ray.
Meanwhile, Sevchenko wanders off to find the Bunker Full of Helghast Ordnance.
Rico clearly disagrees with Narville's tactical plan.
Rico nearly decides to go lone wolf, but in a moment of surprisingly humility he checks in with his commanding officer first. Are we having a "Rico trying to better himself" moment?
Aaaaaand, Narville has decided not to go through with the space elevator 100-metre dash. I don't blame him. The MAWLR is literally liquidating any ISA armour that tries to approach. It certainly seems hopeless.
Ha, nope. Of course, when he doesn't get the order he wants, he decides to force the matter, so, uh, no, I don't count this as a genuine "Rico trying to better himself" moment.
It was mentioned before that Narville doesn't have the full picture of the battlefield as he didn't see Stahl's invasion plans for Earth. I've decided that I'm not entirely convinced. Having been a prisoner of Stahl's, I'm confident that Narville is perfectly aware of what the man is capable of. Not only that, but Narville has fought his way through his factories—he also knows exactly what Stahl is armed with. Furthermore, I'm confident that Narville believed Sev and Rico when they said Stahl was going to invade Earth. It's great that Sev is willing to make the ultimate sacrifice in order to protect Earth, as the commanding officer, that means Narville is responsible for making that decision for every single ISA soldier under his command. It's not an easy decision and Narville isn't taking it lightly; you can see the indecision, the conflict, written all over his face.
The expressiveness of Guerrilla's character models is top notch. You really get the feeling that Narville is caught between a rock and a hard place.
By that time, Rico has shown up to complicate matters further. In this instance, I feel he's right. Earth is looking at global decimation. The remaining ISA here are the only ones capable of giving Earth a fighting chance. It's extremely likely none of them will survive, so really, they might as well keep at it and try to stop the invasion, even if they all have to die trying.
But Narville's only human.
And his confidence has been broken by setback after setback.
Against all hope he managed to get Avenger Convoy to Visari's Palace, but because he was unable to keep one grunt under control, their primary objective failed, dooming the entire mission. He then tried to get his remaining forces off planet and back home, and lost many in the attempt, but ultimately failed. He tried to keep them safe, hidden in the Kaznan Jungle, and while it worked for a little while, it too failed, resulting in countless more deaths. Beaten, broken, he watched helplessly as another soldier under his command was executed before he, too, faced the end of a gun barrel on national Helghan television—only to be rescued at he last minute by the very soldier that doomed the entire mission and a squad of soldiers who he'd chosen to leave for dead six months earlier, many of whom had been grown to resent him.
Now, he faced the prospect of sending the last of his forces to their deaths. Talk about a doomed command.
So put yourself in Narville's shoes for moment. Imagine you've been through all that and are now facing this fateful, final decision, when the guy—that one guy who screwed up everything—gets up in your face and starts yelling at you to just do it. Just send everyone to die already.
And then calls you a coward.
Thankfully, Sev stops things before they can escalate.
He's sick an tired of being caught in the middle.
He's tired of being torn between Rico Velasquez and Jason Narville.
He's done with all the pointless bickering and in-fighting.
He's going to say "fuck this" to Narville's plan—
—and "fuck this" to Rico's plan.
And he's going to go fight the MAWLR on foot.
Because Sev realizes something neither Rico nor Narville ever will.
He realizes that he is an FPS protagonist in a video game.
(I kid.)
Sevchenko's idea is a desperate measure, but it's worked for him before. With Narville's Armour Group and Rico's Raiders drawing fire from the ground and air, Sev just might be able to pull of the greatest David vs. Goliath match-up on Helghan.
And he does, proving that when Rico and Narville work together a lot can get done.
Unfortunately, Sev's Hail Mary doesn't work and in fact only serves to piss off the MAWLR crew even further. The remnants of Armour Group give it their all, but as you can see from the above image, they are hopelessly, hilariously outgunned.
Then we have a moment where Narville, Jammer, and Hooper are all gathered in one place amidst the debris.
There's a second where you think that they're going to get back on the horse and give it one last shot—
—but it is dashed by the Helghast, like an overripe cantaloupe against a rock.
Sev and the few remaining ISA soldiers who followed him to the ordnance bunker regroup. Sadly, no answer on the radio. No Narville, no Jammer, no Hooper—and no Rico, where the hell did Rico get to?
Ah well, Rico and the survivors fight their way to the top of a tower to—I don't know what. Did they plan on jumping onto the MAWLR from there? It's a nice sentient, but you can't brute force everything, Sev. So now he stands there, gazing on at the MAWLR, questioning his life choices.
When suddenly a bunch of idiots bring knives to a gun fight. This could very well be it. The ISA have reached what seems to be their lowest point. Sevchenko has continued to fight on, but it looks like he's going to be overwhelmed by a group of Stahl's best-dressed but least-prepared foot soldiers.
Cue dramatic Hollywood moment:
I mean, seriously, why aren't these mooks at least running around with pistols? Their armour is clearly great at protecting them from small arms fire, but doesn't mean they should be armed only with some really short wrist knives. Give them a gun! They're clearly competent! Look at this guy! He dodged the minigun and jumped onto a moving Intruder. Imagine if he'd had a gun? He could be shooting Hooper dead right now. Hooper would be dead, and they'd all crash into the ground. Game Over for Narville and Jammer. Or, heck, they could've all just shot the shit out of Sevchenko a moment earlier. Imagine if all of them just pulled out a bunch of handguns and started firing while Sev's bullets ricocheted harmlessly off their armour? Game over, full stop. End of Killzone 3.
But no, Stahl sends them in with tiny knives.
Trying to make them look all tough and unstoppable like the Terminator doesn't work either. He can't even reach in far enough to grab Hooper or to stab him. I bet this idiot was wishing that he had a gun right about now. He could reach his hand through the hole in the windshield and just kill Hooper. There's nowhere to run. Boom. One shot. Game over.
But no, he decides that isn't going to work at all and climbs up onto this platform clearly marked "NO STEP". That is clearly not OSHA compliant.
So he finally makes it onto the Intruder platform, Narville does the Caveman Sponge Bob pose and—
Oh. Hey, Rico.
Really? Really???
Well, it looks cool.
And because Rico is a wizard with harpoon guns:
Then something weird happens: Narville lets Rico take the lead! It looks like Sev's pep-talk is worked; the two are now working together.
The group then proceed to destroy the MAWLR by literally shooting off every gun on it. Literally. They even saw off the death ray with their miniguns.
They win, but the losses are massive. Barely 60 ISA soldiers are now left on the planet and they haven't even made it on the space platform yet.
Any hope they might've had at stopping the invasion fleet has gone out the window. At best, they can get a warning off to Earth so they can prepare their defenses. It's not much.
There's a rare moment of genuine compassion between Rico and Narville. It's nice.
It also signifies the end of the Narvile/Rico conflict.
Sev's not done with the pep-talks, though, and rallies the remaining soldiers to embark on their final mission.
Hooper and Jammer are tasked with sneaking into the communications array getting a signal off to Earth. The rest of them plan to slow down the fleet's departure.
But how, you might ask? Simple—
Wait, what?!
Y-you guys are going to what!?!
Uh...
I spent the majority of this level using the Helghast and ISA machine guns. I've spoken about them before. They make great hip-fire weapons. I mean, really, any weapon that lets you project as many bullets as possible as quickly as possible is a great gun.
(Which is why the Minigun is the greatest).
I feel it relevant to bring back this bit of concept art:
A little more MAWLR:
