Part 3: In which we leave Home

Previously, on Policenauts:



Alright, where were we? Oh yeah the summary screen just told us!



Our hero's ex-wife exploded, and we were giving chase to a helmeted bombing assailant.



And there he is, shooting at us from the right!

He's got a gun!



Fortunately, so do we.

Welcome to combat, Konami-adventure game style! Well, it's actually a little more like combat, Konami rail shooter style. ...So you point the cursor at what you want to kill and pull the trigger. Simple, right?

Well, almost that simple. If you're playing with a mouse (capable via PSX-mouse on the real-deal hardware or ePSXe and the right drivers), you reload a clip by shooting off-screen. Otherwise, you use your controller and the Triangle button reloads.

Just a note; the game's actually easier with a controller - the trigger buttons "lock-on" to a target. This game was made before analog controllers caught on big with consoles, so it was easier than trying to straight-aim with a digital controller. (I guess to be technical, this game was made on a PC-98 and meant to be played with a mouse in the first place.)

But even with mouse support, the controller's better because later on the game puts multiple targets onscreen very fast and the lock-on helps a lot.







It's pretty hard to lose this scene as the assassin does very little damage to Jonathan. As you shoot him, he moves from hiding behind and around the mailbox, to the lamppost. But hit him enough and...



And a truck gets in our way!

This freakin' killed me because for some reason on my computer, PSX would fuck up the timing and truck would disappear halfway through its trip. I spent a couple weeks trying to track it down before everyone else on the project told me that it was just me.

Even in beta, no one else saw that bug and it eventually just went away on its own for me. By that point, I had enough to worry about so I just let it go.

But I never figured out why it happened or why it stopped. Anyway.



Puzzle time! Can you find the gunman now? I hope so, because the last voicemail on Jonathan's answering machine was actually a thinly veiled hint to it.





Shoot this jerk a few more times and he books it down an alley. Aren't there like police or something somewhere around?

Most people miss some of the crap out here - and why not? We're in the middle of pursuing our ex-wife's attacker! But if you stick around and look at those storefronts...

This is a strip club filled with so-called women who've undergone complete sex changes. I was inside for a case once.

...I'm just the player, Jonathan. No one was judging you or anything.

They're called "biovestites" - people who've had sex changes through gene therapy.

Anyway, the other building is actually a front for...

This is the last place you'd wanna take your kids. It comes off as some innocent little bistro, but their real business is selling VR child porn.

C'mon Hideo, when you wrote this, you couldn't have just put, "It's a restaurant?" Old LA is that corrupt? We needed that level of detail? At least you're thorough. Before we go entirely down Jonathan's catalog of Old LA red light venues, let's just cut to the chasin' and head down the alley.



Where's he gone? He's fast alright. He just ran in here a second ago. So much for following his footprints. That snow obviously didn't stick here.

Look; White Blood

White blood. He's running artificial blood?

Yes, those of you who have played MGS4 are probably familiar with our boy Raiden who has white blood as well. We'll learn the technical details behind it, but yeah, I'm sorry to tell you that 60% of the irrelevant technical detail in Kojima games are recycled from previous ones. In fact level one of Hideo Kojima's Penguin Adventure is actually VR training.

Let's move forward.



More blood? He must be around here.

We didn't have to translate "Fuck" on the dumpster, by the by. Dumpster talk is pretty much the universal language.

Here, we have six things to examine - the garbage bags on the left, the dumpster, the drum in the foreground, the boxes, and the two doors on the right. Jonathan remarks that he doesn't see anyone hiding in any of them.

Then the garbage bags rustle.



Jonathan leverages his gun and you're supposed to fire at the bags. When you do, a rat runs out and-!



There he is!

Another shootout ensues, this time with the gunman taking cover and switching between the two doors. Shoot him enough and he runs further down the alley.



I don't get it. I've definitely hit him. This guy even human?

Following him...



Whatever. It's a dead end anyway. There's something else on the ground.

Looking at it...

It's writing. It's different from the graffiti on that dumpster.



Bastard.... This some kinda game to you?

This is the end of the alley (according to the game, at any rate), so we have to look at all the different things here... about sixteen times. Doing sixteen of anything here will trigger the next scene. In my playthroughs, I'd usually just hit the confirm button over and over to continue.

I was also so happy when I reached this in English because it marks the end of Policenauts' 30 or so gameplay script files.

Now if you'd like, this video will take you through the end of the update, and I'd recommend watching it, because I like it and feel like it should end the update.

But it's up to you, and if not, screens are below. Enjoy.

Leaving Home
















Unfortuantely for Jonathan, our mystery bomber has a damn motorcycle.







If Jonathan Ingram is nothing else, he's a guy who can hold his ground. Even under a headlight and speeding motorcycle-









-and even when said motorcyclist pops a wheelie with full intention of running him down-









-Ingram just keeps shooting. I'm not really sure why the biker didn't run Ingram over, or if Jonathan did dodge. Anime tends to use those action line backgrounds for freakin' everything, so who knows what the hell happened.

At any rate, the biker manages to get by.









True to action movie sequences everywhere, the cops show up right after the battle's concluded. I like to think they all just hang back and decide to let all these gunfights sort themselves out.





If you're quick, you can catch Jonathan's weird look here before the scene fades out. It's like he's imagining, "Oh yeah, I need to buy eggs."

Fade out...



And in...



It stopped snowing. One last... chance to look at the.. stars together. I missed you so much.



That watch.... You still wear it?

Of course. You know how I am with the time.

You kept it all this time.... Jonathan, please.



She... she needs....

Lorraine?










She was... an old friend.















Thank you for choosing American Space Lines Flight 797 to Beyond Coast.



...and are proceeding as scheduled to the colony.



As we are now entering zero gravity, should you begin to feel sick, press the call button located by your window and one of our flight attendants will assist you.