Part 27: The Judgment - Part 2

The Judgment

Last time, our crew started the final assault on the base of the COTUC leader. They also discovered some intel that implies that NOAH actually had a hand in creating the SGDS virus. And to top it off, they also stumbled upon a squad of caged, and seemingly docile, Undead Knights. Let's see how this all plays out...


The Knights in the cage are actually friendly, and one can be talked to. This opens up a hidden objective, and you really want to do it!


See, the area around the main complex is guarded by a tight ring of Crawler Mines, and also has a lot of Shilkas and other units on patrol. The Knights will give us a hand with that, but they need access to a console in the yard here. It's guarded by two hostile Knights, and fighting them is likely to draw in other guards. One of the Knights is stationary, so I can just grenade him. The other one is walking though, so he requires something else.


Artillery does the job again!


And Akim grenades the other one. Doing it this way is actually a bit risky, since the console can also be destroyed.


The commotion attracted some guards, but Akim was long gone.

Let's chat up those Knights.



And now we know some of the story behind the Knights. The COTUC just abducts people, puts them through some freaky surgery, and brainwashes them to ensure their loyalty. The whole deal isn't a huge surprise, but still pretty fucked up. Though it seems like the brainwashing isn't totally perfect, since this Knight appears to have broken through it, and even offers us some help in taking down the COTUC.


The Knight commander joins us for now, but he's not armed and can't really do anything. But don't worry, we'll get to play with Knights during the other ending.


When he reaches the console, he destroys his caged unit and a few other Knights. This is kinda useless, but maybe some of the Knights that I already killed would also get destroyed? I dunno!


And then he kills himself

Well, we're done with the lab, and there is only one right thing to do with it.

No more people will suffer the horrible fate of becoming a Knight.

Okay, I would like to work on the mines next, but a timed event actually kicks in right about here.


Crafty assholes, aren't they?

This event starts a twenty minute timer, and you will fail this mission if you don't take out the choppers in time. Twenty minutes is a good deal of time, but the choppers are on the other side of the base, with a whole lot of units in between. Of course, they are also guarded by their own group of units, so this can potentially kick you in the balls.

But don't worry, I planned ahead for this.

Remember how I had my own Hind fly around the base and land in the hills next to the airfield? Yeah, that was because I wanted the crew to act as a spotter for my artillery. You may think that I just could attack the choppers with my own Hind, but a couple of guards here carry Grail missile launchers and will straight up kill it.


Dropping rockets on them is much easier!




Though, doing it this way also results in some guards searching for your units.

The soldiers aren't much of a threat at this range, but the tanks can do some damage.




Things get a bit heated...


...but the Abrams' pull through again!

Okay, now we are free to work on those mines.

One of the power plants was actually the building that I blew up during the last update, and you can still see the remnants of the console. But this has the same effect as turning it off, so it's all good!

And the other plant is at the end of the train yard, which I cleared out at the beginning of the last update.

Now, I never actually approached the console for the mines while the power is still on, but I guess it just draws in a ton of units. And since there actually are a lot of units in that part of the base, you really don't want that to happen. Still, I'm going to have to fight my way to the console, so I figure it's best to just pick off whatever I can find.


The crew of my Hind takes out the missile troopers around the airfield. Those guys can become real nasty, because they tend to sneak up on you while you're busy with other units.

This little shack is near the mine control console.

And I know for a fact that all the Knights around it carry those damn automatic rocket launchers.


So fuck em!


Since the missile troopers are gone, my Hind is also free to hunt in this area.


And he's real good at it!


Of course, there are also more Knights around.


But the rocket pods still do good work.

With the area clear, I'm free to access the console.

You can already see something blow up in the distance, and this will continue. Yeah, the mines actually turn on the COTUC units, and don't bother your guys anymore. Sweet!

While this goes on, I move my units towards the main complex and use my artillery on anything that I can see.

I'm not going to show you each target, but I strike a couple of outposts and stationary vehicles.

My tanks push forward, but the brunt of the COTUC force is basically broken by this point.

The main complex is to our right, but there are a couple more things to see before we go there.


For instance, you can find a free chopper in this part of the base. But it doesn't have any weapons or ammo, so I don't know why it's even there?

Oh, and when you advance this far into the COTUC base, you'll trigger something.

Damn, I just had to show you this voice actor. It's like a really bad Arnold Schwarzenegger impression

But yeah, a NOAH strike force spawns and attacks the base from the other direction.

They come with a bunch of soldiers, a good mix of tanks, and even have artillery.


They are actually pretty good at blasting their way through the base, so I figured I hang back for a moment and see what happens.


Well, since the AI has no concept of keeping its units together, one little brave BTR pushed ahead of the rest. I felt bad for him, and wanted to keep him alive.


Meanwhile, the NOAH artillery smashes the gate of the main complex.


After some time, the rest of NOAH comes around, and our plucky little BTR friend is save!


Since we're basically on the home stretch, I just blast the shit out of whatever COTUC units I can still find.


NOAH has the same idea, and keeps hammering the entrance. They won't enter the complex though, we have to deal with that one alone.


It's guarded by Vulcan tanks and Knights with rocket launchers. I pick most of them off, by carefully creeping around with my Hind. It's kind of dangerous to do that, but goes pretty well.

Except...

...that it turned bad when the last Knight popped up from behind a tree and shot his fucking rockets!

Real talk, I didn't pay attention to my mini map and couldn't see that jerk. And look at our poor Hind. A few hits were enough to eat all of his armor.


I mashed the pause button as soon as the Hind got hit, and managed to wiggle away before the next volley of rockets came at it. It's kinda hard to describe how this weapon performs, but you can basically imagine it to be a minigun with rockets. Real nasty stuff!


Welp, the Hind barely survived...


...and the Knight gets what he deserves!


And all that is left to do, is to drop a bomb on the palace of the COTUC leader. Nice car, btw.


And when the dust settles...


...wait, that doesn't look like a HE


Please watch this before reading on.


Oookay, I think we have a few things to discuss now.

First up, it took me a lot of tries to record this without getting anyone killed, and it was still pretty close. This is a huge dick move, and it's almost guaranteed to get some of your units killed, right before the end. Speaking of the end, how about that ending, huh? Kinda shitty, imo.

The COTUC is defeated and the world is waiting to be rebuild, but that's all we get. A lot of questions are still open, and most of them won't get answered. The origin of SGDS is still kind of a mystery. SHE also hinted at NOAH being the source, but that plot point just won't get discussed any further. I hate it when endings have the "Deal with it" attitude, but at least the other ending will shed more light into that one point. But what about the COTUC? I mean, we have no idea how they got so powerful, where SHE even came from, where to COTUC took its vast resources from, and most importantly, how they were able to control the virus and develop the technology behind the Knights. Will this ever get answered? Probably not! But there is also a deeper question about the nature of the COTUC. Keep in mind what SHE said about protection from evil, and us dooming the world. It's easy to dismiss that as the ramblings of a mad person, especially since the voice actress did her best to come off like one, but the developers wrote that line for a reason. However, I can't really discuss it before we've seen the other ending of the game, so I'll leave it at that for now.