Part 34: Everlasting Life - Part 2

Everlasting Life

Last time, our crew started the final assault on NOAH HQ. After clearing the airfield for the COTUC troops, they now have to directly attack the NOAH base. The COTUC force is moving into position for a combined strike, but holds back until we have secured the NOAH laboratories.


You can tackle this in a lot of different ways, but since there are so many soldiers around, I figured it be the best chance to get some use out of the T-80.


First, I knock out the tanks in the area with artillery and my Hind.


Then I have the T-80 open the gate. Yeah, you read that right. See, this is a magical gate that only opens after you shoot a bunch of bullets at it. Seriously


The guards come running, and bunch up for a nice roasting.


The flamer does a decent job, but the AOE effect is really wonky. Like, it'll often kill guys that you aim at but that aren't really where the flame is. Or it'll do the opposite, and kills guys that you didn't aim at while not touching your actual targets. Like, in this screen I targeted the guy that's closest, but his buddy behind him got killed first, and I had to flame the other guy again.


And this is another good example. That guy panicked and ran away, but returned a moment later. I flamed him, and he bolted away gain. The flame didn't reach past the gate, but he still keeled over after running for a bit. It's just a weird weapon.




The COTUC units move into the area, but do nothing besides scaring the NOAH scientists. It's kinda annoying how you have to do all the heavy lifting, while the COTUC holds back all the time


Speaking of heavy lifting, now we have to move to the main entrance, and kill whatever shows up. There are a fair number of units around, so it's best to tackle them in smaller chunks.


I send out my Shilka to pull the soldiers and Humvees. There are a few tanks around, but you can avoid them by clever movement.


Been a while since I last used a Shilka, but it's still excellent at murdering squishy things!


While my tanks hunt down other tanks in the area, my scouts discover something...


These fuckers sit real close to the gate, and you're supposed to fight them with the help of the COTUC. Or rather, let the COTUC fight them for you. And if you take them on early, you break the scripting a tiny bit. But you know what? This is the last update, so I say fuck it!


Some Katyusha rockets get their attention...


...and lead them right into my units.


Remember that guy? We used to be pals. And even he knows that I'm sequence breaking

Oh, do you recall how the COTUC told us that we would eventually find out why NOAH is working with the gangs? That was a lie! Yeah, that plot point just gets swept under the rug. My guess is that they offered them technology or just paid them with stuff. I mean, with us and the COTUC against them, who else should they have turned to for support?


Anyway, let's finally get the COTUC in on the action.


Man, I bet the COTUC guy has a real hate-boner by now. He's so riled up!


Since the COTUC members are fanatics, they swarm the entrance with a bunch of soldiers. No vehicles, just bodies. Well, they also have Knights with rocket launchers. But they run up to the tank real close, and promptly suicide in the explosion.


Also, since I already killed the TFR leader, he talks from beyond the grave

I already killed the brunt of the TFR units, so the COTUC only has to deal with a few stragglers, while I take a break. The COTUC attack is much less impressive than the NOAH attack during the other ending, but at least they did something. And when all TFR units are down...


At some point I did mention that cutscenes will always feature your closest squad member, right? Well, that's the reason why we have a normal talking Knight during that scene

Also, the COTUC takes a break again, and we have to do more stuff. This alliance is really out of balance!


The bunker is at the far end of the base, but we don't want to go there straight away.


Let's explore the other side of the base first.


Oh hey, there's another hidden artillery dick move here! But they're also really close to those fuel tanks. Hmm..


Prof does some expert sneaking.




And that's that


While clearing the woods behind the bunker, I really start to miss my speedy Knight from the last mission. Rocket dodging isn't a talent of this one.


The bunker is tightly staffed, but we still have to clear the area around it. That Blip on the far right is a Shilka. I destroy it with my Katyusha, and the go to town with my Hind.





NOAH has their own Hinds here, and they will eventually fly around if you don't take them out fast enough.


In hindsight(heh), I made the right call by equipping my Hind with so many rockets. There are a lot of units around here, and my last setup would probably have run dry by now.


But eventually, the area is clear and I can shift my attention towards the bunker.


By which I mean shelling the shit out of the guards with my last Katyusha rockets


Oh hey, the COTUC feels like doing stuff again. Cool.


They blow up the main gate, and then send a massive infantry wave towards the bunker.


Trouble is, two plucky COTUC soldiers somehow managed to get ahead of the pack, and storm the bunker all on their own.


They immediately got blown up by a leftover RPG soldier

I felt a bit bad for them, and wanted to avenge them with my Hind. And that, my dear readers, led to an awesome chain of events.


My Hind instantly ate an RPG, before even getting a bead on the soldier.


And despite getting obliterated by rockets, the fucker still managed to fire a second one!


NOPE


And to top it all off, the rocket slammed into the ground and destroyed Prof's vest! This fucking game

Okay, we fucked around long enough. Time to end this.

You lot took your sweet time, eh?


I ponder whether I should drop a bomb on this place. Would be pretty rude towards the COTUC units, right?


Well, as it turns out, you can totally kill all of them in the blast, and nobody cares!

But that was only for shits and giggles, so let's rewind time and do it clean.


Oh boy! After all this bloodshed, we finally earned an audience with HER HIM.


Wanna know something dumb? After this scene, the two Knights on your side just blow the fuck up. Oh, they were standing in the middle of your troops? Deal with it!

Okay, this is it. All that we have to do, is move all our units next to the ruined bunker..


And here we have it, the betrayal that we all knew was coming. And it's a pretty good betrayal. We did all the dirty work, and the COTUC just walked over and took the prize. They also backed us into a corner, and left us with no choice. Clever girl. Though, that's not totally true. We still have the choice to die free!





And this is one of the two endings that you can get here. No matter how well you hold yourself against the COTUC, the ending will just trigger after a few seconds. It's pretty sad, but it's neat that the devs gave you the option to go out with a bang. Though, it would have been extra neat if they included another variant that leaves you as the only survivor in the new world. I fucked around with this a little bit, to see what you can do. Sadly, it's not much. SHE seems to be immortal, because I also dropped a bomb on her and it didn't do shit. At least it didn't do shit before she had a Blip over her head. But when that happens, she bolts away, and I really wasn't able to hit her fast enough before the ending played.

You can also trigger this while being in your vehicles.



But it leads to the same scene. And if you take a look at the state of my troops, you see that I'm even more fucked than I was before.

So, let's talk about the other ending. First, the scripting for it is kinda fucked. The game will spawn an Ural, and it'll drive towards the bunker. But if you didn't destroy a very specific part of the walls around the bunker, its pathing fucks up. See, there is a time limit for entering the truck, and you also have to do it in a specific area. If you don't follow these invisible rules, the COTUC will aggro on you. So, my first tries for this ending all went like this.


No matter what I did, the COTUC always got mad before my last squad member could enter the truck. I even thought about killing one of them to get over this. But then I figured out that the pathing of the truck was the problem. So I reloaded to an earlier save, destroyed the wall that the Ural wants to drive through, and it worked.


Yeah, the truck has to be exactly on top of the destroyed bunker, otherwise you're fucked.


Dammit, this is even sadder than the other one! Though, I laughed about the fact that the display of a Knight apparently labels trees. But yeah, both COTUC endings are bad, and it's up to you to figure out which one is worse.

Well, there we are. Now we've seen everything that this game and its story has to offer. Was it good? Kinda.

I said this earlier, but the devs started out with some really neat ideas, that just fell apart in the last third of the game. I still think they had to finish the game in a hurry, and would have resolved it better if they could have. Their second game, The Fall, is a pretty good indication for that. It also had a bunch of problems, but it at least had a coherent story that also build up to a definite ending with very few loose ends. On the other hand, Silver Style also had a track record of being lazy fucks, so it could also be that they just ran out of steam and stopped caring. We'll never know. I guess their initial aim for the story was to give you a "moral choice" between the two sides. Like, NOAH has six billion dead people to account for, but they also try to make up for it and save what's left. So if you can forgive Czeko, NOAH are the good guys and look for a brighter future. But this whole angle wasn't developed very well during the NOAH arc, and therefore fell flat and had an unsatisfying ending. The COTUC ending isn't that much better, but at least it solves the whole SGDS angle. And now I can also talk about the deeper ideas behind the COTUC. I said that before, but it's easy to just dismiss them as being evil because that's how they are. And nobody could fault you for that, because the game does its best to paint them as cartoonishly evil as it can. But when you take the little bits that SHE said about being a protector, their organization gets another angle. Like, they're definitely jerks that want to build a new world under their iron grip, but do they want this solely for their personal gain? I honestly don't think so. You have to take into account that a lot of their original members happened to be immune to the virus, and them seeing that as an actual miracle isn't far fetched. Humans have believed in much dumber shit, and still do. There are lots of real examples, where people thought that they were chosen by the right god, and could justify their actions with it. I think the truth behind the COTUC, is that they wanted to achieve their own twisted version of the greater good - bringing the new world together under their god-given rule.

Or maybe I'm just thinking too much about all of this, and Silver Style was bad at writing. You decide!