Part 16: Let's twist again.

You're almost right. But you see, in fact it is like this...

Let's twist again.

Last time we killed all the mutants in Vesseltown and freed our sister! We also learned that those mean Shadows are injecting people with some strange stuff that seems to kill them.

This time we will assault the HQ of the Shadows, trying to find an antidote for our sister. Of course we also want to kill more mans but that is just icing on the cake.


First though, I have to take care of my equipment.


Butch brings out the MG3 again while Ivana grabs a fresh SAW. Keno has to use his PSG-1 again as I blew all the SVD ammo. Also everyone gets special ammo.
The red boxes are armor piercing and do make a big difference when fighting Shadows. Butch picked Duplex ammo which has "to hit" boni which come in handy for his lead spitter.

I load the APC with all my good gear, because I want to play the next maps in succession without going back to my car-park.

Sexy!

Let's get going.




:"These animals! I want to get out of here..."

:"We will. As soon as we've found the Boss of the Shadows and know what they injected you with."

Then we get locked into this screen.

You need to choose the third option to progress.
I guess the developers didn't want your sister to tag along during combat. Even though she is protected by NPC magic.
You can send her off with one of your squad or on her own. I let her go alone as this will have a minor effect. What I don't get is, why we can't just drop her off in the village full of humans that we are standing in?

The village is pretty large and full of people. Nobody can keep an eye on her?

Despite the map being large, there is not that much to do. Our goal is the circle on the left side of the map, the Shadow base.

We can't just waltz in because it has an electric fence around it and a state of the art chain-link gate. Video games!

There are two ways to get into the base, so I make a lap around the village and collect all the quests.


:"Aaah, a customer! Excuse me, I'm Angus. Take your time and have a look at my wares. It's worth it!"

:"What do you have to offer?"

:"I got some documents here from times gone by. You want to see them? Women were real women back then..ahem...Just look at those poses!"

:"I don't want to trade with you. I'm looking for a way into the Shadow base."
Rejecting the porn, eh? You wuss.

:"Well, to be honest I don't know. But I could tell you who does. Let's make a deal.. You bring me some tobacco and I'll tell you."

:"Okay, we can do that."


Angus doesn't really know how quests work. You are supposed to withhold the information till you get something for it. Good luck getting your tobacco now!

Also, I pick up a quest from an architect who plans to rebuild the cities of old.

Solving the quest first, will let me show some other things.

I carefully move around the Shadow HQ, to not draw aggro. And find this.

The map labels this as "Fitness Center"

I can overhear a short discussion between the people in there.

:"Those people slaving away there are from the village. Obviously here of their own free will. They probably get some food in exchange."
Okay, so it's not slavery.
But the bad thing is that a pregnant woman is working down there, while having labor pains. This get's added to our log but we can deal with it on the way back.


This is the other way into the base.
We could just climb the fence after fucking with the transformer. But that's the lazy way. I also find another suit of M46 in the shack, bringing me to three complete sets.


After some more walking, I find that Hermit.



Despite having a Shadow model, he is supposed to be a human.

:"You seem to be alone out here. Are you the Hermit?"

:"- Shrugs his shoulders -"

:"Not exactly a great conversationalist are you, eh? I'm looking for someone who's said to have developed a kind of bonding agent for sand."

:"- Nods vigorously. Then puts his hands together and waggles them in a begging motion -"

:"Hmm, what's that gesture supposed to mean..?"
This exchange requires some brain-power, because you have to interpret his gestures.


But you can just brute-force it as a failure has no consequences.

Turns out that he has a sick dog. If we can heal it, he will give us the bonding agent.

That's a job for Agnes.





On my way back, I assault the Fitness Center.



Shadows are much easier to fight with AP ammo. Everyone just wanted to shoot Seagull

Rejoice, for I have freed you!

Whoops..

Killing the Shadows here, also fully ropes us into the pregnancy quest.

Getting the midwife is the smart solution.

Back in the village, I finish the quest for the architect.

He also gives me letter for the president to ask him for support on his project. Will it ever reach him? _No

So, it's time to get into the Shadow base. Remember how Angus told us that the three guys have mined their area?

They only do a couple points of damage..Hmmm...


Weeeeeeeee!


Ivana even manages to bounce from one mine into the other.

Enough shenanigans.

I'm going to abridge this conversation, because I hate these guys.
Seriously, they are the most annoying NPC's you could imagine. Their deal is that they are retards and spend their time doing "EXTREME!" stunts and bullshit.
Along the lines of fat drinking competitions, consuming paint or getting drunk and pissing on each other. I'm not joking, that is the real text and there is even more dumb stuff that they will tell you.

They offer us a way into the base if we can get them a new pet. They got their old pet, "Donk" the donkey, drunk and smeared his shit over their walls while he died of alcohol poisoning. I'm not making this up.

After a short jog through the village, I find what I need.


The owner, is actually the midwife and an esoteric person on top of that.

The following cutscene is pretty boring so let's skip that.

I ask her about the lizards.
:"You bring good vibrations with you. Shall I tell you your future from the stones?"
No, don't. She just tells us some generic bullshit with no correlation to the story.

With my speech magic I get one of the lizards.

I have to lead him over to the three Stooges which is a pain as he is really slow.

He's all yours, boys.


Just tell me what I want to know!



Flawless disguise.



As soon as my squad is inside, I drop the overalls.

Surprise, motherfuckers!

#Cricket chirps#

Nobody gives a fuck. If you take the sneaky solution, there's no way to turn the Shadows hostile. Even if you take the other route, there's only a small number of Shadows that you get to kill. I wonder why?


On the other hand it's okay, as those Shadows sure a big.

Hey there, sexy!

Our goal is to reach the center of the base. As there will be no shooting let's just warp there. Get ready for the big reveal and a lot of .



Suddenly, Anie appears.
:"Looks like I came back just in time."

:"Anie? You were supposed to find a hiding place. What... you're injured!"

:"Hyenas attacked me. So I thought the best thing would be to come back to you. Anything is preferable to being eaten alive out there."

:"Well, you're lucky that the wounds aren't too bad..."
I wonder how she got in the base?! If I had given her a squaddie as a guard, both of them would magically appear at this point.



:"I won't be satisfied until I've seen every single one of you creatures go to hell! Who are you?!"



:"Campaign? It was you who attacked the GNO! You took hostages and executed innocent people! And you wonder why the GNO strikes back? Don't make me laugh! And what's all this nonsense about a biosphere?"

:"Hmm... I almost believe that Hayes hasn't told you anything... You really thought that we were the aggressors in this battle? I'll make you a suggestion: I tell you a little story. Afterwards you still have the option to kill me. If you still want to that is..."

:"I'm pretty sure I'll still want to. But go on and tell it."





:"I didn't know any of this... But it's still no justification for the attacks and the hostage taking."



:"Pffh.. What reason should he have for doing that?"



:"You want to tell me that the cause of all this is a battle for this biosphere?!"



:"If it is true what you say, why have you attacked the villages and killed people who, broadly speaking, have nothing to do with Hayes?"

:"Have you ever seen us attack a village or kill innocent people? No? I thought not. We only attack Hayes and his GNO. The rest are rumors that he spread himself."
Well, there was the field of corpses in Vesseltown and the attack on Copper Hill...

:"You're lying! You kidnapped my sister and injected her with some stuff! Just look at her! What has happened to her?!"

:"You must have been with GNO people when my men kidnapped you. They must have thought you belonged to the GNO. We would never knowingly involve outsiders in this battle. We only infect GNO people."

:"What does that mean, you infected her? What did you inject her with?"


DUN-DUN-DUN

:"What?!"

:"What?! Why?"

:"Our scientists have further developed the vaccination we all received as babies, so that it also works for adults. Anie, you will become one of my people."

:"What? I..."

:"I'm sorry that you got caught up in this, Anie. We only go for GNO people. For every Shadow Hayes kills, we kidnap one of his people and inject him with the serum. Most of them join us afterwards. We would be happiest if we could inject Hayes himself. Then he would think differently about his ways."

:"I.. She had nothing to do with all this.."

:"I know, and I can only repeat how sorry it makes me. It may be only a weak consolation, but I can assure you that a life in a strong community awaits you. It's not a bad life. We're no monsters. We only want to shape our future, like all other human beings."

:"There's no antidote?"

:"No. I'm sorry..."

Then we get this screen.

It makes no difference what you pick, so I went with the second answer.

:"No! Not like this."

:"But, Anie... We can't just let..."



:"No. This is the name people gave us, because they were afraid. We describe ourselves in one way only: human beings."
Oh, come on!

Buuut suddenly...

How the fuck did you get in here?!

:"What.. are you doing here?"

:"I want to be certain that this jerk really gets what he deserves. Kill him!"

:"Don't do it! I know that Abel is telling the truth. I can see it in his eyes. Hayes is the liar!"

:"Poor girl... Her thoughts have been totally confused by the devil's brew these schmucks injected her with. Just look what he's done to your sister! She's turning into an animal! Kill him!"


Anie, moves in front of Abel.

:"Please, brother, don't do it! I belong to his people now!"

:"That's enough! You are a soldier of the GNO and your president is giving you an order: kill him!"
Such confusion!


What would Seagull do?
-
-
-
Well, if you picked the first answer hold on to your butt.

:"I hoped it wouldn't be like this." -Headshot's Seagull -

#Game over#


Yep, this happens. I assume that they didn't finish this route of the game and cut it in the most half-assed way possible.
-
-
-
Let's pick the right choice..
:"You'll hang for this! Traitor!"

:"I don't belong to your organization anymore! Go! Before I shoot you.."

:"You'll regret this. I swear you'll regret this!"

He exits in style. Damn!
-
-
-


:"Hayes tried to kill you. He almost succeeded, he hit you full force. You have Abel to thank that you're still alive. He moved heaven and earth to save you."
What a guy!

Let's talk to him.

:"Are you Ok? How are you feeling?"

:"I'm fine. Anie was there when I woke up. She told me that you saved my life. I'd just like to say thank you. I.. I killed so many of your people. How.. I mean.."



:"It's about Hayes, right?"



:"Neither you nor Hayes have the people to get this biosphere going? And despite that you're still fighting over the thing?"


So apparently both he and Hayes managed to track down scientists who worked on the biosphere. This is actually a callback to the very first map. Remember how a guard told us that the president had scientists in his guesthouse?

While Hayes forced the ones he found, the other joined the Shadows out of their free will. Now Hayes is trying to steal those scientists.

Abel anticipated this and moved them into the Hidden Cavern.




Of course it's not. And we even get two different routes to choose from.

I thought about letting you guys choose, but the truth is that the canyon map is utterly boring and bad. So we'll go through the cave. I'll tell you about the other map though.

Abel will now tag along, as an NPC. Anie will also, because why the fuck not?

Before I finish this map, I pick up some loot in the HQ. Mostly good ammo like AP and laser charges.

There's also this.

It's actually the most fun vehicle in the game. It's really fast and handles very good. But it has only little inventory space and at this point, there is no reason to take it.
Why didn't they give us the buggy earlier?!

I quickly swing by the trader in the village.

Automatic grenade launcher? Hell yeah!
Additionally, I pick up a DSR-1 rifle for Keno which is a bit better than the PSG-1 but uses the same ammo, and all the good ammo I can grab.

What will our rag-tag team find in the caves?

More murder, probably.

Next time: Spelunking. With guns!

Authors note: So, there you have it. The big reveal. Yay!

When I first played this game I was kind of dumbfounded by the whole affair. While I wasn't impressed I also didn't hate it. If you take a look at the basics, you have to say that it's decent material. The switcheroo of antagonists is not original but can still work.

But what really bugs me is that the story is sketchy, full of holes and the execution is really ham-fisted. I assume this was partially due to the time issues they had at the end.
But it's not like the writing in this game has been stellar up to this point. Or consistent.
Especially in that scene with the president. How did he get in? Why didn't he shoot Abel? Why did no one shoot him? Why is all of this dumb when you start to dissect it?

For a lot of players the game completely fell apart at this point, and I tend to agree with them, now. Also, as KSAF Staff Report called, they did steal a bit of the plot from FO1. But as I already said, it's not a direct copy. You have to at least give them that.

I really wanted to write a comprehensive dissection of the twist/story but after reading it during the post-making I just didn't feel like it anymore. It would have had a really negative tone to it, because I find it to be fucking stupid. At least in the execution. I only realized how shoddy the writing was while making the LP. As a young player I didn't saw it that way. Guess I ruined the game for myself.