Part 40: XL - Verdammt Wir Leben Noch
Alright, let's keep moving. No sense in dragging this out even further. We open the hatch, and...
WHOA SHIT
So we just got hurled through a pipe, then hurled out of the pipe into some other place of the sewers.
And now we're being set upon by some fat bastard. This is not our finest hour.
A fat bastard capable of shooting some green shit. A sturdy bastard too - took me damn near twelve shots from the Anaconda to take one out. And past him...
...more of the same shit.
Welcome to area 3 of 4. I'm really starting to get tired of this crap.
Down one corridor, nothing but these assholes...
...and more of these fat bastards. Geodudes killed: 30
Then one of these guys pops out of a door we found down that corridor - #31.
Inside the door is a room holding this newspaper...
EDIT: Thread contribution:
OAquinas posted:
Also: Whitman, Price, Haddad is an easter egg for the venerable Schwarzenegger flick "The Running Man"--they're the names of "last season's winners" who really just got torched to death.
...and this ledger.
Ledger posted:
This looks to be the weekly log of Douglas Streets, foreman of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, 1957:
07/09/57 - The disappearance of sewermen Whitman, Price and Haddad has launched an attack in the papers on the Department. It has fallen to me to try and ascertain their fate. I will do so to the best of my ability.
07/10/57 - Forays into the uncharted regions of the sewers have been fruitless as of yet. City Hall has been unable to produce blueprints of these sections, and so we continue forth blindly.
07/11/57 - I have been witness to many strange and inexplicable sounds and events in what can only be the very oldest sections of the Los Angeles sewers. I found a rusted plaque that read "LADWP, 1902". The events I can only describe as otherworldly, both in sound and texture, as well as the feeling it gave upon my skin. A coldness. Shadows and whispers. I have no explanation for these, except, perhaps, the creations of my own overtaxed mind. We will continue tomorrow.
07/12/57 - Still no sign of the missing men, but the fear grows in my mind that something truly evil resides in the lowest sections of those sewers. Though I wish not to tell some Lovecraftian tale, I can only say what lies in my heart. I wish no longer to travel down those dark corridors, and my opinion is that those poor men fell victim to some old and ancient evil that resides here. I will tell the mayor what I have seen, and pray that he does not take me for a madman.
07/15/57 - The mayor has listened to my report with the utmost earnestness, and has decided, most wisely, to brick up those lowest secrtions of the sewers in which I witnessed those frightening, phantasmal events. The public will be told that Whitman, Price and Haddad were lost to these sections because they were old and unsafe, and therefore he will justify his closing of them through the unfortunate vehicle of their unexplained deaths. So be it. I pray that their souls find safe haven in some lighter refuge of the afterlife. I, myself, have resigned from the Department. I no longer wish to delve into the dark places of the earth. I leave this ledger here, unseen and bricked away from human eyes, so that perhaps the memory of these things will disappear as well.
Sincerely, Douglas Streets, Foreman, LADWP
Looks like the vampiric shenanigans in these sewers have been ongoing for quite some time now. Not sure what we can do with this information, I guess it's just supposed to be atmospheric - something that has been severely fucking lacking down here between the whole "killing monsters" business and... nothing much else.
Speak of the fucking devil. 33 now. And all that for...
...another dead end. FANTASTIC.
Backtracking to the other corridor, and of course we run into more monsters. 34 now.
Further down that corridor, we find a locked door that's going to save us a lot of time, as it allows us to progress down the linear path a lot faster.
Then, further down that hallway, we find... another human being! Holy shit, maybe we can get some dialogue or something like that, not just bang bang bang slash slash slash god fucking damnit.
Maybe?
Never fucking mind.Watch Boss Fight:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fUGR4J4uhA
Now we get to fight some monstrosity created by stitching three female bodies together, one of which seems to have its stomach sliced open, and then just making the whole thing look proper for something that was made by a Tzimisce.
It hits like a dump truck, but it's completely helpless once you get up the ladder. It can throw bodies around, but you can just step aside.
And it goes down fairly easily. Still, that was pretty scary. I really hope that this enemy doesn't become a regular enemy, placed in tight corridors where you can't get to higher ground. But that won't happen, right? RIGHT?
See? There's ammo! Maybe this area won't be so bad?
Now, which way do we go?
...really?
...well, looks like that's the way to go. JUMP!
SHIT
...man, this place just doesn't give me a break.
Alright, this time let's go from the side, and then inch along that ledge instead.
This leads to a room that leads to this pipe, which leads to...
...dayum. Now that's a drop.
Just got to make sure you minimize your drop...
...and now what? Jump past this spinning fan? Well, I guess it's spinning slowly enough...
WHOA SHIT BIG DROP BIG DROP
Ouch. Well, here we are. Welcome to area 4, the last area of the sewers. You thought the last areas had a lot of combat? HA! You ain't seen SHIT yet. Note the rats. The game wants us to have some blood, but we're not getting it.
And of course it has more of these fuckers. #37.
Oh. They really did go and make that thing a regular monster. And they stuck it in corridors where you can't get any real distance between them. Now, here's the one saving grace for Melissa: She can actually sneak past these things. My characters couldn't. They had Sneaking 3 or lower. Melissa has Sneaking 5, which is enough to sneak past the monsters here, which saves a TON of fighting - and this was the area where I was saving all my ammo and blood for. Turns out I don't really need it! Hooray!
Of course, we can't sneak past these bastards. That would just be silly. #40.
And now we have to continue meandering through hallways. While sneaking. Very slowly.
So I spend a minute or two fucking around in this corridor, dodging a fat bastard and a monstrosity...
...only to find out there's jack shit here. Fuck. #41 goes down while looking around.
The sneaking is getting tighter, but it still works out. Thank god.
I was definitely cutting it very close at times.
And then there's THIS asshole, who's just straight up blocking the hallway. Guess we can't go that way.
So we head down another corridor, and suddenly we see something speeding across the intersection!
It's a Nosferatu fighting against fat bastards! We have to help him!
Well, he survived, but he doesn't actually do anything. He sort of shuffles around, and eventually disappears. That was disappointing.
Yay, keycard! That's great! However, that means we have to go down that hallway blocked by the monstrosity. That sucks.
And then I take some potshots on it with the Uzi, and it just runs away. Works for me, I guess.
After some pursuit, it gets taken out with us only taking one hit. Could have gone a lot worse.
More sneaking...
...and we find some important looking contraption. Let's go and check out the control panel!
Hm. Sounds sensible to me, but I'm not pushing CTRL, because going out of sneaking mode probably attracts like a billion enemies.
Instead, let's push this big red button.
That opens this big hole, and I'm not seeing any other way out, so let's hurry before that swarm of Geodudes I know is somewhere around there comes rushing in.
WHEEEEEEE
Well, that was fun. Wait... is this what I think it is?
YES! ELYSIUM! WE'VE MADE IT! So, let's recap:
The sewer level consists of the following:
- Mazes.
- Monsters.
-
- A LOT of fighting, or tedious sneaking if you're capable of it. 41 fucking Geodudes.
- No dialogue at all, when dialogue is one of the strengths of the game.
- A miserable atmosphere akin to a dungeon crawler. Another strength of the game is left lying in the dust.
- Puzzles consisting of "bring object X to point Y".
- Annoying swimming.
- Traps based around the annoying swimming.
- Puzzles based around the annoying swimming.
- TIMED puzzles based around the annoying swimming.
- And more!
If you're new to the game, you're going to get pounded into the dirt and will give up in frustration. If you soldiered on and now know the area, you're still going to be frustrated because it's so incredibly tedious. And that's what the "sewer level" is. It's not a level taking place in a sewer, it's a state of mind. It's a developer deciding "this needs to go quick" and shitting out a half-assed maze with a bunch of monsters and keycard puzzles because that's easy to make, and new players and veterans alike cry out in abject agony. Fuck.
But that's all behind us now. Next time, we're going to explore the Nosferatu haven, and you know it's going to be a lot better than the shit we just went through. And god damnit, we're still alive!