Jupiter Mission 1999 (1983)

Name:Jupiter Mission 1999
Number:261
Year:1984
Publisher:Avalon Hill
Developer:Scott Lamb
Genre:Space Simulation
Systems:Atari 8-bit, Commodore 64
Country of Origin:USA
Difficulty:5/5
Time:1 hour
Won:No (115W/88L)

Avalon Hill is one of the stranger publishers I've covered games from. It's been a million years ago since Voyager I as one of the first FPS games, and most of their oveure have been very strange. Especially since Avalon Hill is the computer arm of a board game publisher. That they keep coming up is just so odd to me. Here we have a space simulation, multi-game adventure. At least, this is how it's been described to me.

The game was released on the Atari 8-bit range and Commodore 64. Both are very unwieldy to play. I'm not good enough at Atari BASIC to figure out the former and the C64 version has a lot of loading. A lot. I hope I'm getting the authentic experience and not the sped up version, because otherwise, I really wonder how this sold anything at all back in the day. 

Shockingly, unlike most games from this era, not only is the story in-game, it's more than you get in the freaking manual. Not quite a wall of text, but dozens of pages of four lines of text. It isn't an improvement. It's a small story detailing how I was awakened one cold night to more or less shanghaied by government agents to a space port. I've been selected to go on a manned space mission to Jupiter. As in, the moment we arrive, they're injecting me with stuff and handing me manuals for space flight. Which is at odds with the cheery tone the game's prose takes, because this seems less triumphant rando gets the chance of a lifetime and more random schmuck gets used as a guinea pig.

The ship the game will be on, the Space Beagle, has an artificial intelligence of some fancy, schmancy classification which I'm sure I'll remember two minutes after I stop typing. The important thing is, it's a true AI, which I would think would be the bigger step forward compared to going to Jupiter. There are two other people on the ship, the commander, along with the navigator/engineer.

Now, the game doesn't start yet, because the trip to Jupiter takes place in the prose. Instead, we get the backstory of why this trip is happening. A strange signal was received back in '97, one that was obviously sent by intelligent life. Not from some faraway star, but from Jupiter. Two of the best astronauts would be sent along with some rando, which feeds back into game feeling at odds with what's actually happening. Because I'm being told this by the AI, who could either be told a lie to keep it docile, or it could be lying to me because it doesn't want to spook me. Considering that I'm supposed to be a wildcard and the success of the mission might hinge based on my reactions, it feels like someone isn't being completely honest. 

Finally, we get some gameplay. The ship is rocked by explosions, because we're in an asteroid shower. The initial attack was so damaging that it killed the two astronauts and destroyed the Beagle's command circuits. I have to do manual control. Manually control the ship's defenses to prevent further asteroid hits. I'm reasonably certain there's nothing in the solar system like this, except if the ship is deliberately trying to kill us. You could have altered our course a million miles back so we don't get smashed to pieces. Fuel is at a premium, but dying isn't going to help our mission.

This works like most Missile Command style games, except there's only one missile spawning in at a time. Oh, and you sort of shoot missiles back. It's a giant asterisk, so it might be a plasma blast. Lead your target, and shoot them down. Survive long enough for the ship to get out. Sounds easy, right? Right? Right? Right!?

I hope you went to the rest room before playing this section, because when I completed the section, there were 91 meteors. The second time I played this as a test, I was wondering what the hell was going on by the 30th. How long do you plan on sitting in the middle of a meteor shower, Beagle? You said command circuits were disabled, not that the ship was lying dead in space. Are you trying to kill me Beagle?

I hope you went to the rest room before playing this section, because when I completed the section, there were 91 meteors. The second time I played this as a test, I was wondering what the hell was going on by the 30th. How long do you plan on sitting in the middle of a meteor shower, Beagle? You said command circuits were disabled, not that the ship was lying dead in space. Are you trying to kill me Beagle?

Because merely being tedious and long wouldn't be enough, the whole experience is difficult too. Aiming the cursor is as fun as any joystick aiming exercise. Which is to say, it isn't. Whatever, some games can make it work. Except that the cursor is inaccurate and the way your blasts arc is...well, you see that dot at the bottom? That's your gun. Shots come from that and there are multiple places where shots don't work the way they should work. Worst of all, the hitboxes of your shots and the asteroids are confusing and difficult to understand. I've seen multiple shots just fly past an asteroid.

After abusing save states and finally making it through, the Beagle congratulates me for somehow managing to survive. I took two meteors, less because I wanted to and more because I just couldn't kill them/suspected I needed some damage for the next section. (No one is getting through this without getting hit, no one) Because his command circuits are damaged, I now need to manually select which sections the robots will repair.

This is slow work, but at least at this point, you can save. Slowly move your cursor to the right, repairing any systems that were damaged. At first this seems simple, but no, it's a very bizarre mini-game where you have to match colors. You selection one color to match to the primary flashing color which...doesn't actually make sense since the colors aren't flashing, they're changing. Which one's the primary color. The keys in this section are not quite registering, so I really don't know what it is I'm doing here.

To help, the game issues a series of tones, which tell you roughly how long you have before you either win or lose at this particular mini-game. It's very annoying. Very, very annoying. It's not the worst thing I've heard or the worst thing I've played, but it is aggravating. As I tried to figure the game out, the only thing that seemed to happen was the sound slowly getting higher and higher. The sounds seem to be roughly tied into the colors, but after every action you need to relearn which sound goes to which color, so this isn't any help. Nothing I do seems to work, so I eventually just take the opportunity the game provides me to just ignore this and go onto the next section. Sure as heck not doing the first one again.

Section three is all about navigation. That is, the computer's down, so you have to do everything. To say I wasn't expecting to manually do this particular task or that I'd get so much data that I genuinely wonder if it's useful or not, is an understatement. That said, in order to advance to the next section, you need to scan the system, so Jupiter shows up, simulate your trajectory, then, using eyeballing it, change your course in the burn menu, hoping you get it right in one whole action. Assuming you don't save in-game, this will take about ten seconds each menu change. Which is every button you press.

The intended method of doing this, therefore is to slowly and methodically burn through your fuel hoping to find the right course to Jupiter. You could, of course, also just abuse this, then reload when you find the right path. Or get lucky like I did and get it in one. The game doesn't automatically advance when you do this, you also have to select the next section you play.

I picked science lab, because why not? I'm now told I need to send a probe to Jupiter in advance of my arrival. You get some scanning and programming functions, but all of them are useless before you fire off the probe. Even setting the course, which I would think would be the most important. You fire it off, then place it near one of the many orbs that pop up and have it scan. At which point, what I do next is not easy to understand. Because the data doesn't transmit back automatically, which is realistic, but not very fun.

At this point, when switching to another "program" so to speak, the game asks me to switch to side B. Unfortunately for me, because I'm playing this in Denise through WINE, this is not actually possible. Every time I enter the menus, when I exit, the game just doesn't reload. (Previously, Linux emulators for the system haven't worked and VICE has...issues with a lot of games) I can edit the settings so that the other side appears in another drive, but since this is a one floppy game, this isn't going to work. Since I really wasn't doing much shooting or really playing a game at this point, I'll leave it here.

Weapons:
A basic gun. 1

Enemies:
Uh, rocks and the interface, I guess. 1

Non-Enemies:
None.

Levels:
Treating each little minigame, or program as the manual calls it, as a level. I appreciate what the game is trying to do, but each one felt like I was fighting against it in new and unexciting ways. It says something that the only one I was able to understand was a badly designed asteroid defense mission. 2

Player Agency:
It's rare for a game's menus to be so unusable as to be tedious to sort through, but somehow, Jupiter Mission 1999 manages. Nothing ever worked right, and I think even in 1983 this would have been unpleasant to work with. At least the game always tells you what you're supposed to be doing. 2

Interactivity:
I guess some of the stuff in the menus is nice for flavor. 1

Atmosphere:
There's certainly a dark mood to the game, starting from the off as a dark and moody game, something aided by how little information the game actually gives you. (despite the game telling you the contrary) 2

Graphics:
Crude and brutish. I at least understand what I'm looking at, but often times it fails to properly give the scope of what I'm looking at or generally just provides a laughable image. 1

Story:
Despite the game not being very good, it's neat that the game tries to deliver a cohesive story and set it up with individual sections. I do wish that the story didn't come off quite as creepy as it does though. 3

Sound/Music:
Loud brutish and noisy, for the most part. There's a moody intro tune, but it doesn't last long enough for the extreme length of of the opening text crawl. Otherwise, the game just uses the C64's SID chip like something off an Atari 2600 game. 1

That's 14. Not bad for a game which seemed quite lax on the actual shooting.

I don't know yet if I'll be covering the sequel, since I didn't exactly know what I was doing here and that promises to be no easier. I have gotten an actual working Linux C64 emulator now, which should mean that all future titles will work. Should, but I know there'll be a problem sooner or later. Next time, the first Spear of Destiny expansion pack, because at least there I won't have any issues figuring it out.

Operation Scour: Won!

The briefing starts with Conner admitting they screwed up. The problem isn't that there's a metanode in Washington DC which is becoming the next Skynet, the problem is all the metanodes are working together and we need to disrupt communications. That's what this next mission is all about, and the briefing is already telling me that the enemies are going to be as thick as the dictionary. A tower I'll need to destroy, others use an item on, to hack into their communications. I guess I'll go back to having two fusion grenade launchers, just in case.

It turns out that, at first at least, the enemies are less thick than advertised. If I can walk through an area without bumping into an enemy, that's not as thick as it's been. Which means I'll need to wait for the other shoe to drop. Starting off, the issue is that the starting area is so far off any of the locations you need to reach that it's actually annoying how far off I am. Two places before I reach one with any objectives.

This is actually easier than it has been for a while. The new fliers included in this expansion may hit hard, but three of them alone aren't actually as much trouble as say, a dozen terminators and mechs. Because in a wide area, you can just run away from one group if you're in the middle of a repair. I made it through two of my item targets easy because of this.

The final two targets are in the same section as the exit. Which is suspicious, yet no major wave of enemies arrive. Oh, sure, there are the turrets, but by now I can get past them with minimal damage. As minimal as this game gives. Rush past them, then the hostiles, then repair. Why is the game letting me do this? It hasn't been this generous at all in this expansion. Something bad has to happen at some point.

When I head towards the final target, the one I have to destroy, I get hurt by some of the nasty fliers. I decide to take out the tower first, then repair. Which works, after I nearly burn through my grenades, but as I'm doing so, I get attacked again. In my rush to evade, I end up finding the level exit...so I take that chance. It works out. The mission they hyped up so much? Yeah, not that hard. The end briefing is just them confirming that we hacked into their communications and stating that the guy I saved last time is doing okay.

Thanks to my work last mission, they've discovered a lot of stuff, like where their equipment is being processed and that they even have a satelite in development. What my objective is to head to one of its labs and destroy every database inside. To that end, they have a very high powered explosive which Technician Sterner alleges will send me into orbit if it goes off in my hand. Breaching the facility is the more difficult bit, since they'll only be able to give me one code, and first I should hack into a communications tower to see if it'll work and if any other elevators need a different code. New changes to my equipment include a launcher carrying capcity increase and a missile autolock. Which might be useful in a different mission.

No real directions as far as my orders go, just head for the base...where ever that is. The code they've given me is W7O4D9. As I scrolled through these orders, I had to deal with two groups of those darned floating mine things. Not off to a very nice start, but last time things went easier than I expected. Outside of one fight with some of the mechs, everything goes swimmingly.

The inside is an absolute maddening maze of corridors. For all the crap I give Wolfenstein about being mazey, this is harkening back to the early days where a maze was the only thing the developers had to give a playtime, and you felt every block. The enemies might as well not even be here, I'm not getting hit by many, even if they do seem to spawn in a big number. The real issue is finding my objectives.

So, I need to find communications arrays and then databases. I think, the game didn't imply that things that gave me codes needs to be destroyed. What's another hour in here? The first one I find, one section in, gives me a code to enter Skynet, 4HOU6S1. I give you the codes not so you can find them useful, merely so they'll exist in some form outside of the game. This is not the code I need to advance further, I missed it somewhere.

After a tedious search of the previous sector, in which I express several inappropriate phrases, I find the first communication array I was supposed to have reached. It gives me...the same code I got from the other one. I decide to do a bit of digging in the game's files to see if this is a mistake...no, no it isn't. That's the only code I get here, so maybe I misinputed the code? No, I just didn't realize the one I got at the start was for this elevator as well. That was a waste of time. 

Skynet central, I guess, is even worse. Find the right path, and you get to the one target you can dump a mine on in relative peace. Don't find it, or don't realize you can only go to one of the two targets via each trip down through the elevator, and waste ten minutes fighting pointless battles once again. These missions have never been that bad in terms of difficulty since the first, but they sure are getting incredibly tedious.

After placing the mines in front of both pieces in Skynet...my objectives haven't been finished. Meaning I was either supposed to blow up those communication arrays or one mine wasn't enough. After a considerable amount of time, I did both and neither was achieved. So, I hope that just meant the objective's completion state is bugged, and I'll return to the start where the exit is.

If you guessed that I did something wrong, boy, you sure know how these things go for me. At least I get a fancy way of saying I'm dead. What should I have done? Just hang around for a few moments before it automatically detonates. For the world's most powerful explosives, it sure has a small explosive radius.

Taking out the two things I needed to take out results in many knock-on effects. Apparently this thing was already interfaced with a thousand different things, and now the effects are visible worldwide. In the meantime, we've figured out where the metanode is, in the Washington Mall between the Lincoln and Washington Memorials. Everything has had that sort of thing mentioned, but since none of that really matters in-game I've been neglecting to mention. Just something clever that happens because Bethesda is based in the DC area.

It's time to go after the metanode's communications grid. My objective is Mercury Center, the toughest and hardiest of the bases. My objective is to go to the center, use a keycard on its listening device, then disable the entire base, and hopefully we'll be able to go after the metanode itself.

After all I've done to get here...there's nothing worth talking about here. It's the usual running away from enemies while focusing on objectives. A few stationary turrets blocked my progress here and there, and the final target does constantly spawn enemies, but at the same time...eh. None of it was especially difficult by this point.

Random chance has just given me a picture of John Conner being tired of someone's crap.

The end briefing confirms that I've disabled the enemy's ability to listen into the rest of the world. It's isolated, but not danger free. Since it likely has heavy forces, including some enemy, dubbed Guardian, I've never fought before. He suggests I hit the training sim before trying the next mission, which suggests that the developers believe it's going to be bad, but who knows.

The last mission's briefing was talking about a high end weapon that I'll need to take out the metanode. This mission is about recovering the downed helicopter taking it to the base. Not only do I have to recover the weapon, but I have to recover friendlies and possibly avoid, not fight, a Guardian. There's another new item, which doubles plasma damage. Since I don't need to blow up anything, I decide to see how it works, along with a heat reduction item.

The heat reduction item alone is insanely overpowered. To the point that you might actually be better off having one 100 Watt plasma rifle with it instead of sacrificing a grenade launcher. I fire off a couple shots and it's like I haven't fired at all. The damage increase item means that with two plasma rifles, I'm basically slaughtering everything I come across.

Like a real search and rescue mission, you don't get the locations of your rescuees right away. Instead, you wait a moment, and then while under plasma fire, you get the rough locations of them. Not the exact locations, but somewhere roughly near where it says, there they are. They're also four guys across three different sections, which strikes me as odd, but I guess we can't just have it be easy.

The middle two of these guys are an absolute pain in the butt to find. Near is incredibly vague. Five tiles? Ten tiles? The third guy I found, which was near the south end of the second section, was actually behind a wall from where he was supposed to be. I might be able to take out any hostiles, but that doesn't mean it's not tedious to be fighting the same respawning group over and over again in the same place. Nor does that mean I don't have to repair, it's just that we both die really quickly.

When I finally head for the final soldier, I find the APC first. Both were far easier than the previous two to find, since I stumbled on the APC searching for the soldier, and this time there's no big wall blocking it off that I have to go halfway across the section to find. The weapon is a bit north of the APC, at which point...the Guardian spawns in. A tense confrontation begins. It eyes me from behind a wall, and I shoot two plasma beams at it. It explodes and I go back on my merry way.

The ending briefing, perhaps trying to oversell this enemy, explains how there were two, one of which exploded in the attempt to bring down the APC. Everyone is fine, the weapon is fine, and now we have to go after the metanode with the knowledge that it still somehow knows what we're doing.

It's time for the final mission. We don't have a lot of information, but they're going to do all they can to help me. The first is an emission scanner, whenever the number gets high enough, I'm close to the metanode. The second is a terminator ID chip, not useful against hostiles, but it'll get me into the base. Get in, place the high powered weapon, then get out. At least I have my exit coordinates. I'll be taking the same selection of equipment in, since I don't want to gamble on the Guardians actually being a serious threat.

There's actually a short little cutscene beforehand showing the infiltration of the base with two "APCs" entering the interior.

Since this is the last mission, and nobody's uploaded anything about this, I thought I'd make a video of it. Well, five or so attempts, actually. The first...uh...yeah, the game kept screwing up on me. I suspect this is because the F5 key is bound to one of the weapon keys, and it kept removing my plasma rifle from my attack buttons. The second I just went too far before the metanode itself and hit the exit...not getting another game over, just dying to some Guardians. Then that developed into a consistent theme even after I found the metanode.

I'm not entirely sure what warnings would actually apply, but this video is mostly stretches of nothing in-between me running through a level like a maniac. The latter parts of which are offensive to people with eyes who are looking at the game view and not the mini-map. While doing this over and over again, I realized something. Despite the game making you fragile as hell, you're still running around at a speed that could lap Doomguy with guns capable of destroying turrets. Imagine a guy in full power armor, with guns that can vaporize you and your entire car, running at you at 100 MPH. Also, because the sound kept glitching, the mission intro screwed up, sorry about that.

As I replayed this over and over again, I discovered that the Guardians are an interesting foe at this point. See, you can kill them in 1/2 shots, and they'll take more to kill you. But, if they take out your damage item, then you might as well be peeing on them for all the good it'll do. Even though they aren't in great number, they're still going to be in situations where you can't easily disengage, which results in them usually winning.

When I finally got the ending, despite being the usual "text on a fancy background" that feels wasteful, it didn't actually feel that wasteful. There's a bit of a movie beforehand, even if it's just showing a few slightly moving still images, but man, that ending image is rad as hell, and I don't care if it's somewhat lazy. That's just really freaking cool. It's what those boomer-esque pictures of "America, heck yeah", images are trying to be. It's helped by how far you have to get to see this...normally.

As an expansion, I have mixed feelings on this. Obviously, I loathed the defense missions and how they never gave me the tools to fight back, but a lot of the other missions were fun despite the difficulty. There are still bits where I'm not quite sure the right way to beat them, but the eventual easing up of these things made for a fun experience. I'd say I'd put this right in the middle with a 5, worth it if you liked the base game, but you're not going to change your mind if you didn't. For the harder missions, I feel pretty good about beating them, even if they're no Strike Base, and the easier ones were pretty fun.

Next time, I'm feeling pretty good about myself, so let's change that, next time, from 1984 or possibly 1983, Jupiter Mission 1999.

This Session: 4 hours 10 minutes

Final Time: 12 hours 50 minutes

Operation Scour: Against Impossible Odds

Starting off this session, I did something I really should have done when I first started the game years ago. Last time when I said there wasn't a side-step option, I was just working off memory. Which happened to be wrong, because I simply never used it back when I originally played the game. Nor the whole rebinding keys thing. Since the side-step is tied to a key which toggles left and right from turning to walking, I simply rebound the key to one near the movement cluster and now I can side-step. This doesn't make things perfect, but it does mean I can handle a bit more than I could previously. Assuming I can remember to do it every time I start the game.

The fourth mission's briefing has the black major dude tell me how he wishes he was here to join me in the assault. I have to disable the security system, in fact, the same kind of Watchdog system they keep disabling on our bases, at a work camp the evil AI has in its grasp. This, so that the actual forces can later assault and free the prisoners. To this end, they've given me the codes to two elevators I will no doubt be forced to use. My secondary objective is to find a radioactive isotope, one that only my armor can survive. Why I have to do this in the middle of a firefight is best left up to your imagination.

Right away, the mission lets you know how it's going to go. Stay still near the entrance to the level and enemies will spawn in. Not Resistance members you can accidentally kill and who might be mixed in with a few T-800s, straight up enemies. Go east and you'll never get enough spare time to avoid getting gunned down by the respawning T-101s and walkers in order to start taking out enemy defense. Go south and...the game crashes. Say what you will about how casualized Bethesda became since, but better to have an easy barely functioning game than a hard one.
 

The path forward is easy, likely to just rush past the guard towers and head straight for the elevator. Running and hiding has proven to be the most effective method yet, which makes me wonder if there's some secret path I'm supposed to have been finding to avoid enemies. Because I apparently found it when I got into the bunker, it was relatively quiet until I got near the watchdog system, at which point some, not an insane number, of enemies started popping up. Once I cleared them out, it was now easy pickings to use...ten grenades to take out the system. That left my secondary objective, the rock. Which the in-game orders implies is actually non-optional. Fine.

This is harder. There's only one entrance into the area it's in, and you better believe that they're spawning in a good number of enemies now. Most of these aren't wide open areas, so it's actually easier than it has been. The question is...how do I get out? And I look for a second elevator, since I know the first doesn't have the location I want. There is one...which actually takes me back to the first area and I should be headed for the second. A few close calls and I manage to make it to the designated area. Huh...that was...I think I only actually died once. That's suspiciously easy.

The end briefing has everything be a-okay. The base has been cleared out, the prisoners are free. One of the other units took out a bunch of Hunter Killers transporting superconductors, which I heard about in the opening briefing. Between that and the radioactive isotope I found, they've managed to discover that it's the same time of stuff that Skynet used to make the time travel device. (well, TDE, don't know what the initials are for) They're going to send someone else back in time. Bethesda managed to figure out the plot to almost every Terminator movie sequel just after the release of T2.

Yes, the green line does keep going in on itself, this is supposed to indicate where I'm going on a mission, for all that matters.

It takes a few steps before I get a new enemy on-screen. Sure. New enemy, but the only new weapons I get are improvements to my grenade carrying capacity. They're quite nasty, but the game's strategy has hardly changed. Avoid anything that I can get away with, rush the objectives. And with that in mind, this level is a literal breeze compared to past levels. I barely had anything happen on the surface. The game gives you the password as soon as you hit repair, so basically, get damaged, then advance.
 

The enemy base doesn't add in anything new. I forget that on my first objective that I need to use a recorder on the communications array rather than grenading it, which costs me four grenades. I'm really not having any trouble now, well, I'm not getting killed. I guess I've managed to build up a nice little loop of managing damage. Even the target I have to destroy only gives me trouble because the way I approached was the wrong way to attack. It's just navigational issues overall. I make it through the entire level without dying once. Which is...suspicious.

The end briefing, after congratulating me, tells me that the enemy is building some serious hardware. Forgive me for not quoting the exact details, but they're throwing around some sort of fancy X-rays and frozen hydrogen as equipment. I suspect that the writers know as much about it as I do, but it sounds cool, and that's what's important. Whatever it is, they're building up something, and it's building up to an epic battle here in DC.

It's time for another defense mission, in fact, the very base I'm supposed to have been in all long. No build-up, only Major Merlin talking to me. Talk about serious. I haven't been dreading another mission like this, simply because I didn't anticipate that there would be another one like this. There's also something about a spire I need to take out, which I didn't realize until the actual mission started was something I needed to do.

There are a lot of enemies on this level and a not very favorable layout for reaching the objectives. It's a literal up and down zig-zag. The sort of thing you'd design as a joke in an intentionally unpleasant level. To say this gave me a worse feeling about the level is an understatement, I fear another endless session of death and...well...dying.

This causes trouble in multiple ways. I don't exactly know where I'm headed and the objectives are in three different sections of the level, and one of the sections you go through is just there to screw with you. Oh, did I miss something? No, it's one at the start and one in the fourth section, then you go to the surface. Still, at least this mission is only hateful in that the enemies constantly murder you, not that they force you to juggle with non-hostiles who sit around and do nothing. Seriously, the defense targets are right next to section transitions, you can just exploit how these despawn enemies when you move between them and allow you to instantly repair your armor.

On my third attempt I make it to the surface, where the target I have to blow up and my extraction point are. It's a dense section, with plenty of cover. Unfortunately, the game also decides that here it was playing fair before, and now just spawns endless hordes of enemies even if you think you've gotten to a safe enough spot. Run far enough away that the old ones despawn? That's nice, new ones will spawn in when you get out of range of the old ones. Run back, new ones spawn in place of the old ones. And the game is stopping the run past and repair when you can strategy, by having so many enemies on-screen that you can't just run past them.

I dislike blaming failure on the game itself, most of the time. Because there's always some method to beat a game, the developer had to, after all. Even in the cases of absurdly hard games and mods designed for people who think Dwarf Fortress is for babies. This does not feel like that. The game is cutting off every reasonable avenue of dealing with the difficulty, past a certain point, you just have to get lucky. There are certain points I can breeze through now with zero damage, but others I'll get horrifically damaged on. I'm not even sure there's a way to get through those without getting damaged.

If the intended way of getting through the game is to stop for every encounter, then take out the enemies, the high rate of spawning enemies is detrimental to that. If running past them is, then the high rate of spawning enemies is also detrimental to that, since enough spawn that you can't get past them. It's starting to feel like I was right with the whole right path which doesn't spawn as many enemies I thought of earlier.

My successful attempt doesn't really go as it logically should. In that, I really only win because I took advantage of how my grenades work. They have an arc, and a wall which normally blocks shots...doesn't block grenades. Lob them over a wall, and the tower doesn't know what hit it. Don't mistake this for being anywhere near easy, not dying was a nearly impossible task, and it wasn't helped by the sound suddenly getting staticy. I swear this game just gets more and more unstable as I go along it.

The end briefing expresses some relief that I was able to handle it, they thought that they wouldn't be able to defend the base. The reason for the assault? The technician with the thin shirt thinks that it could track the armor thanks to it being built by Skynet. Either way, we've lost the element of surprise, but hopefully that won't cost us the war.

Next mission is about heading towards a shipment, believed to be a Cyberdyne computer chip, a group of HKs dropped in a radioactive area. They're concerned that what they're building, which could result in the total loss of forces in the area. My objective is one of support, I have to open up the bunker for the nearby group of soldiers being sent to recover the believed chip. Unfortunately, I have to wait for them to send me the access codes to the watchdog system. Once that's done, I have to grab any resistance who got hurt by the radiation, all in a neat little sixteen minute timer. No pressure. No pressure at all. 

There's new equipment, I'm shocked. Nobody mentioned it in the briefing. First, armor, which as I remember from last time, is not very useful. Then, a laser heat sink, useful, but I feel like I have a better option. A target tracking system. The little bit of info makes it sound very helpful for the inevitable battle, and I really only need one grenade launcher when I'm packing twelve grenades a launcher.

For the record, this is almost right after I started the mission, note the heavy damage on both arms.

And you know what? It's very useful, it even tells me if something is an infiltrator or a resistance member. Which would have been useful LAST MISSION. Since this one is just a timed level in which you have to go through ten thousand enemy units, but at least now, some of them fly instead of sticking to the ground. This is not all useful, because the game also expects you to go to a communications array which is guarded by a tower which takes twelve grenades. Oh, and when you step next to the tower to use your keycard, a million enemies spawn. I swear, the game just arbitrarily decides that you should be damaged more as the levels go by.

Once I get inside, it's not much better. There are turrets on the ceiling which I feel no desire whatsoever to destroy, but damn if they don't hurt to get shot by. There's one survivor of the friendly squad, and I now have to pick him up. Somehow. See, the area in the bunker doesn't seem to have any side pathways, it's just one straight shot upwards. Which would be fine if this lead to anything but a random piece of equipment I have no reason to destroy. I actually got annoyed enough at this point to see if there was a walkthrough for this game online...and the closest thing I found was my post from last week. Sometimes I really hate being the guy who uncovers a game.

The next day, after I've had some time away from the game, I manage to get it right perfectly. A stroke of luck, I'd say, because I don't know if I could do it that well again. See, what I've been assuming is that my orders are giving me the location of the last guy's body. They aren't, they're giving me the same extraction point I've had since the beginning. The guy is literally just on the ground in front of the random piece of equipment. Part of this the issue this game has is that it's simpler to just have your eyes glued to the radar and the minimap rather than actually looking in front of you.

Another mission completed, another end briefing where the briefers express relief that I made it back alive. This time, Technician Sterner is informing me that there was nothing I could do for my fellow soldiers. Since I wasn't the guy who shot them this time, I believe her. I'm going to stop here, since I'm in a good mood for once and leave the final...five missions for the final entry.

This Session: 4 hours 10 minutes

Total Time: 8 hours 40 minutes

Terminator 2029 - Operation Scour: Introduction

The intro cinematic cut down to one line.

Welcome back to Terminator 2029, after nearly 5 years and 200 games. To put this in perspective, this was released one year after the game. This is a good reason to just play an expansion soon after the original game. Otherwise, you forget everything. Even if you've been reading since then, I wouldn't be surprised if you forgot about this game, I've got to get back up to speed as well. You'll also note that this is an introduction, not just one entry. This is what we call foreshadowing.

The gist is, a major in the resistance broke into a facility containing a set of experimental power armor, which by coincidence, works for humans. You, under the command of John Conner, used this armor to perform various missions in California until Skynet was taken out. Since Terminator as a franchise is all about pulling out the rug on any hope that humanity will survive, this isn't the end of it, there's something funny going on in Washington DC.

More or less how I was equipped for the game.

Gameplay-wise, this is a Dungeon Master-style FPS, you are given six weapon slots before a mission, divided into four categories of items. Plasma Rifles, rechargeable weapons which shoot lasers at things. Missiles, more damaging, but takes time to lock on. Grenades, most damaging, useful for the many stationary targets, requires you to hold down the attack button and pay attention to where it's going on the radar at the bottom of the screen. Other defensive items, like an autodoc. You can use two of these six at a time, one for a left mouse click, one for the right. 

The start of the training simulation.

The GUI is mostly straight forward. Various important items can be accessed on the lower right with the indicated keys. The armor shows where it's been damaged and if you've been hurt. The radar in the middle shows where enemies and targets are, and the top part is your weapons. Left click and right click select, you can have two active at once. Assuming they aren't always active, like autodocs.

Fully animated characters, which means that taking screenshots makes them look funny.

The team we get is the same as the one we had in the original game, because it's easier than making new characters. Block One, a secure research and operations base in DC. We were supposed to head there, but despite the base having incredible defenses, somehow the machines managed to defeat its defenses in ten minutes. Since the data there could turn the tide of the war back in their favor, it's important that it be removed. Unfortunately, the method they'd use to extract the data has been stopped by an above ground tower. My objective is to destroy that, then using an access code, reach the part of the bunker with the database and destroy it. We're certainly hitting the ground running.

For purposes of this mission, I've chosen two 100 watt plasma rifles, two sets of fusion grenades, an autodoc and one missile launcher. I doubt the effectiveness of the missiles, I remember that much, but maybe I'm wrong. Grenades are useful for stationary targets and everything else should be taken out by the plasma rifles. I have done a bit of testing in the training section.

All right, first to make my way towards where the tower is. I'm surrounded by enemies, which freaks me out. I start shooting them, and they don't seem to be shooting back. Uh...hang on, is one saying resistance? Uh...restart. Friendly fire isn't exactly what I want on my record if I can help it.

It all comes rushing back as I play through the mission. The hordes of enemies I have to run away from until I reach my objective. Stationary targets which I have to snipe with my lasers to take out, lest I run out of grenades. The sheer uselessness of missiles. Seriously, by the time they lock-on, you've probably been shot half a dozen times. And of course, sound cutting out halfway through the mission.

The mission goes very poorly, as in well before I reach the bunker or the target, I use up my repair kit. The mission succeeds, somehow, but I'm just limping along by the time I find the place I'm supposed to scan. That's right, scan, not destroy. I forgot that was a thing. And now I have to find the other thing, which I now have to destroy. Somehow, I managed.

Mission 2, the nuclear power plant is under attack, and since this building is providing power for half the resistance on the eastern side of the US. What my job is to protect the technicians and the reactors itself. There will also be friendlies around. Since it too, used the same defense system as the other base, afterwards, I should head to it to find out what happened.

So, the whole defending the power plant part is tricky. Because enemies respawn infinitely, how that'll work is an interesting point. Just shoot things until the game decides I'm good, I guess. The first time around I get shot to bits just finding my way around. There seems to be only two ways to the first one, it's not obvious that it leads to it, and it's the long way around. The first time, I die. The second time...I might as well be dead, because my menu is damaged enough to frizz out and I can't repair it.

On my third try, I manage it, but I'm not sure how. It costs me my repair pack, which surely won't be a problem even though I have four more places to go to, right? Of course it doesn't go well, but I make it to the uplink badly, badly damaged. They're already throwing the toughest enemies at me, and I'm just barely holding on. If only...if only I had another way of repairing myself. I ended up in a dead end and press R out of frustration...only for it to start working. I can't believe I forgot that worked. Which turns this level from a frantic mission to defend our base to a slow but tense set of moments waiting for my armor to repair itself.

After a long time repairing my armor, I head out, to find where the second power plant is, only to immediately get so damaged I need to crash back into the hole I just came out of. Sigh...Oh, and then I realize that a significant chunk of the T-800s I've been taking out are actually resistance members. I don't know if I'm going to get blamed, but anyway, attempt four. This time, I actually make it pretty far, but get killed again.

This is what I remember the last missions of the base game feeling like. The game can effectively spawn unlimited enemies who, in a single shot, will completely shred one part of your armor. There's not really any way you can dodge this, no side-stepping, and the only way you can counteract this is with pure attack power. Grenades and missiles take too long to fire, so just spam lasers.

This is from him chewing me out, you can tell because it looks nearly exactly the same as the last one.

Somehow, I eventually make it through the mission. Barely, just barely. Worse still, you get a warning for hitting resistance troops. Yeah, that's why the game puts a whole bunch of T-800s next to them. I can advance, but screw that. Reload. This time I'm cheating, because trying to do this any other way is going to be extremely tedious.

The easiest way to accomplish this is to change my location, as health is divided into about seventeen different variables, armor, two arms, two shoulders, two legs, two waists, chest and head. Six weapons and then the underlying health. Unfortunately, the movement is a single variable. For instance, 2,1 is 65538, which means that the second number represents a full 65535 places of a 32-bit integer. So, it's something like the second number times 65535, plus the first number. Kind of, because my math keeps messing up. Please feel free to correct my math if I'm wrong, math isn't my best subject and in the case someone actually wants to play through this, having some way to bypass the worst of it is going to help him.

Naturally, when I actually get it right and end up next to the tower, it spawns a dozen tanks and resistance fighters. Even after I get the tanks, someone's still shooting at me. I shoot who I think is shooting at me, and he explodes in a pile of meat. Oh, good, it's time to rage quit again. The next day, I decide to try the missiles again. Since I don't need to destroy any stationary objects this level.

Somehow, despite being able to teleport however I please, I still get killed. Frequently. The only thing this is changing is making it so that I don't have to go through a million enemies to die in the middle of an open area surrounded by more enemies. Huzzah. And the one time I get tired of it all and record a video showing how bad the game is, it just goes smoothly as silk. Even when I'm winning, I can't win.

This still means I'm the first one to win this level since the '90s though, since I highly doubt anyone else bothered to finish this nightmare if they had the ability to do anything else. Though I must admit, this has some tension that I rarely get from other games. There's nothing like the fear of losing an hour of work to bad luck.

My success means that we have the location of where the signal that deactivated the defense system. The area I'm being sent into has three towers where I have to place three tracers...or rather viruses. Which I have to potentially use depending on the tower? The briefing makes it clear that the three viruses do different things and they might just depend what I get as orders in mission. They might hurt me too if I use them too many times. At least I won't have to worry about friendly fire.

There's a couple of new items in the defensive category, most importantly, an item which improves the repair system. It says x2 the repair rate, which I'm going to assume means I'll be spending half as much time repairing things. Everything else has a capacity upgrade, though since missiles are useless, I'll only be taking advantage of this for grenades. Fortunately, I get a good test, since the game practically spawns a whole bunch of flyers on top of you at the start.

When I say that the game spawns a whole bunch of enemies on you, I mean the game spawns a whole bunch of enemies on you. It's an unrelenting barrage, and the unfortunate thing is, sooner or later you're going to need to stop to take them all out. Unless you abuse your ability to reset things via the section transition tiles, but that's just for that section. It's easier than the big areas, thanks to so much cover, but don't mistake that for easy.

Especially since, as the briefing alluded to, the viruses hurt me. Not if I use them twice, if I use them. This isn't just normal damage, either, if you get hit, it will only be fixed if you can make it to an area which will cause the "repairs initialized" screen to show up, the aforementioned area transition or a few lucky spaces. This got me on the first attempt and took out my faster repair on the second. Fortunately, attempts three through...oh...twenty were just me dying to regular enemy attacks.

This happens at such frequency because I change up my tactics. Well, if this is going to result in me taking damage no matter what, why bother fighting and instead rush through and get an easier result? I still don't really understand the way I'm supposed to be doing this, but this kind of works. There are two big stumbling blocks here, beyond the high number of enemies. One, there's a single corridor to the third tower, which spawns a whole lot of enemies which can block my passage through. The second is that when I made it through and back again, the exit despawned. Since there were no more orders, I took a gamble and used the mission abort, thankfully, it still counted.

The end briefing, after Conner notes that I got hit a lot, goes into details on metanodes, basically, the individual blocks of Skynet which I guess are make up the bigger AI. There are a bunch all over the world, and naturally, there's one in DC which is giving us big trouble. If we don't keep it in check, it has the potential to be as bad as Skynet. Considering how many units it has at its disposal, I'm not sure we need to worry about it getting as bad as anything. We'll find out how we're going to deal with that next time.

This Session: 4 hours 30 minutes