Energy in this game is a pressing concern, a very pressing concern. I started a game with a new character, completely naked, turned on turbo, and waited until his energy ran out. It did not take long. There's no manual, nothing online except a longplay, and I dislike having to rely on those for information. In short, I have a very pressing problem and no real way of stopping it. At this point, this is where I should give up. The learning curve is more like a slope and the few willing to find fun after that don't really care if finish it myself. For some reason I feel compelled to continue.
Returning to where I left off, I find a medikit down a few hallways. This is not a very well thought-out level. You basically have to get lucky in your choice of door and still go a long way before anything approaching a level is there, rather than just following a hallway. Returning on this level is going to be interesting. The monsters, despite their terrifying nature, don't really seem to follow me, so I can just zip past them.
This gets worse, because I do find more refills...one of which is broken. You repair items very easily, but you might not figure out how at first, you just start holding down the activation button until the meter in the center of the screen goes to the top. That's not the bad news, the bad news is that they did nothing. Or did I? I paused it at some point, and returned in a few moments, unpaused it to discover I had regained energy. So what did it? Further experimentation revealed that yes, that's how it happens...so I only need medikits.
The access computer here is located in a plant room. Why is it in a plant room? I don't know. There's something about this style of game doing one that feels so artificial. This wouldn't be a problem with something like Doom, and by System Shock such artificial environment placement would be a thing of the past. Its a shame the original game didn't come out a few years later.
Unfortunately its not clear what access that gave me, the next floor down is unavailable, the only one I could find was the ground floor. That got me thinking, wouldn't a legit way of getting further down the way be to wait in the elevator until someone calls it to a floor I couldn't previously access, then update my access there? Also, I haven't been playing this nonstop, but one track of music for the whole game, even if its probably like ten minutes, is a bit too little.
The ground floor continues the trend of levels starting off extremely linear. I guess I should be grateful, because with non-linearity, especially in this environment, there's the possibility of getting lost. Which is exactly what happens when the level does open up. At first I wonder if I've been here already, before dismissing that assumption. There are a few interesting things here, some office chairs, which either means this is an office or its a weird cafeteria. I cannot decide which. Then there's a passcode thing. I have no idea where a passcode would even be in this game, and I'm not about to try finding out.
So I wander around futilely for some time. Nothing seems to be jumping out at me as a solution. There's nothing I can see as a terminal, but there's another elevator...wait a minute. Maybe the elevator I was in can't go to all the floors? So I try entering it, only to discover its a door. Its locked, with a passcode. Well, that's it, there's no way...wait, one of the items I have that I don't remember the use of is selected. Could it be? It is. Inside is a pack of ammo and a medikit, but hahaha, I have the solution now...only that doesn't work, but fiddling around reveals a light shows up for 4 of the numbers. So this is basically a crappy version of Mastermind, the color matching game. I solved it, the answer is in the screenshot because this is annoying busywork...and I'm not clear on what that did. Pressing the yellow button caused the computer to exit...so...? Do I have a new code?
...what? What did I do? Am I outside? It doesn't look like the entrance to a building. Yeah, there are multiple of these things around, and there's walls, like this is a basement. What's going on? I don't understand. I take what I think is a different one to hopefully somewhere else, only to return to where I was. That's just great. I guess I don't have energy problems anymore, but power and health are pressing concerns. I use any medikit as soon as I find it, and I haven't found any sources of power yet. As I'm on the 3rd or 4th overall floor, and there are 16 known floors, that's around a 5th of the game. I don't know if I can make it there. The game is trying its darnest to make itself as confusing as possible. I'm still not even sure how to accomplish my objective yet.
This Session: 1 hour
Total Time: 2 hours 20 minutes
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