Xenomorph: Armed to the Teeth

Level 5, possibly level 6, starts off quiet. This area is the crew quarters and there is no crew. I find a rare loose cola can and another floppy, just what you see above. This section, right from the ladder down, has no enemies whatsoever. So much for non-stop items, which is starting to become the other problem.

The section left actually opens up, but I suspect that much like the ducts I found last time, these areas work weirdly and I'll find stairs down which will eventually lead back to the area I was in previously. There's the Central Nervous System on the end of one corridor, along with another keycard and another battery. Lots of beds, but no people, unsurprisingly.

Mixing and matching equipment looks goofy.

There's another suit, I have no idea what advantages it has over my current one, outside of presumably not make stamina drain dangerous. Behind it is bed land, where it isn't just two or one beds to a room, but long corridors of them, and no aliens. This is becoming suspicious. There's nothing in here, just flavor. I do find a considerable number of floppies, to the point that I have to go back to find something I can read them all on.

One's a congratulation to a newlywed pair of biologists then asking them to come here for a job, which depending on your opinion is either dystopic or quite lucky. Then there's one from one of the biologists, talking about how the artifacts they found have "Summarian" and Babylonian inscriptions on them, and also mentioning a thing in a tank. There's our boss fight. The next describes that they're offerings to Dannes, a fictional Babylonian Amphibian god. Then it gets weirder with a Saharian tribe knowing about Sirius, being told its exact details by an Amphibian in a spaceship long before they should have ever known it. And then there's one talking about how an expedition will leave on time.

That's mostly it for this floor, the only rooms left had nothing except a magnum magazine, which is very nice, but it does mean that this floor is somewhat unnecessary. Unless there's something in the CNS I really needed. I'll be getting those chips later, I have too much stuff I have earmarked for navigational aids to be picking up computer chips.

To my embarrassment, it turns out that the stairs down are right next to the recharge machine on the level I was just on. And one of the new enemies is behind a glass door, a robot. I remember reading about them, but how you avoid getting attacked is something I don't remember and don't really care about. Because they take the same amount of damage as everything else, about a sixth of a battery.

Quickly, I find myself both going very deep into the level AND finding the ladder down. Practically no resistance whatsoever. Interesting design, feels like a trick for unobservant players. Fortunately, I have the items to put down a path to the exit this time, and if I had remembered my ID card, I would have been able to recharge here, the recharge station is directly next to the ladder down. The rest of this level is going to be incredibly simple.

That was left from the start, so I go right only, and oh, look, I found the CNS. I check the manual to see if I need specific chips, no idea, this is going to be fun. Again, I'm banking on the game giving me the time to deal with these after I clear out the basement or mines or whatever's on the bottom. I also find another rocket, this one is candy-striped. More mines.

This level is weirdly designed, every time I think I'm almost done, it then expands out into more level. This is such a bizarre design choice in context, I can go down. I expected to come back up at some point, since there's so much glass around something has to be dividing it all. Then I find a floppy informing me that once the station manager died, the second in command took the survivors to a cryo unit to wait for the Shadowfaith, a different ship than the one I'm commanding. I wonder what this means exactly, my communicator is supposed to be able to interface with computers and communicators, but I get nothing.

In the opposite department, I find another fruit-flavored rocket and some more grenades. I put it down near the way down. I hope I need this stuff, even if what I'm going to be using it on will be sorry it ever escaped from the depths of Babylon. This actually, is pretty much it, just one more rocket of some sort and another robot. Off to the next level.

Wow, two enemies on one floor, I thought the game didn't allow that. Seriously, this is the first time its done that, I assumed they were limited in that way. They're nothing special. Man, I'm never using these grenades. These crystals don't respawn like the slimes either, they die forever, and the facehuggers are still facehuggers.

My overflowing inventory continues to overflow, another keycard, more mines, more ammo. I start the ponder the purpose of the bullet guns. I doubt they deal that much more damage and they can't really spit out that much more shots even if they have settings which increase their firing rate. Of course, I don't know because I haven't used it.

This pondering is interrupted by a horde of enemies, I burn through two batteries on these bad boys, and then spot a big facehugger I use a mine on. Hey, it makes sense. This fight gets me ANOTHER battery, so the whole thing was a net gain. Jeez, at this rate it isn't going to matter if the laser gun is weaker, I have so many batteries I can afford to burn them all in one go and then run away to recharge. I also change my strategy, no more holding a battery in the off-hand, now I'm packing a mine there.

This level has a lot of long corridors with 2x2 rooms on the side. Whenever it does snake its a nice change of pace. In comparison to a lot of levels, finding my way back is going to be less tricky, so far it seems like a straight shot to and back. Its telling that when I have to go back to get rid of some stuff that despite getting lost I easily find my way back.

What, is this another variation on the facehuggers? How many are there? I think I counted three on this floor, not entirely sure. Anyway, despite what it looks like, there's not much in this room, another magnum clip, the other items are just scenery. I also spot the stairs down, so I imagine this level is winding down, but there were a few more corridors, considering the size of them it can't be much more. And then I find a laser rifle, but cruelly, the level is clear before I can try it.

Now, this adds a problem to the game's design depending on how useful this weapon is. The laser rifle adds settings, which means this cranks up the damage of an already quite effective style of weapon to potentially even more. I have to find something to test it on, but instead the game just shows me the CNS right away. But there's a door labeled danger, so there might be something good here.

The crews' bodies stick around, which works for what the game is trying to do.

Just another suit...wait...that's someone...and something's popping out of his ribs. Second setting splats the alien hard, two shots. Dunno if that's going to be what it does in general or just that this thing is weak. This is just how enemies spawn on this level. Pretty creepy, more than I was expecting from this game. But considering previous events, that does bring into question why my communicator is completely useless. Anyway, another keycard. I wish this game told me if I needed the old keycards now that I have a new one. I should check the manual. That's not any help it just says access to various areas of the ship. The nearby door opens even if I don't have a keycard on me. Yeugh.

I'm just going to gamble that one keycard is good, it seems to be working anyhow. This seems to be another part of that crew quarters I only found items in earlier. Navigation is the only issue here, as fighting these chestbursters is a joke. Perhaps this is intentional, to soften me up for when the game shifts to throwing serious enemies at me.

In a small corner, I find another ID card and another credit card. How someone missed that, I don't know, I'd imagine if I found another pair they'd be on the corpse of someone. Not really sure what I'm going to do with them, but I also find a computer. That means I can read these floppies finally. The first one tells me how they were fought back from the ducts and caverns, losing their heavy weapons. The second tells me that they lost the armory, could have sworn that was mentioned before, and that they had 53 able bodied and 72 walking wounded at the time of writing, with the writer asking if it was true that they only have cryo facilities for 100. Interesting.

This leads directly to the ladder down, the recharger and a massive area full of stuff. Even though there are a lot of vending machines, there's also a lot of actual stuff, magazines, mines, a new style of battery and other goodies. So much that I leave some of it alone for later, since I'm full up even after previously dropping some stuff I don't need yet. This is about it for this floor, outside of an area that's big but only really has another ladder down. I think, its very confusingly built.

I'm going to stop here, one ladder leads to the caverns, and thus probably means I missed fuel somewhere, the other ladder leads to more vents, and while I didn't spot anything there, it is an absolute maze. Things do look like they're about to come to a conclusion soon, albeit a possibly uninteresting one.

This Session: 3 hours 50 minutes

Total Time: 10 hours 50 minutes