Operation Strawberry, Sector 18. Another tough one, dark side of Lygon. The night I made it through the last sector I started this one, to prepare myself for the terror. It's a nice big arena, with the enemies and hostages spaced out, plenty of space to run past enemies. This is a lot less the nightmare this game was and a lot more normal difficult, that is, I'm just fighting the aiming as I try to shoot hordes of enemies before they can hurt me or kill the hostages. I do die a few times, but it's basically just a sampler of past levels.
Operation Willow, 42 hostages in 20 minutes. The catch? It's a big slum. Like the cityscape levels in Doom. Long, annoying, and attempting to replicate reality far too much for a game of this era. And they're behind doors you need the Plasma Disruptors for, and guess how much of a limited resource they are? It all depends on where you go first. Maybe you get 5, maybe you get 2, but there are more than enough of them to destroy all the doors. You just have to get lucky to find them. Don't forget the enemy department, you need to spam the toughest weapon in order to kill even previously normal enemies.
New enemies include a crystal which acts like the other floating enemies, and flying coconuts. These are annoying because they're fast, shoot a ton of shots, so you can't really hit them. But because they go so fast, they're not that big a threat. They also go through walls, which is sometimes bad and sometimes not, depending on whether or not I'm about to get killed by them.
Operation Teacup, 4 hostages, 5 total, in 10 minutes. What's the catch? It's a house, you know, the kind of thing people made in 3D because it was impressive when things were first starting out. It's nice, even if you have to fight the coconuts again. What drags this level down is how if you reload a save here, this level turns into an absolute nightmare of a platformer. You have to jump from a chair, to a table in another room, onto a couch, then onto a TV in order to win the level. You also get zero hostage leeway in being able to win, but that's nothing after a few tries.
Operation Lovesteal, 12 hostages in 1 minute. I'm told no enemies. There are no enemies. Instead, it's a race against the clock. This would be fine if they were stationary, but some run away from you. You also have to jump over some hurdles to win, because track and field racing hasn't been implemented in a FPS yet.
Operation Triple Nine, no warning about anything, 24 hostages in 10 minutes. This is a weird level. On the ground it looks like some sort of Alice in Wonderland teaparty, but those are buildings, it's a tower climb. It's also incredibly merciful for a level in this game. I messed up quite a bit and I still won. The time limit feels like an acknowledgement that jumping in this game is crappy, but, if you know that, why did you leave it in?
Operation Camus, 40 hostages in 25 minutes. Fudge tells me that the planet will be nuked when I finish the next one. "Doesn't sound so noble." Yeah, but I'll enjoy it after all I've been through. Especially this level. I'm not sure how you're supposed to beat this one legitimately. Everyone on the ground is shooting hard, there are flyers spamming shots who can't be shot back, and moving around it all is quite tricky. I keep losing because my computer gets knocked out, even with infinite health that can happen. Even if you get it afterwards, that's it you don't get any sounds or messages from pick-ups.
There are two phases to this level, the first is the ground exploration, after you get the computer shield from the maze section. The second is when you find the platforms up. This is true terror. To win, you need to get those 40 hostages, and to do so, you need to jump all across the level. You can actually shoot those flyers now. I don't know how the developer beat this, because doing just the bare minimum to survive feels like I'm risking precious seconds. I feel like I can jump a lot better now, which is a shame because the game is about to end.
To escape, you need to activate two ball switches. One is in the corner of a multi-story building with a hostage on top. You can hit this one from a distance, but you have to jump a little. The second is on top of a green building near where you jump up. The first opens the door out, the second lowers an elevator so you can reach it. But to reach that, you actually need to jump all the way around the area. Somehow...I made it.
Operation Cleanup, Cadillac breaks back into the briefing, bragging about the might of the Vorian hordes and the sound of their tramping Doc Martens. Cool, cool. 22 hostages in 25 minutes. This is easier in overall terms than previous sectors, but still pretty hard. Enemies take a lot of shots, shoot rapidly, and run around like they're on crack. I swear the intended playing style is to run around not shooting enemies all that much.
Still, the inescapable annoyance is not the Vorians, but the platforming. Now the game expects you to do it precisely, in a small room. The tricky part is that it's incredibly easy to just slide off. This makes the level very tricky, you can actually just go to the exit right away, but you can't escape without the hostages required unless you're me and cheat. But I do give a chance at reaching the final group of hostages.
I end up finding another set of platforms up, behind a door locked by a random enemy. This is actually worse than the other one. I just can't jump up there. I don't mean, oh it's very difficult. I mean, it's physically impossible for me to move my mouse in such a way that allows me to climb up more than one. There is no perfect jump I can do to not just slide off at the end. I have no idea if this is a problem with my mouse or if it's a problem with the game having little testing beyond the author.
And with that, I "win", in as much as anyone is able to win without sinking hundreds of hours in. The ending crawl says some stuff I don't feel like summarizing. But, I will point out, based on this ending crawl, the opening crawl and most of the death quotes you get, that the author seems to be enamored with the idea of making a cinematic game. Not, it seems, in actually making a cinematic game, just with the idea of it. It doesn't have anything to do with the issues I have with the game, just an observation.
This Session: 3 hours 15 minutes
Final Time: 9 hours 15 minutes
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