Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
Vitamin Me
Mar 30, 2007



Fire Fight

Fire Fight is a shooter from 1996 for Windows 95. I've always loved it's soundtrack and was happy to finally get the game to work in a Windows 95 environment running in DosBox-X. [update: later got the game running in Windows 10 using the DXWnd tool]

From the MobyGames game info:

quote:

Isometric 8-way scrolling shoot 'em up. Taking control of a low flying space craft players must hunt out key objectives in each mission and take them out. Features multiple weapons, stages and enemies plus secret objectives and areas.

Some other interesting info, from an abondonware website:

quote:

One of the most underrated shareware releases from Epic Megagames, Fire Fight is an excellent, very addictive isometric shoot em-up from Polish developer Chaos Works.

Although the game did well enough to warrant a later retail release by Electronic Arts, it unfortunately did not do well in the market and disappeared in the matter of months. Fans of EA’s own Desert Strike will be right at home with Fire Fight -- in fact, the designers aren’t ashamed at admitting their influence: there is one mission in the game called "AKA Future Strike" to dispel any doubt.

You play a futuristic skimmer pilot working for the autocratic "Phantom Council" which reminds me of the Empire for good reason ;) Your job, naturally, is to bring subversive planets back under the Council’s control by flying strike missions against air and ground targets.


Ad:


And finally, a review from PC Zone, August 1996:



How are you going to play it?

I'm going to record each level to Youtube with some basic commentary. I'm going in unprepared (not looking up secret areas etc. I finished the game back in the day, but no idea how much time it's going to take!

There are 18 levels total, and I might do multiple levels per video, depending on how long it takes me to beat them.

The player


This is us, a nifty-looking little spaceship equiped with 6 different weapons. Depending on which weapon we equip, the ship will change it's turret on top.

The ring around us shows enemies nearby and an arrow points us to the current objective.

The enemies

In the first level, we encounter the following enemies:



This is the first enemy, a small ship that fires a vulcan gun..This is not shown as actual projectiles, so it can be hard to know when you're in danger. It's best to take these out quickly, and that's usually done pretty quick.



These ships are a bit tougher, but they attack with a clearly visible plasma cannon, making it easy to dodge their attacks. They fire with pretty rapid intensity, so if you stay in their line of fire you're gonna get hurt.



These are some realy nasty critters. They stay in place until they come at you fast, trying to ram your ship and doing high damage. They fly in a straight line so are easy to dodge.



This is a spike-shooting guard tower, and it inflicts PAIN. We need to take these out as quicly as possible, preferably with rockets or other high-damage weapons.

Powerups / items


In the first level, we use the double-shield. Makes us look pretty much like a flying tank.

Spoilers

This game is pretty light on plot, the only things I can spoil are that we are going to blow up a whole lot of stuff!

Part 1: Static

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dl5kd6yJ4lg

Our briefing is pretty straight-forward: some remote place is sending out forbidden communications, our job is to get rid of the communication centers.



Boss-man is straight to the point.



Look at those cool shades. We are ready for action!
--------------------------------------------------------------


After blowing up the first communication center, we get a little mission update.



He's gonna have to find a whole lot of synonyms for 'destroy' in this game.



Our name is Jaxon, apparently.



She believes in me!
--------------------------------------------------------------



Another job well-done.



Of course, we could end the mission..but it's far more fun looking for those sweet, sweet secret areas.


Table of contents
Part 1 - Static
Part 2 - Hot Cargo
Part 3 - New Order
Part 4 - Frost Bite
Part 5 - Thin Air
Part 6 - Insurance
Part 7 - Fire and Ice
Part 8 - Jump the Gun
Part 9 - Prison Break
Part 10 - Cool Surface
Part 11 - AKA Future Strike
Part 12 - Mudskipper
Part 13 - Meltdown
Part 14 - Mission X
Part 15 - Watchdog
Part 16 - Runaway
Part 17 - One Way Out
Part 18 - Getting all secrets we missed
Part 19 - Tool of War

Vitamin Me fucked around with this message at 19:05 on Sep 17, 2023

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!

This absolutely looks like a game I would have played a demo of when I was a kid and completely failed to figure out how to control.

The soundtrack is very good, though. One of those you can't help but bop along to.

Vitamin Me
Mar 30, 2007

PurpleXVI posted:

This absolutely looks like a game I would have played a demo of when I was a kid and completely failed to figure out how to control.

The soundtrack is very good, though. One of those you can't help but bop along to.

The controls are not very friendly, with the strafing and the speed bursts throwing you wildly off-course constantly. You always seem to be going too slow or too fast..but I'm sure i'll get a feel for it during my LP.

Somebody was nice enough to upload the complete CD audio OST: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEYpGVImJ_Q

Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

My god, that title screen and menu took me right back to my childhood; I had some sort of shareware of this game.

NewMars
Mar 10, 2013
Yeah, this game is a deep cut. Played the demo of it off a disc of.. time commando, I think it was?

Vitamin Me
Mar 30, 2007

Part 2: Hot Cargo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruQ0XxGojrM

Let's continue with the next mission, 'Hot Cargo'. As the title suggests, this is about some dangerous stuff that we have to retrieve..nuclear containers.



The mission

We start off with a (short) briefing, as usual:



19?? That sounds like a lot of work, but the level isn't that big actually, and we'll be picking them up in good pace.



Yeah it's literally right next to our spawning point..the nuclear containers look pretty fun, with their bright yellow color:



Also, picking them up comes with a satisfing animation.



After we pick up the first container, we get a whole lot of extra briefing:









And, after a bit of shooting enemies and picking up all containers, the work is done...OR IS IT





A farcaster is just a teleporter, and allows us to skip to other areas:





We could end the level (and fight a boss battle) or we can look for..

Secrets!

We find another farcaster that has been spawned back at the beginning at the level, and if we jump in there, we reach a area where we can pick up a guy (much like we picked up containers):









Whoa slow down, I'm still looking for your other guy..when we pick up the second guy in the area, the little sidequest is done:




Before continuing to the boss and end of the level, I run into an ambush, which nearly killed me..good thing I still had a Shield Restore item :cool:



BOSS BATTLE

..Actually, it's just a bit larger ship (with it's own health bar!)..But not very intimidating.



It's already almost at 50% health hahah

Plot twist

So after blowing up the big ship, it seems the Darians (we're on planet Darius, remember) decides to secede from the Council and Boss-man is not amused:






So those 19 nuclear containers have just become weapons..This is where we learn we might not be the good guys.






We unloaded all the containers at the drop-off sites, and we get some reassurance we can get out of there in time :derp:





Yup, we're part of a cold-hearted team of evil-doers it seems :smith:

Anyway, all in a day's work!

Vitamin Me fucked around with this message at 16:33 on Sep 16, 2023

Captain Hygiene
Sep 17, 2007

You mess with the crabbo...



This is great, I completely missed this game at the time and it looks like something I would've loved. Big nostalgia in general, both for that era of game graphics and the good old chunky Windows 95 interface :buddy:

VodeAndreas
Apr 30, 2009

Oh hey - I remember playing the shareware version of this... I think it was on one of the Games for Windows 95 demo compliation CDs?

Kibayasu
Mar 28, 2010

I wasn't really playing a lot of PC games at the time but this reminds me a lot of the Strike series from the Genesis/SNES era and later the PS1 though this is a much quicker gameplay pace. The PS1 games got pretty edgy but I don't think they ever reach detonating nuclear waste levels.

NewMars
Mar 10, 2013
Bold choice back then to have you be the bad guys, still, neat!

Vitamin Me
Mar 30, 2007

Kibayasu posted:

this reminds me a lot of the Strike series from the Genesis/SNES era

Yes, it seems the devs were also fan of Desert Strike, as I read in a blurb from an abondware site (I added a bigger quote to the OP:

https://www.myabandonware.com posted:

Fans of EA’s own Desert Strike will be right at home with Fire Fight -- in fact, the designers aren’t ashamed at admitting their influence: there is one mission in the game called "AKA Future Strike" to dispel any doubt.

I also found a review in a old scanned Game magazine from 1996, I'll add that too later today! (it scored a 65 out of 100 lol)

Vitamin Me
Mar 30, 2007

Added a review from an old game magazine to the OP..also finally found a way to run the game straight from Windows 10, which should make the fps a lot smoother. Next video coming soon!

Vitamin Me
Mar 30, 2007

Part 3: New Order

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEIQgVk5XcQ

Time to head back into the action!



This is another 'blow everything up' mission, no surprises there.

The mission

As usual, we start off with Boss-man with the dry and factual mission statements.





After that, some friendly advice from the team.





And of course, us being cocky as always.



------------------------------------------------------

After blowing up the first tower, we get a bit of conversation:





Also, a warning:



-------------------------------------------------------

After finishing our main objective, we get word that we need to rescue some folks, because we Rambo'd too hard:







Once we pick up one of the survivors, we get some new feedback: the location of the other cew is unknown (but they're not far away).





And once we pick them up, we whine a bit about wanting to go home:



...Which doesn't score us points with the big chief:







And with that, the mission is finished.

Weapons

Something I wanted to show off in this video, is the difference in looks of the ship depending on the weapon type:

Vulcan:


Swarmer missiles:


Plasma gun:


Missiles:


Cannon:


Grenade:


Next time, we're going to see a new kind of level, filled with snowy spikes and new enemies..till then!

Vitamin Me fucked around with this message at 16:33 on Sep 16, 2023

Vitamin Me
Mar 30, 2007

Also, could a kind mod change the title to: "Desert Strike clone from the future: Let's play Fire Fight" tia

Vitamin Me fucked around with this message at 19:28 on Aug 4, 2023

achtungnight
Oct 5, 2014
I get my fun here. Enjoy!
Desert Strike was one of my favorite Genesis games back in the day. Also enjoyed the four sequels- Jungle, Urban, Soviet, and Nuclear Strike. Sadly I missed Fire Fight.

Vitamin Me
Mar 30, 2007

achtungnight posted:

Desert Strike was one of my favorite Genesis games back in the day. Also enjoyed the four sequels- Jungle, Urban, Soviet, and Nuclear Strike. Sadly I missed Fire Fight.

I had Jungle Strike on PC and the best thing was the cheesy terrible acting in the intro movie

Vitamin Me
Mar 30, 2007

Part 4: Frost Bite

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K726AsZAypg



The mission

As the mission name implies (oh so subtle) this is a mission in a snow environment.

The level consists of some smaller, walled-off areas that are linked through small passages. That makes this level pretty linear and straightforward.

So, as usual we start off with some dialogue:



Our orders aren't very surprising:



Some witty comments from our protagonist:



..But big chief isn't fazed:



Then, after we kill the first group of enemies, he calls our bluff




------------------------------------------------------------------------

Entering the next area, we are greeted by a spike-turret and instructions:



We notice we are supposed to take out 'unregistered forces' but we don't register this far:



Some deadpan comedy right here folks



---------------------------------------------------------------

Onto the next area, we get a hint about the the secret areas:



And after beating the enemies, we are reminded to push on:




---------------------------------------------------------------

After taking out the enemies in each area, we get a rather boring end dialogue:






New enemy

These floating mines can do massive damage..you need to shoot them to trigger a countdown:



New power-up

One of the secret areas gives us this huge power up, in the form of the Chaos Works logo. It gives full ammo for all our weapons.

Vitamin Me fucked around with this message at 16:32 on Sep 16, 2023

Kibayasu
Mar 28, 2010

Could definitely use the map from the Strike series which shows the location of (almost) every enemy. A way to find secrets was to go towards something away from everything else.


But in lieu of that I guess indiscriminately firing homing missiles into the distance is another method!

Vitamin Me
Mar 30, 2007

Kibayasu posted:

Could definitely use the map from the Strike series which shows the location of (almost) every enemy. A way to find secrets was to go towards something away from everything else.


But in lieu of that I guess indiscriminately firing homing missiles into the distance is another method!

Yeah the 'secret wall' mechanic in this level sucks..but, to be fair, the levels aren't very big. In a game like Desert Strike it takes a lot of time to get from one end of the map to the other, with lots of items to be found..this is all very simple compared to that.

I'm still not sure if the swarmer missiles actually target breakable walls like they do enemies..I'm sure I'll get another chance to test that in another level!

Psion
Dec 13, 2002

eVeN I KnOw wHaT CoRnEr gAs iS

heh, this exchange was pretty good.

I think I played the demo of this way back when, good to see the rest of it.

Vitamin Me
Mar 30, 2007

Part 5: Thin Air

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n35pQQXYWB4

Another video, and this one was a pain in the rear end..I died one time (but kept it in the vid because I was lazy).

The mission

So we all know what's coming right? If you guessed 'kill anything that moves' you guessed correctly.

There are some 'atmospheric processors' that need retiring, and it's up to us to do the honours. This mission has quite a lot of banter and a whole lot of enemies and floating mines.



When we start the mission, we are informed we need the help of 'Shadow', some kind of ammunitions expert/bomb guy.



Of course, we're thrilled.



Once we pick him up, the warm feelings are mutual:



Once you drop him off next to a wall that he's gonna blow up, he gives us a fair warning to get out of the way. That's no joke either, stay a few seconds to long in the screen and exploding animations are spawned everyhere on screen, ending your life / the level.



Get out in time to hear his triumphant musings:



We are not impressed though.



And then it's on with the mission.




----------------------------------------------------------------------

After blowing up the first structures, we get some new dialogue:




We're still going strong with the witty replies:



Sadly, we are not appreciated in our time.



----------------------------------------------------------------------

After picking up 2 guys on the map, a new area is revealed (but blocked).





Well looks who's coming to the rescue.



After we pick up Shadow, it turns out we don't have to frantically fly away from explosions this time:





No fun allowed.



----------------------------------------------------------------------

Heading into the next area and blowing up more stuff:



And that's it..




Oh wait.





And there's a missile boss waiting for us, but we manage to take it out by throwing out the homing missiles. Another mission done, but sadly I only found half the secrets..

Vitamin Me fucked around with this message at 16:32 on Sep 16, 2023

Vitamin Me
Mar 30, 2007

Part 6: Insurance

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmYHuht91Bg

Let's continue with level 6: Insurance.



The mission

Clear 'hostile occupants'? Surprise, surprise! This is a new type of level, remniscent of the Star Wars trench run..very sci-fi -looking and grey.

We start the mission with plain orders:





Frankly, the dialogue isn't very interesting: with every area we clear, we get some praise and a reminder to move on.







After causing mayhem everywhere, we are told the mission is complete:




Here's where it gets interesting: if we don't end the mission but press on to look for secret areas, we are spooking our operator:




It seems we have some kind of interest into what's going on:


This interest isn't being viewed very kindly:




Pretty soon we run into a boss ship:



Sadly, destroying it doesn't reveal any new info or dialogue..instead we just finish the mission.

Vitamin Me fucked around with this message at 16:32 on Sep 16, 2023

berryjon
May 30, 2011

I have an invasion to go to.
I don't see a link to the level 7 video.

Vitamin Me
Mar 30, 2007

Part 7: Fire and Ice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Du7S-s8ElU0

It's time for another ice planet mission, which means endless hunting for secret walls and obstacles/buildings everywhere.



So this is a rescue mission, just gotta destroy prison buildings and beam up some guys.







So we fly around a lot and pick up prisoners, and run into some big rendered setpieces:





While beautiful, the also make navigating the level a bit clumsy.

Anyway, after freeing the final prisoner..



..PLOT TWIST





Our operator seems to think this will upset us:



Yikes




We're going along like the good little pilot we are:



----------------------------------------------------------------------

Turns out there was only one building left that I didn't already destroy, and that was good enough to end the mission:




...But not without a fight:





What follows is me trying to hunt down every enemy and find secrets, but I couldn't find the last enemy :mad:

Oh well, next time we're heading into mission 8!

Vitamin Me fucked around with this message at 16:31 on Sep 16, 2023

Vitamin Me
Mar 30, 2007

Part 8: Jump the Gun

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5xT9JYZ5UM

We're getting close to the half-way point! This mission was a lot easier compared to previous missions, maybe because of the level layout, or maybe because I used some power-ups early on.

The mission

We have to stop a small army being amassed on Jarventia:



We start with the big chief giving us a little summary:





We know what we're here to do, and what we've been doing all this time: blow stuff up



-------------------------------------------------------------

After getting rid of the first wave of enemies, we're getting an update:





OH SNAP



Now he's just throwing the book at them



I'm not sure we actually heard his name before, but our big chief is called Riley



So we blow up more ships, and get the usual 'continue' feedback:



Entering another area:




Fun fact: this is the first mission where we encounter two boss ships at the same time.

Pictured: one of them firing a bunch of projectiles at us:



After beating them, we press on:



<insert joke>



<insert another joke>



Finally, after leaving a trail of broken ships and burned trees, we are done:





So yeah, this mission wasn't that bad; we cleared all enemies and found all secrets. Next time, level 9!

Vitamin Me fucked around with this message at 16:30 on Sep 16, 2023

Vitamin Me
Mar 30, 2007

Part 9: Prison Break

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iNNWyGrlUs

Ok this was an interesting one..There's not much dialogue going on, I'll just post the opening screen here and the rest you'll have to see in the vid!





Summary: We have to chase a ship around the level, and it's quite tanky. If we're too slow, we fail the mission. There are some secret areas and enemies, I managed to find most of them...will probably revisit this level later for a 100% run.

NewMars
Mar 10, 2013
I wonder if 100% gets you anything?

Vitamin Me
Mar 30, 2007

NewMars posted:

I wonder if 100% gets you anything?

No idea, but it probably won't be more than a 'congratulations' screen

Vitamin Me
Mar 30, 2007

Part 10: Cool Surface

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDiDSGLA6Kw



Man, this is a mission from hell..I spent like 15 minutes wandering around shooting at walls to find the last secret area, only to find out that it unlocks when you pick up some guy.

So I edited the video a bit and cut out a bunch of aimless wandering :ninja:

The mission

The misson is a convoluted setup that basically boils down to 'shoot stuff / pickup stuff', as usual. That said, let's head into the game..

Riley greets us as we arrive at Ch'ok:




Quiet...TOO QUIET. The game tries to build some tension here, but of course after flying for 1 second we encounter the first enemies:




After that, it's onwards:



This all sounds kinda complicated, but in the end we just shoot things



After that, to the second installation:




After picking up the bomb components, we meet this guy again:




Once we pick him up, we're in for a nasty surprise:






We're unfazed however



Yeehaw




More explosions!





Riley butting in




But of course, we're not leaving until we scan for some secrets..but the last secret area only becomes accessible by picking up a guy that I missed earlier:




So yeah, I'm glad this one is over with..and with that, we're more than halfway into the playthrough!

Vitamin Me fucked around with this message at 16:34 on Sep 16, 2023

Vitamin Me
Mar 30, 2007

Part 11: AKA Future Strike

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOleAc5dMJY

This mission title is a nice nod to the Desert/Jungle/Urban strike series..We're playing Fire Fight, AKA Future Strike :)

The mission



Nothing too special here, rescue some people and blow some things up..let's get to it!

We start with just a single line of briefing from Riley:



..Once we make the first rescue, a nice radar pops up from a covered silo:



No rest for the wicked:



Unlocking the second antenna:




But after the third and final antenna, it seems things aren't as easy as we anticipated:







Seems like another one of these darn scientists is meddling in our mission :bahgawd:





The scientist isn't hard to find luckily:



Pretty cocky ain't we?



Of course, Riley is not going along:





Ok back to work I suppose..



More picking up folks:




After hunting for secret areas, we take a farcaster to the next area:



We seem surprised with these new 'kill 'em all' orders (like we couldn't see this coming after 10 missions of this):




The mission doesn't give us too much trouble, and soon the first tower is down.




Time for some snark:



It ain't a Fire Fight mission without some butting heads with the boss:




And with that, the mission is finished. We hunt down the last enemies, and it's on to the next mission!

Vitamin Me
Mar 30, 2007

Part 12 - Mudskipper

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlsyP6MaPgM

Another day, another mission..this time of the 'pick things up' variety.




The mission

This is a pretty staightforward mission...destroy some structures and pick up a bunch of items afterwards.

We open up with some orders from Riley:




After destroying the first two pumps, we get some new orders:



We blow up two big ships, and then:



We're quite agreeable this time around:



After destroying the last of the pumps..



..we spawn in some new enemy waves:



And after picking up all containers, we head towards finishing the mission:



No fireworks between us and the big boss this time:





..but before we leave, we're going secret hunting! We run into this boss enemy that's just a larger version of one of the regular enemies..and it spawns it's smaller versions as well:



We also find a new farcaster on the map, which takes us to a new area where we can pick up an old friend of ours:





The ship looks kinda suspicious..



Captain obvious to the rescue:






There's really a bond forming here:



The rest of the secret area is filled with powerups, and after that we head to the landing pad.



Sadly, it looks like I missed one secret, so perhaps I'll redo this level (together with all other secrets I missed) after the run.

Vitamin Me
Mar 30, 2007

Part 13 - Meltdown

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDKkrHOyT2k



The missons are getting harder now, I didn't get a 100% on either enemies or secrets.. Let's take a look:

The mission

We start with a single line of dialogue:



Soon, we pick up the first person..'Norrin Radd' sounded familiar, so I looked it up and it's the real name of the Silver Surfer, so a little easter egg here.




And another pick-up:




One more:



Another: could be reference to 'Marcus Welby, M.D.', an American drama series from 1969.



'Halle Jordan' could be reference to 'Hal Jordan', the Green Lantern.




Once we pick up Jordan, we get some new orders:





Of course, when we make the drop-off, there's more work around the corner..





Aaand here comes Riley again with the Galactic codes:



On the way, we meet our explosives buddy:





After being nearly blown to bits by floating mines, we pick up the reactors:



And it looks like we're making another mad dash with explosive cargo:




We seem to know what we're doing, but I'm just going to follow the mission marker and hope I don't blow up..



Good thing our destination wasn't far away and we get some nice explosions:





But we're not done yet.




After the last buildings are destroyed, there's a boss waiting for us:




We seem to have some moral objections here:



The fight itself isn't that hard, just a lot of circling around while firing the homing swarmer missiles..



When that's over with, we really are ready to head home.




Riley, meanwhile, seems pleased:




After that, I try looking around for secrets and remaining enemies, but it seems the farcaster I took into the last area was a one-way ticket..Next up, mission 14!

Vitamin Me
Mar 30, 2007

Part 14 - Mission X

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HOxlyZR_9s

Well this was the hardest level so far, and took multiple tries to complete..at least I got a 100% on the enemies and secrets at the end.

The mission already starts with a weird assignment..fake a kidnapping? Well we'll just have to play along and see what happens..



The mission

First off, we get our instructions, which seem pretty simple enough:




As we progress through the first area, we see something new: switches that control gates. These are single-action only, once a gate is lowered the switch is disabled.



We progress through the area and find our first delegate to pick up:



When we pick up the fourth and last delegate, we get a plottwist..






And this is where things go off the rails..my first instinct was to follow the mission marker, thinking there was a landing site nearby to disable the bomb..

But this isn't one of those 'fly quick before the bomb goes off' type missions..no, we're taking damage intervals, with ominous messages constantly informing of us taking damage:





So I'm frantically looking where to go, running into closed gates with switches, and quickly losing health..resulting in a pretty fast death:



No matter, I'll just try again and see if I can open the gate in time right?

Nope



So after a few deaths I decide to look up a guide, and find out you have to keep boosting your health while normally playing the level..so it's a constant hunt for health pickups and other powerups like double shield and health restore.

Sadly, on my first run with the new strategy I run into a new problem..a bug where the switch doesn't open the gate, making my run doomed:



So after that I do a few more runs, where I try to 100% the enemies and find all secret areas in time. One secret area lies behind a closed door, that only opens after some unknown trigger is reached somewhere in the level..in one run it will stay closed, and the other it opens at some point. Not very helpful!

One thing that I did discover is a 'current status' overlay from the menu, very helpful in seeing how much secrets etc I found:



During the mission we also get some dialogue on entering new areas:




Looking back now, it's kind of suspect Riley didn't say anything..maybe we were set up? Perhaps we'll find out in these last levels of the game! Just a couple more to go.

Now I'll just have to edit all my runs for this level into a coherent video..

Vitamin Me
Mar 30, 2007

Part 15 - Watchdog

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYJv7shh3fE

This is a nice break from the previous tough mission..just flying through areas and shooting anything on sight. That also makes this one of the more boring missions, with no major fights or flirts going on between characters.



The mission

For this mission, Riley is missing..kind of sus after our ship being sabotaged last mission, right?

We get the briefing from the teammate of which I'm not ever sure we ever heard her name..






Well, aren't we enthusiastic all of a sudden..



So the next part is a whole lot of 'proceed to next sector' talk, I'm just going to dump 'em here:












*yawn* Are we there yet??






Oh now something mildly interesting is gonna happen:



I feel a name like 'Illian Iosi' should be a reference to someone, or maybe it's just one of the developers..



Anyhow, it's just a big ship that's quickly taken care of.





And with that, we're done. Just some secrets hunting (only 2 secret areas) and it's off to level 16 next!

Vitamin Me fucked around with this message at 08:55 on Sep 13, 2023

Psion
Dec 13, 2002

eVeN I KnOw wHaT CoRnEr gAs iS
I know plot isn't this game's strong suit but they really feel like they're phoning it in here. The sabotage, surely, should've gotten a remark?

Vitamin Me
Mar 30, 2007

Psion posted:

I know plot isn't this game's strong suit but they really feel like they're phoning it in here. The sabotage, surely, should've gotten a remark?

Haha good point..it's all so business as usual, shame really because there's plenty of potential to make these little dialogues more interesting.

Gideon020
Apr 23, 2011
Holy gently caress, I played a demo of this! I wanted to get it but I could never find a store that stocked it!

Vitamin Me
Mar 30, 2007

Gideon020 posted:

Holy gently caress, I played a demo of this! I wanted to get it but I could never find a store that stocked it!

You can actually find the shareware (maybe even full version) on sites that offer abandonware, or archive.org for example

Vitamin Me
Mar 30, 2007

Part 16 - Runaway

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU9kfcsO230

Oh no, our commander is in trouble! Anyway..



So this was a pretty stressful, timing based mission..I died a couple of times but after using some powerups it was no problem.

The mission

So for some reason, our commander is on some kind of dinky boat instead of a cool spaceship, and now it's out of control. Think 'speed' but in the future, and a bald Keanu Reeves.





The river is filled with mines, and it's quite easy to just fly into them if you're not careful.



Once we dispose of all the mines and enemies, we get some much-deserved thanks:





There's something being funny about being called a great warrior when we're not riding around on a horse with a big axe:



So I found one secret, but flying near the end of the level instantly ended the mission so I couldn't look around for the other secret :dumbbravo:

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Vitamin Me
Mar 30, 2007

Part 17: One Way Out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80HzTkEn7uM

We're getting close to the end, and it seems the devs got low on inspiration..this is a maze level, in the most basic sense of the word.
Remember the on/off switches from a few levels ago? Now they're everywhere and we need to get through a bunch of gates to reach the end. Also, some of the gates open by destroying the right buildings..fun fun fun!



The mission

So there's just one line of dialogue in the complete level, and it's when we start:


Looks like The Writers Guild of America strike traveled through time

So many questions. Made it through what? Not much time until what happens? SWITCHES!!1

Remember these?



One other complaint: this level pulls the cheap trick of suddenly placing a minefield somewhere on your way back..here's me flying right into it:




Yeah so the dialogue and level aren't much fun, and to top it off one of the enemies is bugged: it spawns in a area you can't reach, so to kill it we need to use an em-shock powerups that destroys everything on screen.


I'm getting that 100% kill count dammit

In the end, the level doesn't give me much trouble and we are on our way to the last level of the game. Before that however, in the next video I'll replay all levels that I didn't 100% :clint:

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply