1. Into the Depths
2. In a Darker Place
1. "Into The Depths"
Chimeran Tunnels
Bracknell, England
July 13th, 1951 1814 GMT
You begin this chapter in the tunnels, looking down at some Menials doing . . .uh, menial things. Without jumping down there right away, take the two out that you can see from where you are. As you move further down toward this area, you'll see two more, and then two more after that. When all six are cleared out, you can explore this little area before moving on into the short tunnel that leads out of here. As you enter the tunnel, look into the distance for the Gray Jack moving back and forth. You can take him out from here before he even realizes you are in the area. Then you can move to the other end of this tunnel.
Just as you enter the next area, you will make a Leaper Pod erupt just to your left. Immediately back into the tunnel again as you take out the attacking Leapers. Keep in mind that Leaper Pods do not contain nearly as many Leapers as one of your regular ambushes, but by the same token, Leaper Pods tend to appear in clusters through the next few areas. Move back into the entrance to the area and take note of the Leaper Pod cluster to your right and another further off to your left (near where you should have killed the Gray Jack). Your choice how to deal with them, but if at all possible, conserve your grenades. This would be a good time to put that XR-003 Sapper to work. Lay down a small patch of "snot balls" between you and the Leaper Pods. Then get just close enough to the cluster to make them come out. If you put enough "snot balls" down, you shouldn't have to do anything but back away and let them destroy themselves. Move over to the other cluster and do the same.
When these two clusters have been dealt with, there is a pit-like area which would be behind the cluster of Leaper Pods that were to your right as you entered this cave. This pit is also full of Leaper Pods. Lay down another "snot ball" trap along the edge of this pit and draw these Leapers out as well. When the pods have all been deployed, go down into the pit and find Intelligence Document #26.
When you have it, walk up the ramp next to the blue glowing thing in the corner. Up there you will see a short metal bridge that leads to a tunnel entrance. The tunnel is full of Leaper Pods, so don't go running in. You have probably devised your own favorite way to deal with them by now, so do as you wish, but I had grown fond of the "snot ball" method. When the pods are out of the way, enter the tunnel. At the other end of the tunnel you will come to a large cavern and this cavern has a "trio of trios" for you.
Just as you come to the cavern, you will notice that there is a very inconveniently placed light in front of you that doesn't allow you to see very well into the cavern. Aim in through the beam of light and you will see three menials headed your way. Give them some Carbine love. Step a little further into the cavern and be ready for three Gray Jacks. Two will come from your right and the third from the left. Back into the tunnel as they attack and you should be able to handle them. One of them may retreat as you back too far into the tunnel, but he'll come back for you when you move back forward again. When the third Gray Jack falls, three Steelheads come out on the metal platform at the opposite side of the cavern.
The choice here is yours. You can run back into the tunnel and back into the first cave to escape their Auger rounds, but if you do, you are just delaying the inevitable. I did this the first time I played through and I think I ran from the cavern back to the first cave four times before I finally just decided to rush the metal platform with guns blazing. The second time I played through the game, I ran back to the first cave once and when I entered the tunnel to return to the cavern, all three of them were right there in the tunnel waiting for me. Keep in mind that it could go either way for you here and it's random as far as I can tell, so be prepared for either one. No matter what you choose, you're going to have to kill them with something, and the Auger seems to be the weapon of choice here.
There really isn't a whole lot to offer in this cavern after everything has quieted down. There are a couple of health pick-ups, but that's about it. There is a small cluster of Leaper Pods on the far left side, but there is nothing over there for you, so you really don't even have to deal with it. Just go over to the right side of the metal platform and go up the ramp onto it. Exit the area through the tunnel you find up there.
Soon after you enter the tunnel, you'll run into three Hybrids heading straight at you as you round a corner. Back up a little to avoid the fire and then pick them off as they come for you. Continue forward once you're finished with them and around another bend you will come up on a wide spot in the tunnel where Menials will be hard at work. There are a total of seven Menials in there, so when you are eliminating them, make sure you get them all so you don't find out too late that one was hiding on you for a sneak attack. When you are sure you have them all, continue through the tunnel and you will come to a point that seems to be a dead end, but turn 178 degrees to your right and the path will continue up behind you a few steps before it turns back around to the left behind you again. Follow the rest of the tunnel but DO NOT ENTER THE ROOM WITH THE LARGE ROUND PLATFORM YET!! READ ON FIRST!!
The round platform room looks nice and quiet, but it's actually one hell of a trap. Once you have dropped down into it, you will not be able to get out until you are the only remaining life signs in there. Look around the room from your perch and assess the situation. You'll note that there is some ammo right below you where you will drop in and some very important looking ammo in the center of the room. It is important indeed because it contains Hailstorm ammo which can prove useful here. The best plan here is to drop down and dash right for the center to grab the ammo then dash right again across the little bridge to the outer area on the other side of it. Once there, turn around and face the center again and be ready to fight.
The first wave will be 4 or 5 Hybrids. An Air-Fuel grenade cleans that mess up nicely. They will be quickly followed by a Gray Jack who will come straight at you (they always do). When Mr. Jack is down a lift full of Menials will come up on the other side of the room. The Menials are pretty slow, which is good because that will give you time to deal with Gray Jack #2 approaching from the left before dealing with them. When the Menials are dead, you'll get another handful of Hybrids, some of which will come up right next to you. This is a darned fine time to stick another Air-Fuel grenade in the middle of the room, or put the Hailstorm auto-turret out there to do the work for you. When all that stuff has been cleared, there should only be a few Menials left to pick off and the room should fall silent once again. While you may be anxious to get out of here, check all the outer platform of this room to restock on ammo and also to find Intelligence Document #27 on one of them. When you've got it all, head across the little bridge to the now opened door to exit the room.
As you enter this cavern, it slopes down to the right and as you make your way down, you are greeted by a new kind of Leaper attack. These guys are called Rollers. They are pretty much just like Leapers except they roll up like armadillos and roll at you. This attack is a little hair raising because instead of just rolling up the floor at you, they do that plus crawl up the sides and onto the ceiling of the room so they are literally surrounding you. Answer to this dilemma? Run back into the round platform room and funnel them in through the door while you ponder the irony of using the room that was originally a trap as a safe haven.
When it is safe to proceed, go back into the cavern and drop down into the hole the Rollers came from and venture into the tunnel. You will come up on a small cluster of Leaper pods, so give them a grenade or use the "snot ball" method on them and continue through the tunnel to the other end. You will come out in a huge cavern full of conduits. Step out onto the conduit and grab whatever you need that is lying there. Head across the conduit and watch for four Slipskulls bouncing around the cavern ahead and to your left. Keep your distance and give them the tag and frag treatment so you can move on. When you reach the platform on the other end of the conduit, cross the platform and jump out onto the heat exhausts which will cleanly blow you over to the next conduit. Walk down this conduit if you need some Auger rounds, if not, jump down onto the next heat exhaust and it will blow you high up to yet another conduit.
There isn't anything going on at the moment, so just follow the conduit across to the next platform and go up the ramp to another platform with some more ammo on it. Walk up the short conduit on the other side and jump onto the next heat exhaust which will put you on the next conduit over. Walk to the other end of this and turn to your right. Before you jump onto the heat exhaust to go over, note that on that platform there are 3 Menials. Further to the right there are some Hybrids. What you can't see are two Hardfangs hiding even farther to the right. To most efficiently make it through this part, pull out the Fareye and look over toward the Hybrids. You should see a stack of Power Cores over that way. Shoot one of these and you'll start a chain reaction that will take out the Hybrids and at least one of the Hardfangs before any of them even know you're there.
With that done, turn your focus back over to the menials and shoot a stack of Power Cores you see over there to chain react kill most of those guys. With that done, at worst all you'll have to do is shoot a couple of Menials across from you, hop the heat exhausts and kill the one Hardfang and that is only IF he survived. That's a whole lot of fighting you just avoided by using some well placed shots. Once everyone is out of the way and you have moved over to where all these enemies were, follow the platforms all the way around until you reach the conduit at the other end. When you reach it, look off the left side of the conduit to the conduit below. You'll have to drop down on to it and go to the end to pick up Intelligence Document #28.
NOTE:
The trouble with this Intelligence Document is that once you have it, there is no way to get back to the conduit you jumped down here from. There is also nothing below you close enough to land on that won't kill you. The good part about this is that once you have the document, you never have to pick it up again because your PS3 remembers you already have it, the bad part about it is that now that you are standing out here, you have to jump to your death and begin at the last checkpoint again, which is going to put you back at the beginning of this cavern, just before the Slipskulls.
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When you have the document and have made it back around to the conduit you jumped down from, go the rest of the way up and jump off onto the platform. At the end of the platform there is a tunnel leading out of this cavern. The tunnel will go uphill toward a little area full of machinery and a little school of Menials is milling about here, along with two Steelheads. An Air-Fuel grenade in the middle of this area should take care of the whole shooting match. If anything is left, it should be easy to pick off so you can grab what is lying around and move on into the next tunnel on the other side of the machinery.
At the other end of this tunnel, you'll be at a round structure that you have to walk around the outside of. There is a nice helping of ammo here, so help yourself to it. This isn't a free ride home, so make your way around the outside and pull out the Auger to help you find out what is ahead of you. Before you reach the other end of this path, you will go through 5 Hybrids and a final Hardfang. When you have made it, enter the door at the end and the chapter will be over.
2. "In A Darker Place"
Chimeran Tunnels
Bracknell, England
July 13th, 1951 2233 GMT
Here is your official Candied Skull proverbial quote for the game: You aren't going to travel very far in this chapter, but you sure are going to go the distance.
There, wisdom done. On with the show. . . .
You begin in a large round room with no apparent way out. You're going to have to work for the way out. The first wave is kind of funny. Back yourself into a little alcove nearby and face the room. You are going to be swarmed by somewhere between 20 and 30 Menials. The fun thing to do here is to just keep laying down "snot balls" with the Sapper. Just move back and forth across the front of this alcove and keep laying out the traps. By the time you run out of ammo for this thing, you should have pretty well taken care of all of them.
Immediately following the Menials will be a cozy little group consisting of Hybrids. They'll be coming down from the lifts (one of which will be over your head if you are still standing in the alcove) around the outer walls of the room. You should encounter no more than 4 or 5 of these beasts before the room falls silent again. I don't believe this group included a Steelhead, but if it did, he never got time to take a shot at me. When you are left alone again, search the whole room for ammo, particularly the center area where you will also find a new weapon! The L209 LAARK rocket launcher! YAAAAY! When you have everything in here, find the elevator platform in one of the alcoves and hit the switch to go to the next floor.
On the second floor, you'll have to walk around the outside of the room and you can only go to the left. Pick up what you need right here and move cautiously ahead. You will immediately see a Leaper Pod cluster ahead and to your left, but long before you get to it, three Steelheads will come around the walkway towards you. Unless you plan on getting up close and personal with them, use the Auger to help take them out. If you are feeling bulletproof, try the Fareye and use the "focus" mode to slow down their ammo and take them out with head shots. When they are out of the way, deal with the Leaper Pods however you wish.
Continue forward and you will come up on two Leaper Pod clusters, one on each side of the walkway. Just to be semi-consistent, they will also have a backup of three Steelheads. Dispose of them how you wish, but be careful not to fall into the alcove on your left. It will do some decent damage to you and you'll end up back on the first floor and have to come all the way back around again. Dispose of the clusters and again move on. You will again see two more clusters. There are two Steelheads backing these up, but just to be sneaky, they'll wait until you get close enough to the clusters to set them off and try to make it a combo attack, so deal with the clusters from a distance if at all possible. This is the last fight you have to worry about on this floor, so continue to the end and exit through the door on your left.
As you travel up this tunnel, you'll immediately run into a small Leaper Pod cluster. Deal with it. A little bit further up you will run into another cluster. In dealing with the second cluster, you attract the attention of two Hybrids who come from the right. It can get a little messy, but you can probably handle the situation by now. When it's clear, step into the doorway without dropping in to the room and you can probably take out half of the enemies in this room before you even enter. There is a Hybrid just inside the room to the left and another in the distance to the right. Use the Fareye to shoot the one to the right, the one right outside the door can't get to you if you haven't dropped in the room yet, so ignore him until you have killed the first one and then put a couple bullets in him from above to shut him up. The noise has probably attracted the attention of three Menials who will all come from the right. (They are getting kind of dumb now . . .I don't even know why these guys are in the game anymore.)
You've now dealt with 5 of the 7 enemies in the room, so drop down in and walk slowly around to the right because the other 2 are a snap. As you move around slowly, look across the room as far ahead as you can. You will soon see a Gray Jack well before he sees you. A Fareye round to the head from where you first see him will finish him off. The death of this Gray Jack will attract the attention of Gray Jack #2 who was a little farther around the path, and he is going to come barreling around at you. Just switch to the Bullseye and mow him down as he hits the home stretch. All seemed just a little too easy, didn't it? Standby.
Head around the room to the huge door. There are switches on both sides of the door. You have to flip them both to open it, and when you do, theres your last enemy of the chapter . . .a Stalker! This is a great time to whip out that LAARK you picked up on the first level. It's kind of creepy because he just kind of looks at you for a few seconds without doing anything. Use this opportunity to launch a rocket in his face and slide over to the side for cover. Continue your attack the same way. Wait for his guns to overheat, slide out, rocket to his face and slide back. You should still have all 4 rounds that you picked up downstairs because there has been no need to use it up to this point. When you've put the fourth rocket into his face, he'll blow up. Walk in to his little hangar and put a fork in this chapter.
Continue to London . . . |
