Home first Impressions

I have been chosen for the home beta. I don't know how that happened, but I got an email and I'm in.
I enter the code in the redeem code section and the download begins. It's 77mb, which seems small for a 3d based almost game like interface.
I download and install the application and when I find it under the network category launch it.
It wants to do an upgrade straight away to version 1.1, I let it and it downloads annother small 22mb patch.
Now it starts properly. Usual warning about the hdd and not switching off.
Home now wants to reserve 3gb of my hard drive space! Now we are getting more like it, I thought 100mb odds was too small.
This reservation process takes less than a minute.
A graph paper background with the home icon on a shiny tile appears.
it says press x to connect and it does so.
The terms and conditions appear, nda and the fact that I may be monitored during the trials to see how i use home and what I get up to inside it.
A message of the day appears reminding me that home is far from finished if it ever will be and that our feedback would be appreciated at the scee forums http://community.eu.playstation.com.
Harbour studio is loading it seems.
First real home view is of a generic male avatar.
I can choose presets character clothing and load/save.
A box in the bottom right corner says playstation home tutorial. It wants me to choose a preset to get us started.
a whole bunch of avatar faces pop up. Some male, some female, some black etc.
I pick one and now the tutorial wants me to choose clothes.
I am told to choose torso and get to pick from a small range of t-shirts.
I can dress in about three to six different choices for headgear, tops, trousers, footwear, jewellry etc.
I am urged by the tutorial to go to the character section to change my appearance.
I can change gender, structure, face, body shape, skin and hair. Each category has some sub levels and the options are as customizable as any other avatar system I have seen.
The tutorial wants us to leave the wardrobe and we find ourself in our harbour studio apartment.
We are told about moving and looking with the analogue sticks. We have to take our avatar outside to the pretty balcony and make them use some interactions. R1 brings up the interactions menu and there are things like greeting, conversation, celebration etc. We are told to try something then told to specifically start our avatar dancing. I choose rave and he looks like a pillock.
Then we have to go inside and sit down on an armchair by pressing x when we are near it. Then we are shown how to type text, pressing triangle brings up the text entry system and we are told to type something. I type hello and it appears in a speech bubble above my head.
We are then told to press start and bring up the main menu.
This has a lot of options.
Personal
Locations
Friends list
Clubs
Alerts
Game Launching
communication
Community
Help
Settings
Downloads
We are told to go to Locations and choose world map.
The graph paper and tiles are back, the tiles represent locations. Home theatre, Shopping centre, Home square and bowling alley are the options available.
The tutorial wants us to go to home square.
When I choose it a download box appears, I can download it in the background which I suppose means that I can still wander around areas I have already downloaded while downloading new ones.
The home square is populated with people, they start out as ghostly avatars and then must load in the appreances chosen for them by their users. I wander about the pleasant looking square with its chess sets and benches. The bowling alley and shopping centre doors are here and going into them asks you to download. Which I do in the background.
I enter the bowling alley. There are pool tables and arcade machines, trailers for Killzone 2 are playing on the big screens.
I try an arcade machine called ice breaker, walking up to it loads it up. It's a simple arkanoid clone.
There seems to be quite a few people wandering around. They all seem to be playing the various games littered around. someone walks up to me and gives me a rather rude gesture, by the time i find the rude gesture menu he has wandered off. Some people seem to be trying to text chat and i think I could hear someone using a microphone.

I investigate the theatre and play a trailer, it seems a bit silly to go into a theatre in home and then just have the trailer playing full screen or against a theatre like background, I would have thought we would all be sitting in chairs like in a real theatre.
The trailer take ages to download, and we have to just watch a bar crawl, why can't we wander with the other avatars in the lobby while it downloads.
The store mall is now open and it's like a normal mal with storefronts. When you enter the storefronts you can only get as far as the lobby where you then enter a normal 2D menu to buy things. There are all types of things available. from summerhouse to clothes. Ornaments and furniture. all of it is free so far.
I go to my summer house and it's a nicer space than the harbour studio.
I spend a little time placing some furniture, it's not the most intuitive of interfaces and the view still seems to be focused on your avatar as you place furniture, making getting a good look at things harder than it should be, not impossible, but you have to skip out of the menu and move your avatar around sometimes to get things right.
I do a bit of people watching in home, most people tend to be focussing on the games tables and arcade machines.
Apparently you can win ornaments and clothes by getting high scores in the arcade games.
Some people seem to be sitting down and talking. Some people are organising formation dancing, which is a novelty for all of about 30 seconds. For the most part people seem to be communicating via text. I think I have only heard one person with a microphone.
The female avatars tend to be getting a bit of attentions, at one point I saw a few guys dancing around in front of a girl. It looked fairly typical and sad.

Fable 2 Notes

Fable 2 Notes
I choose the female hero.
We see the intro movie of the bird flying to the city and shitting on our hero's head.
Our sister tells us about Lord lucien and his troubles and how he's all alone in his big castle. She wishes she could live there. A commotion sends her off into the city and our first task seems to be to follow her.
We get control for the first time.
Camera with right stick, movement with left stick, x draws the heroes little wooden sword and swishes it about. A puts it away.
Y pulls out and gun and shoots.
A glowing trail shows the way to our next objctive.
We hear a voice asking Rose if she has reconsidered an offer, she says no, the voice tells her that he will be waiting for her when she changes her mind.
We come to the trader and watch his pitch, he seems to be a fraud, selling magic mirrors that only work to make you beautiful in pitch black darkness. He is selling a music box for five gold coins which is said to grant you a wish.
A strange woman in the crowd overhears out character saying she doesn't believe in magic. The woman tells us that the box is really magical and it would benefit us to obtain it. Our two sisters a skeptical but decide that it can't hurt really to find out. Looks like our first real quest will be to obtain five gold pieces.
Quest 1
Derek the constable has lost his five arrest warrants and he wants us to get them back. Funnily enough he has lost five warrants and will pay one gold piece for each.
We meet a man called Barnum who wants to demonstrate his camera, which seems to be a new invention around these parts. We pose for a picture for him, which he tells us will take three months to develop. He pays us one gold piece for our trouble.
Pulling down the left trigger brings up a menu for the dpad where we can choose a happy or angry expression to use on people. We can also choose a nice or rude pose for the camera picture.
We then move on to the alley where the warrants blew down.
we come across a group of children and a bully is attacking a dog. Our sister intervenes and is knocked down by the bully. We now get the chance to use our wooden sword on the bully, holding left trigger locks on the character we want by facing them, we then use x to swing our sword and hit the bully a few times. He runs off. The other children all react, we see hate or funny above their heads and this indicates how they feel about us.
We look at the dog and our sister says we can't keep it. We have done a good deed and our good rating goes up by four points.
I find a warrant lying in the street, and another nearby.
We find a tramp called Pete, he had had his bottle stolen by another tramp, he will pay us to get it back for him, while a nearby lady will pay us to give it to her instead as she thinks he has had enough.
A moral choice then, give the guy his beer or be an annoying preachy do gooder.
We find Balthazar who has a beetle problem.
We have to go into his establishment and kill the beetles. While we are in their a man comes to the window and tells us that he will pay us a gold piece to smash up his stock instead.
I refrain from smashing up the stock and kill the beetles. The shady guy is angered and tells us he will remember this. Seems he put the beetles in there in the first place.
The storekeeper gives us our gold.
we find magpie asleep nearby, the tramp who stole the bottle from Pete. Getting the bottle from him is easy enough. We give the bottle to Betty and she gives us a not stuck in the top which turns out to be another warrant. Now we have four of them. pete says he will go on the wagon and return to his job as a pension consultant, Betty want to give him the bottle back to save him.
The dog is barking at us and it is sitting by a warrant. we take it and that is all of them, time to return to the guard.
The shady guy who it seems is named Arthur comes to us in the alley on the way back to the policeman. He wants to get the warrants for himself. He is also the one who is offering our sister employment, probably as a prostitute. We are given the choice of giving him the warrants or going to the policeman with them. I take them to the police man.
We find Monty and Belinda who are lovers, the only fly in the ointment is Belinda's mother who won't let Belinda see Monty. We have to give a letter to belinda which asks her to run away with Monty. We knock on the door of Belinda's house and the mother answers, we ask her to pay for delivery of the letter and while she roots in the cupboard and given the choice to wait for her to pay or sneak upstairs and give the letter to Belinda. We sneak up and give her the letter. She then starts arguing with the mother and Monty. We have our gold though. Now we can buy the music box.
we are told to go somewhere quiet and make our wish.
When we do the music box emits a glow and plays tinkly music. Which then goes faster and out of tune and the glow becomes frenzied and broken looking. The music box impodes and is gone.
Disgusted our sister goes back to our home, which is a broken down ruin of a shack.
we follow her and find that the dog has made itself at home also.
we are aksed to go to bed.
we are woken in the night by a policeman who asks us to accompany him to Lord Lucien's castle.
Our sister is overjoyed as she thinks our wish has come true.
We warp to the castle and are taken from the guards by a butler.
We encounter a magician type in the corridor but he does not speak to us. The butler tells us that Lord Lucien has been deeply affected by the Loss of his wife and daughter.
we find Lord Lucien, seems that it isn't our wish come true. The magic box was known to Lucien. It is a relic of the old kingdom, and he is deeply interested in the old kingdom for some reason. Probably to ressurect his wife and child. Looking for some kind of time or reanimating spell.
He is interested in the fact that we got any kind of response from the box. Which suggest that our bloodline is of interest to him, as if the magic is only usable by people with a certain gene.
He wants us to stand in a circle which seems to be some kind of test. Our sister stands in it and urges us to do the same.
When we do the glow of the circle turns red. we are frozen to the spot. Lucien starts ranting and looking through papers on the nearby bench. He says that we are heroes, but not one of the three. He says that we must die however, he pulls a gun and shoots our sister dead and us next. Our body flies through a stained glass window and out hundreds of feet to the street below.
The woman who told us to buy the music box is waiting with our dog. She says that it isn't our destiny to die tonight and takes us away.
We see a cut scene telling of how Lucien vanished from Bowerstone that night and how the woman took us away from the city and nursed us back to health. Ten years pass and we find that the woman has been training us for revenge.
Quest 2
We are told that the time has come to seek revenge by the woman. We are to collect something from our caravan that she has left for us.
Our dog follows us around.
we find an empty caravan which we can buy and live in or rent out for extra gold.
we find a tattoist.
Moving through the densely populated gypsy camp we find our caravan inside a chest outside it there is a rusty sword, crossbow, health for dog and us, a spade and a collar.
We move back following the golden path to the gates of the camp, The woman we find out is called Theresa. The gates are opened and she gives us the bower lake tomb seal.
The seal is the same as the guild seal in Fable. We can communicate through it. It will also open the door to our first coming of age quest. We have to enter the bowerstone lake tomb.
On the way our dog sniffs something out for us, we have to dig in a spot indicated. It's a rubber ball which we use to play fetch with the dog.
Going down to the tomb which is in the middle of the lake we find a silver key outside it.
The seal opens the tomb and we enter.
we have our first real fight with some beetles it tells me to use sword but I rebel and use the crossbow.
we have to shoot a magical switch to open a gate.
The dog finds another key for us by barking and leading us to it.
we are told that the golden path is helpful, but if we don't explore we will be missing things. We are urged to explore the cavern we are in before going on. I find a diary and a letter on some skeleton bodies. We move on killing more beetles.
Standing on a pedestal makes another magic door thing float about, we have to shoot it with our bow then whack it with our sword, then shoot it again to make the door open, this looks like a kind of disguised quicktime. Anyway the door opens.
Down a side tunnel I find some books, potions and money.
Oh I recognise this damn place. It's the place where my boss fight with Jack of blades gave me so much trouble in the last game.
Theresa tells us that we are one of the last true heroes. A bloodline of superhumans. She shows us the pictures on the wall of the hero from the last game who is our ancestor. we have to step into the centre of the circle.
This awakens our blood and we are granted new abilities.
Theresa tells us about will and shows us a cullis gate. We have to learn the magic for using them first it seems.
All I can afford is lightning, I use it on the gate marker and it activates allowing us to use it.
The cullis gate transports us to a mountaintop. We have a little fight against some beetles.
Looks like we have a trek ahead of us now to our first real quest.
I find a silver chest which give me a book about dog training. I read it and my dog can now do the bunny hop trick.
Quest 3
We are told by a policeman that the Bowerstone road is closed due to bandit activity. The only quick way to get past is to capture the bandits ourself.
We head to their camp following the golden path.
when we reach the camp there are two people in a cage, they shout out that it's an ambush.
Loads of bandits pour in, three or four at a time, as we kill them new ones appear. Once we have killed enough of them the lead bandit comes out and takes a bit of pounding to kill.
Once we have done it we get the key to the cage. A nasty looking bloke arrives and says the the people in the cage are his slaves. I kill him, then release the slaves.
Quest 4
We have to meet Theresa in Bowerstone market.
In Bowerstone we find the shop and the coach house.
Lots of stalls, potion shop, blacksmith. Theresa tells me to do some work until she arrives. We have about 5 minutes until she gets there.
I go to the blacksmith and have to hammer metal for money, it's a simple timed button presses really boring mini-game.
Theresa arrives and takes us to a spot where we can see an island out at sea. She tells us that is where Lucien is, it's called the spire and it is a place of magic. The person who can get it working will have a wish that will be granted, whatever that wish is. The last time it was used it wiped out Albion completely. Seems the magician wished for an end to a corrupt world.
Lucien wants the spire to grant him a wish, however, it is foretold that a hero will stop him. That is why he killed our sister and tried to kill us.
There are three heroes apart from us, they are the key to getting the spire to work. Lucien seeks them to subjugate them to his will. we must seek them to help us.
Theresa tells us to go to the temple of light in oakfield, where we have to find the abbot.
Quest 5
We encounter some bandits on the road, they are above us on a cliff and we have to shoot them.
More bandits this time close quarters.
I find a book which levels up the dog's fighting ability at the bandit camp.
I find a demon door, like the last game, getting them to open can be hard work. This one wants to see our dog do tricks. I try the two tricks i know already but it thinks them dull.
We come to a bridge but it's out, some bandits taunt us from the other side.
We have to dive, at the bottom we find a man who has lost his son in a hobbe cave. I enter and start the hobbe cave mission. The hobbes are similar to the last game, little frog like buggers.
There are dead bodies littered around. I accidently kill the father in a fight, whoops the safety was off. You can turn on and off your ability to hurt non-hostile characters.
I fight through the hobbe dungeon and come out through a ladder behind the bandits at the bridge and kill them.
We reach oakvale. It is a small town compared to Bowerstone. We have to go to the temple of light. Apparently the lushness of oakfield is owed to a golden oak tree. The tree seeds a golden acorn once a decade and must be replanted to keep the magic going.
The abbot has an unpsecified problem which he needs a hero for, however we have no reputation. He wants us to sort out a bandit problem before he will take us on for his job. Theresa says we need to do this for him.
We are sent to the inn at Oakfield where Barnum is distressed about the bridge. He wants us to go Rookridge to kill bandits.
At rookridge in we are ambushed by the bandits, we have to chase their leader who is a chicken called Dash. Many bandits attack and are killed. We eventually catch up with Dash and kill him.
Back to Oakfield we go.
Barnum gives us 250 gold and his thesaurus.
We still need more reputation, so we have to do side quests before the abbot will let us do his escort mission.
I choose a mission from the map and go to the place. I find a ghost standing on a cliffside. She is a spurned lover who killed herself. She wants us to take a rejection note to the man who spurned her. We have to make him love us and then break his heart. We go to Bowerstone market and meet up with Alex, we have to fart, dance and whistle at him enough until he loves us. Then we are given his side of the story. He felt he was too young to marry and ran away. He has been wracked with guilt his entire life about Victoria's suicide. We are given the choice to marry him or give him the rejection note.
The moral choice in this one is very grey.
I give him the note and he goes off in the huff.
Back at the ghost we find Alex there as a ghost, he must have went and killed himself. Alex is begging forgiveness when we arrive, however, when he sees us he realises that he has been tricked in a vengence scam. He gets mad and storms off in the huff. We get renown, but also some bad points.
I go to the next quest I can do. I arrive at the temple of shadows. where i have to eat five live chicks to join. I don't really want to do this evil quest, but hey ho here we go. After eating the chick the shadow worshipper is impressed and I join the club, poker night is on fridays, I go down into the cellar and am told to get villagers to follow me back to sacrifice them to the shadows. I try and get the shadowworshipper into the sacrificial ciircle but it won't work. I leave.
I go and find the sculptor and pose for a statue. This consists of me holding a pose, i don't think I did it right but manage to get the statue made.
I then have to go back to bowerstone and find the archeologist.
Belle the archeologist gives me a note. The note says to go to the old town district of Bowerstone.
The dog seems to know where the artefact is as soon as we get there, which saves some hunting, I would probably never have found it as it's down a dead end alley between two houses.
Back to the archeologist we go and give her the scroll. She has a lot of quests for us, these seem like side quests so I go back to the main quest and the abbot.
He wants us to collect water from a special spring for the acorn. He is sending his Daughter Hannah with us, as is part of the ritual.
She is a bit of a chunky tomboy.
We go down through the rather empty caves, which suggests a trap is coming soon.
We have to stand on pressure plates to fill the jug that Hannah is carrying.
Things called hollow men appear from will o the wisps floating at the top of the caves.
They are fairly easily dealth with.
The nesxt room is more of the same. We have to fill up the jug only this time we are further away from Hannah and the hollow men need shot while we stand still and keep the tap running.
There are some ominous sounds which suggest that the next room might have something big in it.
We have a fight with lots of waves of hollow men and then a headless one who is harder to kill.
We shine a light on the water to bless it in the final room, one of the monks comes into the caves to tell us that Lucien's men have got Hannahs father.
When we arrive The father has been shot and Hannah has killed the bad guy.
We see a funeral for the father and Hannah renouncing her vows.
Seems she is the hero. Theresa turns up and asks her to come with her. They both teleport away.
We go back to the guild and Theresa tells us about the next hero we have to find. He is the one we saw as a child at Lucien's castle just before our sister was shot. He thought Lucien was only a scholar, and once he found out he has designs on power their relationship ended violently.
We must seek him out.
We are off to Brightwood.
Theresa gives us a warning that something is coming our way.
we have to get to the top of Brightwood tower. There is a floating triangle of rock which is kind of weird.
As we appraoch the rock spawns spire guards.
We fight our way into the tower and up to the top. The spire guards are harder but the time slow skill really helps as in the last game.
We get to the top where we find one of Luciens henchmen have beaten us to Garth. The henchman shoots him with lightning and then uses the floating rock to teleport them both away.
Theresa tells us that Luciens grasp of the spire is increasing, he has control over some of it's powers now and is ineed formidable. She tells us to come back to the guild.

At the guild we are told to go and find Jeeves, Lucien's old butler, for clues as to how to enter the spire and try and rescue Garth.
We go to The Cow and Corset in Bowerstone and have to buy a treasure map to where Lucien's diary is buried.
I think Jeeves might be double crossing us, but Theresa says he won't.
we go to the spot and have to kill a huge rock troll. Shooting it's red haemorrhoids does the trick.
Taking the diary back to The guild, Theresa tells us that Lucien is recruiting the winners of the arena at Westcliffe for his guards. We have to go and enter, didn't we do this last game too?
we have a long road lined with bandits to get to Westcliffe.
We come to a barricade that Hammer knocks down.
Then a big fight with bandits and a highwayman.
We come to the road to Westcliffe, thought i was on it already.
We find the balverines, and they are as annoying as the last game.
Fight a few and then we come to the people in distress. The son has been taken by the balverines, and we must go get him. This was in the last game too.
We get to an old ruined castle filled with balverines called howling halls.
There is a room with a large pit. We are attacked with balverines all around, Hammer knocks down a pillar to bridge the pit and we must keep her protected while she does so.
We then escape.
we come to the crucible arena and are told that we need more renown to fight. Side quest time.
I go back to bowerstone and a guard wants me to go to a slavers location and free some slaves.
A long road to the camp with lots of bandits and balverines. We fight the slavers and free the men, getting enough renown to carry on with the quest.
Back to the arena and we enter it. It's not the same as the last game, there are eight rounds and each one is set in a different arena.
There are trader rooms in between.
We have beetles, hobbes, hobbes with magic powers, bandits, highwaymen, balverines and trolls.
There are some trap switches on the floor to help, with flames and spikes that shoot out and kill the enemy.
We are given a trophy. woo.
It seems like I actually died for the first time, it seems you only lose xp and restart at the same place, not at the beginning of a checkpoint.
Theresa tells us to wrap up any business before we leave for the spire. Seems we should grind for weapons and xp she means.
I start westcliffe development.
Daft Barnum wants us to invest in his new theme park idea.
We give him the money and he says he will get back to us.
I start Defender of the light.
The shadows worshipers are up to no good at the temple.
We have to go to the same caves that we went to with Hammer to fill up the water for the acorn annd fight highwaymen in each room and then the leader of the shadow worshippers in the last room. He conjures up the whisp skeleton enemies for a few waves then we fight him.
We get the temple of light seal, whatever that is for and some renown.
I try a quest called donating to the light, you have to go to the temple of the light and make a donation. I try and give 250 gold and not much happens. Puzzling.
I try some shooting range and am hopeless at it.
I do a bounty hunter quest where i have to walk miles from the guard in the city to the country, kill some beetles and then all the way back for 750 gold.
I do a slaver quest and free more people.
I muck about with the gestures and get someone to love me, give them some chocolate and then a ring and buy a cheap house, pow we are married, I wish this was real life.
I can set her weekly household budget and also i can refurbish my house.
A bounty hunter mission sees us trudge to a location, kill some bandits and back to the guard.
I finally find the location of the summoners quest in Bowerstone in the graveyard.
Two idiots have read from a book and summoned 100 hollow men into the graveyard. We have to kill them and then get the book back to them.
I get a demon door open by kicking a chicken at it, and we find some potions inside.
Another bounty hunter mission done.
I decide that enough is enough, it's time to start the spire mission. We have to leave all our weapons and items, even the dog with Hammer. So much for going and getting a better weapon.
We take the ship to the spire, and very pretty and imposing it is in a lord of the rings style.
When we get there we are herded by guards and given a speech by Lucien.
He knocks us out and we awake, shaven headed and dressed as a spire guard.
We are a new recruit and given a speech to that effect and told about our collar which we will find out the use for later. Our first task is to report to the commandant.
On the way we pass a cell with Garth in. He tells us telepathically that our powers are useless while we wear the collar.
We arrive at the commandant and he tells us that he will teach us total obedience. He shows us the spire and then hits us with his sword and asks us to thank him.
If we do not the collar will drain away our xp points.
I do, he does this three times and then asks us to beg for our life.
Time passes in cut scene and it's now 38 weeks later.
We see the other guards lamenting about life in the spire.
Then we have to go to the detention centre.
Garth tells us that the spire is sapping our will.
We are given a choice feed the prisoners or let them starve, i feed them and lose a huge amount of xp, though we do gain good karma.
The commandant wants to see us.
He tells us to kill our friend, I refuse and use the sword on the commanadant. He steals our xp and zaps us with lightning.
We see a small cut scene where the spire builds higher and The inhabitants become darker and more powerful.
We are told by the commandant to go and see where a guard is, if he is slacking he is to be sent to the torture chamber.
We find him and Garth, Garth has killed him and taken off his collar. He takes off ours, however, it's his last act of magical strength and we will now have to help and protect him, we find a gun and sword on the body of the guard. It's time for a jailbreak.
We fight our way up the spire through thhe guards until we reach the commandant, a standard boss battle, arena like ring room and teleporting in of bad guys with a straight fight against the commandant. We eventually kill him, he kills me twice, but hey what does it matter.
We kill the commandant and Garth gets his powers back. He activates the cullis gates and we teleport to the docks.
The ship takes us home. Theresa and our dog are there to meet us. She gives us our old equipment back and asks Garth to join us on our quest to destroy Lucien and the spire.
Ten years have passed since we went to the spire.
Our first mission is to go and find Hammer and tell her we are back.
We are free to do some side missions again. I go back to Barnum and he has transformed westcliffe, it now looks more prosperous. He gives us 15000 gold, which is nice.
We meet a tranny called tommy, who wants us to kill all the hobbes in his cave. We do and it turns out he was onnly trying to lure us there to get eaten and we have to kill Tommy to get out.
Back at the guild Hammer and Garth hate each other, and Hammer has found out the identity of the lst hero we need to find. He is a pirate captain, notorious for shooting captains of ships from impossible distances. To get to him we need a cullis gate activated. Garth can do this from his home in Brightwood.
we sneak in the back way, though we needn't have bothered as the shards bring loads of spire guards. We have to defend garth as he charges the cullis gate which takes about five minutes of concentrated fighting against spire guards and commandants. Eventually we get through and find ourselves knocked out. An old man grabs us and puts us in a cage.
We watch as he is killed by banshees and then our dog gets the key and brings it to us.
Theresa says that the cullis gate malfunctioned and Garth and Theresa will not be joining us.
we now have to explore the marshes.
where we find the banshee, a hooded headless floating woman who conjures what look like shadow little girls to fight for her.
We have to make our way through Oakvale, which is the town you start in, in the first game. It has been decimated by a wicked spell, filled with banshee's hollow men and trolls.
we get to Bloostone and are now looking forReaver's house.
Reaver wants only to speak with people of renown, you guessed it, side quest time.
I marry a prostitute for the fun of it and am now a bigamist, I get a note saying that I am being blackmailed for 2000 gold. I have to go and pay a man under bowerstone bridge. The price of my actions.
While I am paying him I see a dive point in the water and I enter a new area called gargoyles trove. Inside is a huge room, with pressure points and a chest at the far end, looks like i need to put things on the pressure points to raise a bridge to the treasure. Maybe this is to do with the hidden gargoyles, which i haven't seen yet.
We have to buy an old sailor a beer to get him to tell us a story about a smugglers cave.
This takes us to a cave containing a ghost ship, and a puzzle to open a treasure chest.
Once we do we find a lever, which brings the water level up and makes the ship accessible. We then can board it where we fight more ghost pirates and captain dread himself.
We then take the ship to the treasure island using the map we get from Dread.
On the treasure island we have to find 10 treasure chests.
When we find them all it's back to salty jack and 7500 renown points, more than enough to get onto the Reaver quest.
Reaver wants us to take a dark seal to the shadow court in Wraithmarsh.
We take the seal down into a dungeon and fight many shadow warriors.
When we encounter the shadow council we find that Reaver has done a deal with them for looks and youthfulness. He has to sacrifice a young persons good looks and youthfulness for continued time with his own. We get a choice, give up ours or a young girl that is held captive in the room.
I take the hit myself and now have glowing horrible eyes.
We are told that this might be our last chance to do some of the side quests.
Toby.
Temple of benevolent yokels, want too transform Bloostone from a decadent town to a pleasant town.
Toby wants us to recover three items which he says have been stolen from him, for a ritual. Thje items are meat, wine etc. We have to steal them from nearby houses, Toby then wants us to get him a prostitute. When we do he dissapears upstairs and tells us to leave for a while.
We finally get the idea that he's a con man when a local hammers it into our thick head.
We go back and have to pull faces at toby until he runs screaming from town.
This task caused my halo to slip as I had to kill a few villagers who caught me stealing.
We now have to help a gypsy find her lost little boy Charlie, down into the tomb of heroes we go.
Turns out the granny is a bit senile, Charlie is a grown man and an adventurer. He wants us to help him rob the tomb. We have to defend him while he opens a cursed tomb. The tomb contains nothing but a note. The note is from the brothers we helped earlier that had the dodgy book.
The hollow men turn up in frame rate distrubing force. After we have killed loads of them we get out of the tomb. We receive and augment for our trouble and charlie is reunited with his granny.
Love hurts
The gravekeeper wants you to collect body parts for his grisly experiments.
We have to go into a hobbe cave we were in near the start of the game. This time there are loads more hobbes, the frame rate begins to crawl.
I think they are trying to disguise it sometimes with the slow motion stuff.
Anyway we find lady grey's legs, she was a character from the first game.
Back to twinblades tomb which we were in earlier. We find the upper half of lady grey and take it back to the gravekeeper.
Must give a mention that in the tomb we enter small new areas by the use of the floating orb door lock puzzles.
Lady Grey's head is in her tomb in Fairfax. We go down inside and find her head and are then assaulted by beetles on the way out.
Giving the head to the gravekeeper results in a frankenstein like scene where we see lady grey being brought back to life, however, she is also under a love spell and fixates on the first person she sees which is us. Oops. The gravekeeper tells us to run for it and he will sort it out. We run and after a little while a message pops up to tell us we have completed the quest, the lovers have eloped, the mansion is up for sale and we get renown and the rod of life.
The dozy brothers have went to wraithmarsh looking for adventure. Their granny wants us to bring them back.
Our quest leads us down a well, where we find sam and Max being attacked by hollow men. We save them and they tell us about a nasty banshee they have let loose. Guess what we have to go kill it.
We go to bloostone and kill the banshee then back to Bowerstone to talk to Granny. She scolds Sam and Max and we get some renown.
Something rotten
We go to the inn at rookridge as something smells bad.
The innkeeper thinks it's the water and sends us to investigate, a troll has set up residence in the caves and we have to kill it and return to the innkeeper.
Who is happy and gives us a generous discount if we want to buy the inn. Which I do.
Better mentions some of the little things before I forget. There are chests which only open when you have a certain number of silver keys which you find dotted around the world. There are demon doors which open for certain conditions that are far from obvious. There are some problems with being in the right spot for interactions, especially with property signs and doors. There is little attempt at controlling clipping on characters, with lots of instances of characters walking through objects and others. Dog is the worst offender.
Two quests have popped up that I cannot start yet, Gravekeepers basement and Brightwood tower. I need to buy the two properties to start the missions. Both need an awful lot of money.
I take the highwaymans guild quest and have to go to their headquarters to sort out the hit that has been put out on me by Lucien. We have to negotiate by killing the highwayman leader. Quest over and hopefully the highwaymen will leave us alone now. They have been popping up to fight randomly more and more frequently.
we go to Giles' farm and meet Giles, his son Rupert is out of luck with the ladies and Giles wants us to help. He gives us a picture of Rupert and asks that we find him a nice Bowerstone lady.
Rupert it seems is as gay as they come.
We take the picture and give it to a lady in Bowerstone as asked, she agrees to a date and we go back to tell Giles and Rupert. At this Rupert breaks down and confesses. He also says he hates farming and wants to move to the city. They decide to sell up and move, offering the farm to us at a good price.
Slave rescue seems to be the last quest on the list before we move on, of course I think it would have been safe to move on earlier but i may as well do all the missions.
I do some sculptor tasks, which mean we pose for a sculptor for a statue, we have to hold the pose until she says and then hit the sweet spot on the swinging arch as it moves quickly back and forth. There are plinths dotted around the world which we can activate, and they then appear as places for the sculptor.
Back to the main quest.
Reaver is in the process of getting his picture taken by Barnum. He shoots Barnum when he learns that it will take three months to develop. I want to kill him now. Not least forgetting that he got us uglified earlier. Reaver informs us that he told Lucien we were here and is giving us up to him for a lot of gold. Suddenly the whole room shakes and one of Reavers men runs in a tells us that bloodstone is under attack. Reaver opens a bookcase hidden passage and goes to flee.
We follow him down through an old mine and smuggling caves to the beach where we have a boss fight with a larger spire floating pointy boulder and Reaver calls them.
Reaver is forced to join us by Theresa who tells him that there will be no one left to sacrifice to the shadow council for his imortality if Lucien takes over the world.
The weapon
Reaver questions what Lucien actually wants, it is suggested that the ressurection of his family was his first intent, however, who knows what the corruption of the spire has bred in his heart.
We go to thee standing stones above the guild cave and Theresa tells us all to stand in a pattern on the pedestals.
As we do a light shines from each of the three heroes and it looks like we are absorbing their powers. The light reaches a whiteout crescendo and we are left standing looking bewildered.
Theresa has vanished and suddenly the spires loom around us. Lucien and his commandants appear.
Lucien tells us that he will be king in the new order he will create from the ashes of this one. He tells us that he has killed our family and now is going to kill us. The others vanish leaving Lucien and our hero alone on the mountaintop. He comes forth to shoot us and our dog jumps in the way and takes the bullet. Little matter though as the next one find us.
We hear Theresa's voice telling us that death is not for us today.
We wake as a child in a house and our sister is with us.
On a lovely farm which I am sure never existed we have to find and shoot 20 bottles, herd some chickens into a coop and kill some beetles in a field. After all that it gets dark and our sister tells us it's time for bed.
We go to bed and are awakened by music in the night. We go to investigate against the urgings of our sister which get more and more strenous until she is screaming at us not to go. Ass we pass through the farm gates we are in Oakvale, of old the burning oakvale where the hero of the first fable saw his family slaughtered.
we reach a pedestal and the music box from the start of the game is floating and making strange noises.
We hear a quick montage of highlights from our quest so far and out sister's voice telling us that we have the power now to defeat Lucien. We appear in the spire.
Looks like the final mission is upon us.
We walk up the steps which are littered with dead bodies. Inside we find Lucien at the centre of the three heroes, power draining into him. He tells us we are too late to stop him, we use the music box and it starts to take the power from Lucien into itself.
There is some dialogue and then Reaver kills lucien with one shot and says.
"Oh, sorry did you want to kill him," possibly the funniest line of dialogue in the game.
Theresa then appears and gives us a choice. sacrifice, love or wealth.
I choose sacrifice.
And that was a rubbish choice, as I don't have any money to do the new quests which seem to need me to buy the houses they start in.
So first playthrough over, 595 achievement points.

Dead Space Notes

There seems to be 12 levels or chapters.
Choose the hard difficulty, for the achievements, hope i won't regret it.
Chapter 1
We start on a ship called Kellion which is approaching an ore rich system called Aegis. The mining vessel Ishimura is emitting a distress call. We have been sent to help and repair.
As we drop out of hyperspace or wormhole the view is behind our players head as he is sat in a chair on the bridge. We can move our view slighlty and see the captain and medical office having a little spat. The kellion approaches the Ishimura which appears blacked out and is not responding to any communications. The docking procedure goes wrong and our ship essentially crashes into it's docking bay. The others go off into the Ishimura leaving us on the bridge alone.
An objective added marker appears.
Our character Issac is watching a video from his girlfriend Nicole who is aboard the Ishimura.
We get out of our very small ship and find that one of it's engines is sheared off.
The captain and our medical officer with the security team are waiting for us at the door into the Ishimura.
We now have to open a door for them, which is as simple as moving to a flashing area on the door and pressing A, which seems to be use.
You walk and look with analogue sticks, view is third person. Left bumper is held down to run.
We have to go behind a security barrier to access the ships computers. Doing so shows us a schematic of the ship with damage highlighted in red. There is a lot of red. Suddenly quarantine flashes up and the lights go down, with red strobing emergency lighting everywhere, we are looking through glass at our team as they are attacked by creatures. We see at least one of them killed and the others running. We are told to run also as the creatures are coming for us as well.
We take the most obvious route with monsters all around us at our heels and end up in a lift. The door is almost forced open by a creature but suddenly the doors snap shut chopping it up. The lift takes us down and things are calm for a few seconds.
In the room we find a plamsa cutter. Written in blood on the walls is "cut off their limbs".
There seems to be no way out of the room until I try shooting the panel next to the door. This undoes the lock and allows us out.
A monster is attacking a man and attacks us, our bullets have little effect and it comes flying in and kills me quickly, melee isn't much use either.
Next time I aim for it's arms and shooting them both off kills it. The man in the next corridor is dead. The gun only had ten shots and I used them all on the monster. I find another six. looks like ammo is going to be a problem.
I find some credits, a health pack and an audio log in the corridor. The audio log tells us that they are using the vents to get around.
We enter the tram control room and receive a transmission from the Captain, who it appears is called Hammond. He wants us to get the tram system running again. There are several obstacles in the way, a fried data board and a tram stuck in the tunnels. The woman medical officer is as usual being obstructive and annoying. If i was the captain I would have left her for dead by now.
Looks like we have to move the tram and retrieve the data board. exploring the corridors off the tram control room reveals a maze like warren with bodies falling from vents.
Out in the tram tunnel itself we come across a fast moving door, it's broken and slamming shut with fatal force as evidenced by the chopped up bodies lying around.
We pick up a stasis module. Looks like some sort of bullet time system.
Firing the stais module like a weapon using left trigger to aim and X to fire shoots out a projectile that slows the door down enough for us to easily get by. So not bullet time just a slow motion weapon. will help us conserve ammo when dismembering the bad guys. Looks like we will have to recharge it however.
We come to a save station, where we save the game obviously.
The lights go out as we go along a corridor leaving us in darkness, when we aim our weapon we can see but only inches in front. Thankfully the lights come back on quickly. There is writing on the walls, it seems to be graffiti in an alien language.
Entering a room with machinery I pick up a power node from a wall locker.
I am in the tram repair bay and the tram is just outside on the line, huge robot arms are designed to bring it into the bay to repair it. One attaches by using the console, the other is malfunctioning and needs to be done manually.
It seems that the claw is going out and grabbing the tram but automatically releasing and returning. We are prompted to use the stasis module by an audiolog found nearby.
Using the stasis weapon to slow the claw once it is engaged gives us enough time to go and press the button to bring the tram in. That is that done, now onto the databoard. We have to backtrack along our route to the maintenance bay which our friends have managed to unlock for us.
Monsters attack and we find that the stasis weapon is going to be our friend.
Inside the maintenance bay there is a shell of a tram hanging from a crane. There are about four or five monsters and killing them all is hard. Not obvious is that square shapes on the walls with glowing lights actually open and provide health etc. You can also melee crates scattered around the place for items too.
There is a lift up to a crane control which takes up higher and the key is on the higher level. Going back down into the lower level allows us into the control room where we find the databoard.
This was quite a hard room lots of monster, they attack in groups of two, but are triggered by you moving around the room, so if you run about while shooting at them you can have around four attacking at once, pays to learn the trigger spots for them and to take it easy and use stasis and ammo sparingly. Trying to blow off a limb only take one or two shots, but at first you are panicing and using far too many bullets.
Also the stasis is easy to miss with and waste.
Inside the control room I find an upgrade bench.
I probably choose the wrong thing in the at first complex upgrade system, i end up having two more bullets in a clip instead of increased damage, which in hindsight would have been better.
wow that was a long trudge back to a save point, thankfully once you had got the databoard there was a checkpoint, but wonder if I had turned the game off would I have had to do all that again?
Saving anywhere at any time is a right, not something that developers can use to make games harder.
I get back to the tram control room, insert the databoard and everything is running again.
Kendra, which is her name I think and Hammond are going to the bridge, they get on a tram and leave arguing all the way. They send us back to the Kellion to try and get her flightworthy.
On the way the creatures seem to be avoiding me, until it seems they have been drawing me into an ambush.
Hammond gets to the bridge and finds a nightmare. He is going to try and get control of the computers.
On board the kellion we try and get a damage report and suddenly everything starts exploding. As we run from the ship onto the dock again it explodes and falls from view. The monsters turn up.
After killing them eventually. Had to look up how to get health without going to the menu, still not sure, think you press X while not on the menu screens.
Hammon and Kendra learn of the ships demise and Kendra is freaking out. Hammond suggest that they take control of the Ishimura. However we will need the captains control codes. The captain is listed as dead in the med bay. If we can get his rig/suit we will be able to hack into the computer. Hammond sends us to get the captains rig, as he does he and Kendra come under attack on the bridge.
we move through the lounge and the previously locked door to the tram station is unlocked.
In the tram station we find the shop. Using the credits I have found so far I can buy a new gun.
The line gun. I also buy some ammunition.
Getting into the tram ends the first chapter of 12.
Chapter 2
Moving the tram to the med bay we find a woman lying on the floor comforting a corpse. She seems blinded and does not know who we are, she carries on as if we were someone she knows and gives us a device, then promplty expires. The device is called kinesis and it gives us powers very similar to the force unleashed or the gravity gun in Half-life 2, we can target object and pressing B picks them up. Pressing the right trigger sends them flying away.
I find a schematic which adds items to the store for me to buy.
When we get to the medical bay Hammond contacts us, he has lost Kendra in the confusion of the attack. He tells us that we will need to get an explosive together to blow up a barricade which has been built near the morgue, presumably to keep the monsters from getting to survivors. Nicole worked on this deck, Issac hopes to find her, or learn what happened to her.
Going down a corridor on the med bay i find a whole load of corpses, thanks to a tip I read while looking for the health button I stomp on them all and dismember them. Apparently this ensures they don't get taken over later and attack you.
we go down the corridor into the med bay proper. A large open plan area with a pit in the middle.
as we enter we get attacked by about six or seven necromorphs.
After defeating the necromorphs we explore and find some more audio and video logs.
We hear someone called mercer talking about studying the necromorph's, seems miners have been turning into them down on the colony world we are orbitting.
We see the doctor and the Captain speaking, The captain seems to think something they have found down on the planet is God's work. The doctor is not so sure. They are planning to bring something found on the colony world back up to the Ishimura. They call it the marker.
Further into the med bay we find a room filled with tanks, in each tank is a baby. We see a baby that has turned into a necromorph kill a doctor. Entering the room the thing attacks us and is quickly despatched.
we make our way through the baby unit and into an office in which we find the thermite we need for the bomb. We can now get back out through to the main lobby of the med bay where the barricade is.
Time to go find the defib to blow the thermite.
We enter the imaging lab and find a text log, it tells of a colonist who murdered people for a reason they can't recall and state that they will kill again to make it whole. They are unable to sleep and display sociopathic and schizophrenic traits.
We use kinesis on a huge medical scanner to move it out of the way.
Also to plug a power cell into an opening to make a lift move.
Up on the lifts higher level we are above the scanner and have to move the scanner around to make our way to the door. Simple puzzle, however I am sure it will get more compilcated later.
More enemies emerge from the vents while we do this.
An audio log found in an office tells of religious people not caring a jot for anyone, they just want to find out if the thing is a hotline to god.
I severely doubt it.
We enter an area of the ship that is damaged. The air leaves as soon as we open the door.
we make our way through the damaged areas with the sky open to space, however, you can't dawdle and admire the view as your air is measured in seconds.
Once we get back into a safe area it repressurises and we are safe again, well realtively safe.
The zero g therapy area is a huge cylinder that seems more like a wind tunnel than therapy area. There is an ominous deactivate gravity sign.
This is fairly fun, you can launch yourself at certain parts of the room and then your magnetic boots stick you to the floor. Basically you can stand on the ceiling. it makes you dizzy.
You have to put a battery in a power socket to open a door in the large room then in a small office you find the defib. back out in the room two monsters arrive, they seem to dislike the lack of gravity as well and are easily despatched.
we have to fight our way back to the morgue door barricade, back through the zero g area and the medical scanner area with more beasties, little bug like monsters are introduced and they are a pain in the arse.
I get back to the morgue area and buy a new level 2 suit and some medpacks as those crawly things have nearly killed me and depleted my ammo.
I use the bomb on the barriacde.
We find a log from Nicole just through the door. She is asking for help with all the wounded. It also sounds like the necromorphs are about to attack at the end of the log.
The medical bay is large and well populated by necormorphs. it is a hard fight but i eventually manage my way through.
We make our way down into the morgue where we see the captains body being transformed into a necromorph by a new bat like flying creature.
we kill them and get the codes.
Day 2
Back through the med bay, a few of the newer harder to kill necromorphs that the captain turned into.
Hammond communicates with us what he found out using the computers. The problem isn't an infection, he thinks it's some kind of alien life form. they brought it up from the colony. The computers have turned up new problems also, the ships orbit is unstable and decaying. We will have to correct it or crash. Hammond wants us to go to engineering now.
Back to the tram and that is chapter 2 done.
Chapter 3
We take the tram to the engineering deck.
Hammond needs us to get the gravity centrifuge back online and also to refuel the main engines so he can stabilise our orbit.
as before when you exit the tram the first room you come across seems to be a hub for the mission objectives and also a place to restock and use the store. Which is welcome as I only had about one bullet left after the last chapter.
I take the route towards the gravity centrifuge first.
As we take to decontamination procedure for entering the centrifuge three necromorphs burst into the room.
After the decontamination we enter a long circular corridor, there is a smog and flashing lights and ominous sounds of large beasties. Does not look like a good way to go. Of course the other direction only yields some ammo and a power node. So back to the nasty looking direction.
Something big is making huge holes in the walls with ripped metal edges, we saw one in the med bay area too, but never found out what it was, I have a feeling we are about to.
Through the door is a save point and an air can, I have a feeling we are about to go zero g again.
The room is large with floating bodies and a large organic crysalis. Looks like we are about to meet a boss. A few small scorpion monsters arrive and give us hassle. We are in zero g again and can leap around the room.
There are two large clutches that need to be reinserted into the centrifuge using stasis to slow them. Two moro scorpions arrive when we attach them to the centrifuge.
Now it seems we have to turn on the centrifuge, which will turn gravity back on in the room. Looks like all the floating objects are about to crash down around us.
It's a trap, well not a monster trap but an enviromental one. The centrifuge spins and we now have to puzzle our way out of the room in around 50 seconds without the centrifuge turning us into a red smear.
You have to run around the ring taking shelter in safe alcoves. monsters attack, you have limited time due to oxygen and the monster mass is blocking the easy way round. Still it isn't impossible and I do it on about the fourth attempt.
A huge tentacle comes out of the holes in the wall that I was suspect about earlier. You have to shoot the yellow pustules to kill it. Otherwise you get dragged into the hole to your death.
i go back to the hub and then down into the engine room, large engines revolving in the distance.
You have to pull two levers down to refuel the engine. Gettinng back to the hub we have to pass through an impressive zero g excursion outside the ship.
Now we are down into the bowels of the engines, there is an overgrowth of organic matter like the hive in aliens. People are stuck in the walls and don't look well.
We come to a large room in the engine area, there are a lot of necromorphs wandering around it.
The engine controls are at the far end. We have to clear the room once, then trigger the engines, oh and clear the room again. By this time ammo is running dangerously low. This was a hard fought victory. The engines are firing and we are stablising our orbit.
Hammond and Kendra come back on the comm system and inform us that if we don't get the asteroid defence system online again getting back into safe orbit will be worse than crashing as the asteroids in orbit will rip the ship apart almost as quicky. We have to go to the bridge.
we take the shortcut back to the hub and tram system.
I buy the pulse rifle and flamethrower at the shop on the way.
Chapter 4
Kendra and Hammond argue like they're a married couple about him knowing of the marker. Kendra seems to think their mission is to retrieve the marker and take it back home. Which sounds like a spectacularly bad idea.
we encounter a tentacle grabbing through a broken window, it does not seem too much of a threat this first time we see it. I am sure the next it will kill us outright.
We enter the main atrium of the bridge, it's impressive, large with many displays and huge windows. The problem is that the windows show a view filled with large chunks of rock and debris. A huge rock ploughs in through the ceiling and smashes through the floor as we enter. Containment holds in the air but things look bleak.
In the captains nest Hammond tells us that we will need to get security down to get to the three relays we need to fix. He also warns us about something big he caught a glimpse of. I wish I could just shoot him in the head here and now, as I am sure that he or Kendra are going to double cross us. There is also a voice message from Nicole which seems to indicate she is still alive as well. I don't think she is, and whatever alien intelligence has absorbed her memories and is using them against us.
Our first boss battle, just as I was wondering how to get through the security door a huge beastie, humanoid in shape but armoured like a crab bursts through and attacks. We have to shoot it in the back to avoid hitting it's armour.
It's a hard fight but I manage to kill it.
Nicole pops up on the screens around us and asks us to make her whole again. Looks ominous.
I find a bench and use up three nodes upgrading the plamsa cutter.
Inside the security room I activate the elevators that take us to the relays.
When we get into the lift we see a video log which shows that it was the doctor that killed the captain trying to relieve him of command. Seems the captain wanted to take the marker back to the church. The doctor kills him accidently while trying to restrain him and sedate him.
An audiolog warns us about artificial gravity problems. we have to watch out for distortion on the floor, it could be dangerous.
Yes it is, the monsters come running at me and as they pass over the floor with the problem they get slammed up into the ceiling hard enough to kill them outright.
Darn it another of those brute things, how am I going to kill this one, I only have half the ammo that I had going to the last fight.
I pump every bullet i have into it's back and it does not die. At the other end of the room there is an area with a control panel. It seems to be one of the relay switches. I run for it past the beastie and manage to get into the room. The monster is unable or unwilling to enter the room as there are electrical cable flapping around wildly, touching them is instant death. I use stasis on them and get past long enough to flick the switch. Seems that the first of three objectives is complete. Now how do I get back past the monster?
Run like mad is the solution.
Back down the elevator to the main bridge. Three scorpions waiting for me.
The other elevator has an up and a down, which is a first. I pick level 3 and find another relay and reroute the power. There are another two doors up here, both locked, looks like i will be coming back up here later. Hammond thinks he is seeing things.
Down on level 1 now, a meteor pierces the hull near us and we are in vacum for a bit.
In the mining admin room more necromorphs await us.
Manage to kill them and reroute the power.
The asteroid defence system is now online, however a cannon is stuck. Hammond wants us to go and use it manually until he can get it repaired from the captains nest.
Low and behold we have to go back up to level one to one of the doors that were locked earlier.
A spacewalk with a difference here. A long run along the outside hull. Meteor showers come at intervals and you must be in cover when they do or die. Becomes an exercise in air managment and running for cover.
You get to the mass driver cannon and have to shoot incoming asteroids for about 2 minutes until Hammond gets the computers back online. This is quite hard and I needed about 6 attempts. I like variety in the mini games that keep a game fresh and interesting, I just don't like it when I have to be good at a mini-game to progress in the main game again.
We run back along the outside of the hull, I don't even stop for the two scorpions that attack out here in airless zero g. When we get back inside we get the next disaster report from our double act. The hydroponics bay which is responsible for our air supply is being covered up with the organic growth. Kendra thinks she can make a poison to kill it. Hammond is going to go and slow it down while we go to Kendra to get the poison.
new baddies appear hear, like little octopi made of gore. Hard to hit.
Buy the level 3 suit at the store.
Go to the tram.
Chapter 5
we are back in the medical deck again.
disappointing that they are reusing levels so soon.
Kendra tells us that there is someone else alive on the ship, apart from the enemies that is.
Someone has reprogrammed the locks in the medical deck.
Looks like the imaging diagnostics centre is the only way to go.
Inside we meet more baby monsters and the imaging suite is changed. The scanner is moving fast all by itself and there are sparks flashing above it.
There is a new monster on the wall, it shoots out lumps of meat that wave tentacles around and shoot at you.
I chuck a exploding barrel at it, basically because i only have one bullet left. Ammo is getting sparse. Surprisingly it kills it.
Now we have to cross the rapidly moving scanner bridge. Stasis is the way, but it's hard to time it right.
Getting past that Kendra tells you that you will need a sample of alien dna and some chemicals.
We can now get into the chemical research lab which was closed off on our last pass through here.
We pick up an audio log where an insane doctor is mucking about with sample tissue inserting it into an unwilling victim. Is this all our fault, not some alien takeover and perversion of our flesh, but a side effect of our own tampering with alien dna?
Looks like it, we enter a lab and find two monsters held in stasis fields. There is a console labelled batch mixer. Activating that gives us the chemical compounds that we wanted.
The mad doctor turns up in the next room through glass and gives us a speech about humanity being outmoded by his new creations. He lets the bigger one out of the stasis field to kill us.
We can't kill it, it soaks up all our bullets and does n ot even seem to notice. The only option is to run. We run back through the diagnostic suite with no bullets and a few little monsters on our tail. Back at the hub room Kendra tells us that we have to go to the icu to get her uncontaminated by human dna alien sample. Hammond sounds like he is in trouble in the hydroponics bay.
Entering the icu is big trouble, we have the bigger monster attacking along with a few others and hardly any ammo whatsoever.
This was really hard, secret is too turn the plasma cutter bolts sideways and chop off the legs of the baddies. With no legs their ability to chase is much less. If you run the big monster goes up into the vents and only comes back down if you stop running, so essentially you make laps of the room shooting at the baddies only when it's convenient, after a few laps you are starting to whittle them down. Eventually you kill all baddies except the regenerating big bad. Kendra gets the doors open and you are out. You make your way to mercers office and get the sample. Mercer tries to kill you by venting the air from the deck. You have to make it some way back to the hub room to restore the air manually. Now you have the two compounds you have to go back Mercers lab and mix them. All that remains now is to get back to the tram and take the poison to the hydroponics bay. Mercer isn't finished with you yet. He funnels you into a room where the leviathan is waiting. The room has a cryofreezer in it and you basically have to lure it into the machine and freeze it solid. You then get back on the tram for the hydroponics bay.
This was a steep difficulty curve, however i feel better prepared now for combat in the future. Now I know some good tactics.
Chapter 5
We enter the hydroponics deck and find a log which notes the hydroponics chiefs objections to the captain denying the colony their surplus food.
Find another toilet with some items and then down a long lift.
we find the first plants, behind glass, tomatoes, an automatic sprinkler system is watering them.
In the next room we find hammond, he is in bad shape. Finding it hard to breathe, he tells us not to take out helmet off. I presume this is an indication to some filtering, as we already know that Issac has only limited air supply when in airless environments. Anyway there is some chat about something very large in food storage.
There are also poison pods which are posioning the air. We have to destroy eight of them and poison the leviathan by putting our poison in the air supply for food storage.
In the next room is this decks hub.
Savepoints and shop time.
I find a long corridor with jets of liquid that fly out in timed intervals. The upgrade bench is in a room off of it. I upgrade the plasma cutter to full damage and it's actually a good weapon now.
The main hydroponics bay is a huge room with plants behind glass and some columns with vines. Looks good. I am ambushed by lots of necromoprhs as i enter this room.
I find two items in the main room along with lots of doors off that are locked.
There is a lift with two destinations up and down a floor and a system to activate plant feeding.
I take the lift up a floor and enter one of the rooms off the balcony. I get another message from Nicole asking to be made whole again and find one of the poison seeders. Killing it restores atmosphere in the room to normal and two bat aliens appear.
lovely now there are exploding enemies. I hate exploding enemies.
I enter an area with four huge tubes, the tubes are part of the air filtering system. Fire shoots along them at regualar intervals. Passing through them find us another poison seeder. Back down into the hydroponics main area again, more monsters turn up.
I find another poison seeder in a locked room by itself, an easy kill.
Back through to the hub room and the other door, for probably the other four poison pods.
The layout of the other chamber is practically a clone. Only in the main chamber one of the brutes is abroad. Killing the brute isn't too hard using stasis and line gun grenades.
I find a poison seeder in one of the rooms of the main area.
There is a simple stasis puzzle with a poison seeder down in an area under a glass cover, using a control moves the cover for a few seconds, firing stasis at the cover and then running around gives you a window of opportunity to shoot the pod from above.
God damn it another of those tentacles, they are only scary the first time, now they are just damn annoying and hard to shoot as your aim wobbles around all over the place as Issac is thrown around by it.
another zero g area with four babies and a poison pod to kill.
Up to the top area of the lift and i find the last poison pod. Kendra tells us to get back to the hub and go to the food storage area and cycle the air which should allow me in to where the leviathan is.
Kendra tells us she is having hallucinations, she saw her dead brother on the monitor.
Recycling the air lifts the food storage lockdown.
I am sure I am not going to like what I find down in food storage.
Putting the poison in hurts the leviathan but does not kill it. Looks like we have to go in and finish it off ourselves.
we find a huge cylinder in zero g. One end of the cylinder is taken up with a massive amount of the alien organic tissue. walking towards it is sends out three tentacles towards us. The tentacles sweep around and try to kill us. You have to shoot the yellow bundle of nerve tissue on each tentacle to kill it.
Avoiding them is quite hard using the clunky jumping mechanism.
Then you shoot into it's mouth. Doing this angers it and it starts spitting out lumps of tissue at you which explode on contact.
Then when you shoot the mouth a lot more tentacles run out, then you run out of ammo and get killed???
Wow that was hard, took me about 3 hours of trying to kill it.
Hammond is not responding, is he dead? Kendra wants us to go to the mining deck to send an sos.
Chapter 7
we take the tram to the mining deck.
We have to attach a beacon to an asteroid and launch it away from the ship in order for it's signal to escape the ships interference.
There is an area we need to get to with the launch controls which is locked however.
We find the hub room for this level fairly quickly with no real enemy interference.
Down into monster infested corridors with a four storey lift. Monsters jump into the lift with you making for a close quarters fight.
we find a text log that tells us that two asteroids are loose in zero g in the bay. We will need to deal with them also.
Entering the zero g bay we find a long tunnel with a gravity beam in the middle, large chunks of rock are floating free. The computer won't turn on the gravity while these rocks are free, we have to tow them into the beam using kinesis. Monsters turn up to the party to add to the fun.
Moving 4 rocks into the beam allows us to turn on the gravity.
Turning on the gravity opens doors letting in a whole load of monsters.
Dodgy checkpoint here.
I use a save point it ameliorate it, means a short walk each time i die but hey.
inside one of the rooms now open i find the mining door key.
We hear an audio log describing Mercer trying to get codes from other crew members
Entering a large room there is a horizontal lift car, we have to shoot at those lump monsters that shoot at you as we traverse.
Issac has his first full on hallucination of Nicole appearing on the other side and asking him to follow her.
We are across a chasm from Nicole and have to prevent her from being attacked by loads of monsters as she unlocks a door for us. If this is an halluncination i am wasting an awful lot of ammo. Seems that maybe nicole is alive.
We find the beacon in the maintenace room which Nicole unlocked. If she is a vision from the creatures then why is she helping us?
Kendra tells us to attach the beacon to the asteroid.
We can now take the lift to the area where the asteroid is after Kendra gets the security lockdown recinded.
We enter the asteroid room where a huge round asteroid is being held by circular bonds and stasis beams. We have to shoot four generators with stasis and hit their delicate insides to break them, two of them are out in vacum. Some monsters turn up to. The beacon has to be planted also on the rock.
Back to the control room where there is some batteries needing inserted into lifts again.
Up to the control room where we launch the asteroid and the beacon is working.
Kendra pops up and seems happy for a while, even though she is seeing her dead brother again.
We just saved our dead girlfriend from monster so we are not judgemental.
Whoops yet another fly in the ointment. The array fro recieveing a response to the distress signals is offline, even if someone hears it then we won't know if they are responding. Guess what we have to go back to the bridge to repair it.
as we make our way back through the area to the tram station we are attacked by loads of necromorph, including the harder slashers and the octopus type things.
Chapter 8
Back at the bridge deck Kendra tells us that a military ship has turned up, however, we can't speak to it.
In the main bridge we are assaulted heavily by bomber and hard slasher necromorphs.
We go up in a lift, and kendra tells us that she has opened the comm room for us. She also informs us that she thinks someone is listening in to our comm traffic.
the comms array room is flanked by two guardians.
new monsters in the comm room, like bodies animated by the octpus creatures, longer and taller and more annoying.
An audio log tells of a comms crew member trying to send a distress call before it all went pear shaped and being locked out by the captain.
A long horizontal lift ride looks like something is going to go wrong, however it doesn't, I am sure that the return trip won't be as smooth.
We find the huge comms array and lots of scorpions in the room with it.
You have to take our broken antennas and replace all the working ones in a circle aroound the hub.
I had to look up a walkthrough after doing a few patterns, a completely unintuitive puzzle.
Trial and error.
we get the array online and receive a signal from the military ship. They say they are on route and have picked up our escape pod. Only the pod was carrying a necromorph that Hammond trapped inside earlier. Kendra tries to contact them to warn them not to open the pod. She can't get through however, we need to open some blast doors to help improve our signal. She wants us to blow away an organic mass that is stopping the blast doors from opening with the meteor cannon.
we hurtle along the tunnel again expecting trouble, there is only a baby necromorph which gets splattered by the car.
Really running low on ammo again.
We go to the meteor cannon and have to shoot the tentacles away from a spider like necromorph perched on the doors. The thing chucks stuff at you to try and kill you, you simply have to shoot away all it's tentacles and it floats off into space.
Kendra opens the blast doors and gets a signal to the valour. We are in time to see the crewman being ripped to shreds by the necromorph. The Valour crashes into the Ishimura.
Hammond comes back on the comm, seems someone has been blocking him, either Mercer or Kendra are the only suspects, seems the misdirection about Hammond is going to show he is a good guy.
Hammond tells us of a shuttle on the crew deck. However it will need a singularity core which handily enough just crashed into the side of the Ishimura. we have to board the military ship and get it's core and install it in the shuttle.
Back to the tram killing all the usual necromorph aggressors.
Chapter 9
Hammond tells us that the valour was prepped for battle, as he is speaking it seems like he is cut off. kendra tells us that she has lost him, looks to me like she is jamming him. She tells us to get the singularity core.
We enter the cargo bay and find the valour imbedded in the side. There are large glowing spheres floating around. These are weapons from the valour, we need to clear them away before the airlock will open due to the high radiation.
The outer bay doors can be opened by shooting fuses. This lets all the air out, we then have to use kinesis to get the orbs out while keeping our air topped up. What would make it harder, oh yes loads of necromorph.
I plan ahead and move all the balls to the door. You would think that the huge suction of the escaping air would take them all out with it, however that would make things too easy. You have to punt all the balls out into space before the airlock on the Valour will open for you, I avoid the enemies and just concenrate on getting inside the ship.
Hammond tells us that the enhanced tech on the military crew is making for new bad guys.
We find the escape pod which started all the mess on the valour, you would have thought the five or six soldiers with guns would have been able to take on one necromorph, after all one engineer has killed hundreds so far.
We find the soldier necromorphs, a bit bigger and meaner, they look like they have overdosed on caffeine though, their movements jittery and very fast.
We find the torpedo room, Nicole appears and says something I didn't catch.
Hammond gets to the bridge and unlocks all the doors which should help, he conveniently can't get to us as the ship is almost sheared in half.
we get a message from another player, Dr Kyme, he seems as loony as Mercer.
We find the infirmary and there is a laser cutter going haywire.
Into the barracks and we find a text log suggesting that the military knew of the marker and also that there are possibly more than one. Again why so unprepared for the necromorphs if expecting them.
I buy the level four suit i am now entitled to.
Into the engine room proper and a puzzle with moveable shields to prevent the furnace blasts that are moving around the engine room.
We turn off the fire shooting 6 fuses and get the singularity core.
Hammod turns up and tells us the comms were down a super brute shows up and tears Hammond apart.
Then it comes after us.
Killing it in the usual fashion, hitting it's unarmoured rear.
A quick wlatz through thee ship to the airlock, only one scorpion in the vacum and we are back on the Ishimura and away on the tram to the next chapter.
Chapter 10
Joy of joys the shuttle is disabled. We need to find three parts for it's navigation systems. Also there are locked doors between us and the parts so a crew card is needed.
Can't Kendra come and get some of these things for us?
We enter a crew area, there are candles burning all around and crew lie dead. The difference is that they all have their heads wrapped in bandages and appear to have been killed with a wound to the forehead. Some kind of ritual suicide to prevent infection?
The hub room is spooky, mournful renditions of twinkle twinkle little star can be heard.
Ahh the text log explains it all. Unitology is a religion based on the marker. It states that we must die to ascend to a higher plane of existence. Also that the government has the marker and has been hiding it.
We go into the mess Hall and see Mercer stabbing someone in the head with a long knife. He is so going to get his soon.
This behind glass malarky is getting worn thin. I just want to get at Mercer now.
The mess hall is filled with the octopus type beasties that now reanimate corpses. We find the crew key in the Hall. Dr Kyme tries to speak with us again and asks that we come to the security station.
In the next hall a guardian is guarding a door which we open with the crew key once we kill it.
Another tentacle, some monsters and some switches to open doors.
A part of the crew area is in vacum and the frost lining it looks great.
Pity the area is full of monsters.
Back to the hub and down into another crew area where we find a zero g sports game court, of course filled with monsters and the second navigation part.
Back to the hub where a monster has reanimated most of the corpses into necromorphs for our fun and enjoyment.
The last part is hidden in an area where you have to slide bunks around too get into a little fortress. Looks like the survivors all went nuts as the last one blows her own head off as we get in. The unkillable regenerator makes another appearance as we get the last part.
Back to the hub.
Looks like it's time to meet Dr Kyme in the security area.
Kyme seems a bit loopy too, though it seems that the necromorph's are making everyone nuts. Kyme wants us to take the marker on the shuttle back to the colony, where apparently there is a hive mind nasty that is controlling the necromorphs.
We enter the executive sleeping quarters and find a log from the captain. He basically spells out that the church funded the mission with the express concern of getting the marker up from the colony, then quarantining it. The marker was to go back to Earth for the church not the government.
We find the shuttle and insert the nav boards. The shuttle needs a test firing of it's engines before the docking clamps will release. We do this and the regenerator appears.
We have to lure it into the engines path, shoot off it's limbs, hit it with stasis and then run in and test fire the engines again. This results in it rather satisfyingly being burned to ash. Regenerate that you annoying beast.
Then it looks like we are being had. Kyme turns up and we are locked in the shuttle control room. He tells us that he will fly the shuttle to the main bay and we can load the marker there. There is no option but to trust him. He flies off in the shuttle.
We see mercer ranting on with his usual crap and then he feeds himself to one of the transformer bats at turns into a necromorph. Nuts!
We find him as the bat is still changing him and a few well placed shots make short work of him.
Pity I was looking forward to shooting the bugger.
we make our way back to the tram and the end of the chapter.
Chapter 10
Back on the flight deck Kyme contacts us and asks that we collect the marker using a cargo loader and bring it to the flight deck.
entering the flight deck we find a room which was previously locked off. There is a huge cargo bay where all the cargo has been jumbled around, we are on a balcony above it all. Various necromorphs attack, including a new one with armoured legs which means you have to shoot it in the chest head and arms. Pressing a switch brings up the marker like one of those funfair claw games. Not very dignified. The marker looks like some kind of ornamental vase. We have to move it using kinesis to a loading lift and it vanishes away to the flight bay.
We take a lift back up to the flight lounge and are attacked by about 7 necromorph, seems they are just throwing the book at us near the end of the game.
we see kyme bring the shuttle into the bay. He wants us to bring the marker underneath the shuttle as the automatic loading isn't working.
We have to go into a control area and turn off the gravity to the bay, jump down and then move the marker using kinesis to its spot under the shuttle. The necromoprhs try and kill us. We have to switch portions of loading track to get to the shuttle bay that Kyme is parked in.
We then have to turn the gravity back on and get back to the shuttle.
Kyme is waiting outside the shuttle. As we get to him he is shot and killed. The shuttle takes off and leaves us behind. Kendra contacts us. She is an agent for the government. Well duh, I thought we all were. She knows the full story though. The marker is a second marker, only this one was built by human hand. Reverse engineered from the original alien marker found on Earth. The marker was taken deliberately to the colony and activated to see what would happen. The church and the Ishimura were unexpected guests to the experiment. Now Kendra is free with the marker and we are stuck on a ship full of monsters with no escape. The system is now cordoned off by the military, no rescue is coming.
Nicole comes back on the comm and tells us to meet her in the flight control.
We meet her in flight control and it does seem to be Nicole, although she does worryingly still say that "make us whole" again catchphrase. The monitors in the control room all start going crazy with the alien script. We can apparently take control of the shuttle remotely from Kendra, that will make a dent in her day.
Kendra is extremely pissed off and tells us we have made a big mistake, tell that to our plasma cutter darling.
Unfortunately we are denied revenge as she launches an escape pod.
Nicole tells us to go down to the shuttle and she will meet us there.
This is strange if the Necromorphs are controlling Nicole then why do they still attack me. Is Nicole a ghost? Is she really helping us from beyond the grave or is she a voice for the hive mind, and if so is the hive mind out of control of the necromorphs on the ship.
we get on the shuttle and Nicole appears beside us. She says that nothing can stop them now.
Chapter 12
We land on the colony and now need to unload the marker from the shuttle. The loader is offline however. We have to go inside the colony where the unitologists have been at it again.
Inside we find the battery needed to get the loader working again and use kinesis to move the platform over to the ship and the marker is unloaded on the tray.
A series of small obstacles have to be overcome to get the marker inside, opening airlocks and moving bridges.
Inside the colony looks pretty similar to the Ishimura, organic nonsense everywhere.
We have more pulling around of the marker to do. This time we have to lift bridges and hold them with stasis and get the marker under them. Necromorphs join the fun.
We come into another large area, two guardians are guarding a tunnel entrance. We go down the tunnel and turn on a switch which restores power to the bridges we can't get moving back in the main area.
Back up the tunnel is fun with spinning fans and necromoprhs, oh and another super brute just for good measure.
We move the marker under the bridges and then into another room where we gather health and ammo.
Looks like the final showdown as we move the marker under another bridge and into the next lock. As it opens we see we are outside and there is a big beasty with lots of tentacles waving around.
As we walk out of the base tentacle beast seems to retreat.
We move out a bit onto the long track and lots of tentacles arrive to spoil our fun. For the first time it seems like there is a never ending respawn of monsters. So I just make a dash for it past the tentacles. I move the marker to the end of the track under attack from tentacles and necromorphs and manage to get it to the end and press the switch there, a machine loads the marker onto a pedastal made of the same material. The necromorphs all scream and die and then we hear Nicole saying that they are whole now. The computer voice is warning us of a failure with the gravity tether keeping the huge chunk of asteroid in geostationary orbit. it is now coming back down with a planet killing bump. We go to the only available exit and enter a decontamination room. As it's cycling Kendra appears outside. She tells us that we are as mad as the rest, and asks us to watch the Nicole video again. It shows her killing herself with a syringe. Seems Issac knew she was dead all along and yet wanted so much to believe she was alive again.
The corridor takes us back into the first area of the colony we entered with shop and save points.
Out onto the shuttle pad and we see Kendra being splattered by a huge tentacle. The tentacle wraps around us and we watch in horror as the huge hive mind boss appears, it has an awful lot of mouths and tentacles.
we have to shoot a row of yellow things and then some more yellow things in it' belly. It also grabs us by the foot and throws us around a bit.
After the leviathan battle this seems easier.
After you kill it you reach the foot of the ramp and the game takes over for the first time. Issac runs up the ramp and gets into the cockpit. He fires the shuttle straight up on fast boost and we see him pass the asteroid on it's way down. We watch as the asteroid hits the planet with a bang and everything goes white.
Issac and the shuttle survive and we see him looking at the video logs again. He stops Nicole's log and looks like he is moving on. Suddenly Nicole is beside the co-pilot seat and screams at him like an attacking Necromorph. The credits roll.
You are awarded the military suit, backtory logs, 50,000 credits 10 power nodes and impossible mode.
I got 595 achievement points and the save game clock said 16 hours give or take a few minutes.