Mafia II Notes

Brightness, start game, difficulty, medium is default.

start A A A four button presses to get back into the game, is one not enough?

Present, whenever that is?
Zoom in on a window in a rainy city.
Vito is inside, he is sitting at a table looking through a family album.
He was born in Italy and moved to America.
We see the young Vito and his family arriving in what might be New York, though I don't know if this is a faithful recreation. Seems it's not it's called Empire Bay.
While the city is huge and awe inspiring, the accommodation that Vito lives in isn't.
Vito grows up and turns to petty theft. He is caught and arrested. Instead of going to prison he agrees to join the army and go to Sicily.

In Sicily we see Vito taking part in an attack, he is being aided by resistance fighters.
A captured resistance fighter is being held in the town square, it looks like he is about to be publicly executed.
We get control.

Controls
Left and right analogue sticks as normal. Third person view of character.
Left trigger is aim down sights
Right is shoot.
A is get in and out of cover.
Left bumper is climb.
Left on Dpad choose grenades.
Down on Dpad choose gun.

mission 1
We shoot the executioner then all hell breaks loose. Once all the enemies are downed in the square we have to move to the main doors of the headquarters. A machine gun is just inside the door so we have to climb in through the window.
Inside here we are prompted to throw a grenade through the window.
This blows up the machine gun nest.
Up some stairs, though a window and out onto a balcony we fight. Then we are to take use of an emplaced gun and shoot out from the balcony onto the main square.
After a while a cut scene kicks in and we are blown up.
Things look bleak as Vito lies injured as the enemy come in and kill any survivors.
A mafia don named Don Carlo appears in a tank in the square and basically asks for surrender. The men comply, this impresses the hell out of Vito.
Vito is injured and shipped home.

Mission 2
Vito is met at the station in Empire Bay by Joe a friend from his younger days.
Joe takes him to a bar and seems well connected as he arranges for Vito's injury to be exaggerated and gets him discharged from the army.
Vito is thankful.
We get control again and have to take Vito to his home.
There is a radar with the usual dots to indicate our destination to follow.
Inside we meet his mother and sister.
In cut scene Vito has a meal with his family, we are then told to go to bed.
After finding the bed and sleeping Vito wakes and tells us that he really needs to find a better place to stay.
In the room there are clothes to wear, outside we speak to Momma. She is annoyed that Joe is back in tow with us.
She wants us to talk to a dock supervisor and get a job at the docks.
We are told to go to Joe's
Outside we find our sister Francessca being harassed by a burly man.
We intervene and have to fight him.
After doing so in cut scene we find that our father borrowed money before he died, $2000.
This man wants it back by the end of the week.
I am told to go to Joe's.
I cross a little portion of the city on foot and get to Joe's apartment.
Inside he has two whores in his bed. He promises to find some work for us to help us out.

Mission 3
Joe wants us to meet someone called Gueseppe.
Joes take us outside to a garage and we get to drive his car.
Driving is the usual Sandbox stuff. Left and right trigger for accelerate and brake. B for handbrake and Y to get in and out of the car.
We arrive at Gueseppe's and he is the forger and safe cracking expert. He gives us our army discharge papers and Joe pays him.
He also seems to be the storekeeper.
We are told by Joe to buy a set of lockpicks.
Then we have to pick a practice lock.
It's a little mini game, lifting the tumblers until they turn green and getting all three to stay green.
Outside Joe tells us to steal a car, we do this by picking the lock.
A policeman sees us and we get a wanted rating.
We have to escape the police. which isn't that hard.
We now have to take the car to a body shop, where we get it sprayed and a new license plate.
Joe tells us to drive to Mike's Junkyard.
We meet Mike, Mike wants us to bring him stolen cars, for which he will pay us.
Joe gives us a gun and we have to shoot tires from a car and it's gas tank.
Now we have to drive to a bar where a specific model that Mike wants is.
The car is guarded by some black men who take exception to us stealing it.
A fire fight breaks out.
I then have to drive back to Mikes. The police are unshakable and I have to stop and kill the ones following me to get away.
Back at Mikes he seemed pleased with the car even though it's busted up.
we go back to Joe's and park our stolen car in his garage.
Inside Joe's flat we are told to take a drink from the fridge to heal and then sleep on his couch.

Mission 4
Moma calls and asks if we have been down to the docks to ask about a job.
Seems Vito feels guilty and we now have to go to the docks.
We meet Derek who gives us a job, Steve is given the job of showing us around.
Steve shows us down to a truck that needs loaded with crates.
We have to lift a crate onto the truck.
After a few Vito decides he doesn't want to do the job for the lousy ten bucks that have been promised.
We are told to leave, as I do Steve is waiting and after a conversation Joe's name is mentioned. This changes the tune and we are taken back to Derek.
Derek calls Joe to check we know him and then gives us a job taking haircut money from the workers.
We have to push around and threaten some workers then one resists, we have to fight him.
Derek gives us some money for our trouble.

Mission 5
We have to meet Joe at Freddie's bar.
Joe is meeting with a man named Henry Thomasino.
Thomasino want us to steal gas stamps from an office.
We have to go to the apartment of a woman named Maria, who has the information necessary.
We need to take Maria to visit her sister in hospital to get her to tell us the information.
I drop her at the hospital and she tells us how to get into the building.
I go around the back and climb a fence.
Inside we have to be a little stealthy and avoid guards, We can take them out stealthily if we like. I find the keys and the safe and get the stamps. The alarms go off and the police start shooting. I have to escape and get back to Freddies. Thomasino tells us that the stamps we stole are worthless. They have an expiration date.
We now have to take them to gas stations and redeem them before midnight to salvage the job.
I manage to take the stamps to 5 or six of the gas stations before midnight. You have to get to the gas station and honk the horn at the pump. This starts a small dialogue with the pump attendant and the stamps are sold.
Now I have to go back to Joe's and sleep to end the mission.

Mission 6
We have to drive back to Freddies bar where we meet Thomasino and Joe. A man by the bar is shouting at someone on the phone. He comes over and tells Thomasino to do it. Seems our job for the night is a go. We have to rob a jewelry store, whose owner has not paid back money he owes.
We dress as phone company workers and drive to the mall. Picking a lock gets us inside.
In cut scene we are robbing the store as another gang ram raid it. Things are getting tense and the police are also arriving. We run through the mall being chased by police, there is some shooting though we have to basically follow Joe. We fight some police on the rooftops and have to negotiate a narrow ledge.
Down the other side of the building we see the other gang led by someone called Brian O Neil being arrested. We have to get back to Joe's to end the mission.

Mission 7
A woman comes to us and tells us to meet Joe for lunch. When I go outside she is being harassed by a man who rear ended her. I beat him up, she promises us sex, though Vito declines at this point in time.
At Freddies we meet Luca, the higher up guy that gave the nod for the last job.
Luca asks us if we are ready to kill for him. Vito tells him that as a soldier that was what he did for the government.
As Luca leaves an even bigger fish comes to him and berates Luca about a mistake he has made.
We are to kill a distillery owner who is causing trouble.
We have to pick up a heavy machine gun, we meet Harry who is a gun toting veteran.
Then drive to the meeting point.
Inside the building opposite we wait for the man we need to kill to show up.
They arrive and we shoot them up with the machine gun from the window.
The target escapes inside and we have to go inside and get him.
When we do he shoots Henry in the leg. We then kill him. Now we have to escape with Henry wounded. Joe carries him.
We have to escape the distillery and get Henry to a private doctor.
The money we get from the job is enough to pay our father's debts.
we have to go to our mother's house and give our sister the money.
back to Joe's to save the game.

Mission 8
Vito is arrested for the gas stamp robbery. Vito is sentenced to ten years in prison.
We see Vito arriving in Prison, having his head shaved, being beaten up and eventually getting to his cell.
Joe sends us a message and asks us to contact one of the family contacts in the prison.
In the prison yard we have to find Leo, when we do the Irish idiot we let get busted on the jewel heist finds us and we have to find him.
The fight is stopped and we are put in solitary.
Leo comes to us in solitary and thinks we are useful.
We have to fight one of his men and learn a new counter punch move.
Leo is amused to hear that Luca is asking for 5 grand to enter the family, as it should be free when you have proved your loyalty and worth.
we now have to meet the gym guys and then fight a Chinese fighter.
We go back to our cell and then it's another day.
We follow a guard and are taken by one of Leo's men.
Leo wants us to fight someone, we fight someone in the laundry.
now we get a visitor, it's our sister. She is getting married and our mother is unwell. Vito tells her to go to Joe and get his money, to pay for a doctor and the rest is a wedding gift.
Next we have to go clean some urinals??
We are told to shower and a gang try and have sex with Vito in the shower.
I fight them and am shoved in solitary. A letter arrives, our mother is dead. Our money is used for her funeral.
When we get out Leo tells us that O Neil has attacked his main fighter, we are asked to take care of him.
We now fight O'Neill and it ends in him pulling a knife and we take it from him and kill him with it.
Leo tells us that there are three crime families in Empire Bay. He seems impressed with us and tells us that he is getting out soon, he will try and adjust our sentence. Obviously we will need to work for him on the outside though.

Chapter 7
Four years knocked off the  sentence Vito is released.
We go and see Joe.
He is pleased to see us and asks what we plan to do. We ask if we can still work with him.
Joe now works with a different crime family.
We drive to our apartment which Joe has got for us, we are told to pick up a suit.
Now we have to go to Joe's where we meet Eddie, then we have to drive to a brothel.
Here we are asked to work for Eddie. Then everyone but Vito gets drunk.
We now have to go do some business. A very drunken Joe and Eddie inform us that the business is a corpse that is in the boot of the car.
I drive out of the city to a suburban park area and we have to bury the few days old corpse.
Then we have to drive back to Joe's.

Mission 8
Joe arrives outside our flat with a truck.
We take  it to a place where men gather to buy cigarettes form the back of the truck.
After a few hours, thankfully skipped past a police car arrives, buys some fags and tells us to get lost.
We drive to a new place and start selling again. a gang arrives and tells us that this is their turf, they want our fags as payment. Joe refuses and the leader tells his gang to hurl a Molotov into the truck. Joe shoots him in the face for the trouble
We then have to chase the others as they flee.
There is no way to chase the fleeing car. We now have to find a phone and call Eddie.
Eddie is displeased to say the least about the loss of the truck and fags.
He wants us to meet with Steve, from the docks and do something about the greaser gang.
We drive to a bar called the crazy horse, which is a greaser hang out. It seems empty Steve wants to shoot it up and then firebomb it. I don't see what the shooting does that the firebombing won't burn to the ground, though Vito seems as unsure about what is going on as we do.
The young kid that was introduced a little while back is brought along, I sense his death coming very soon.
Now we go to the factory where the greasers are and start an all out war.
This is a corridor shooter type section, and the simplicity really shows here.
I run out of bullets at one point and there is no opportunity to find more.
After the long corridors are passed through we find some cars.
We can make the money back for the truck and fags by selling the hotrods that belonged to the greasers.
I have to drive the car to the dock, sell it and then drive to Eddie and give him the money.
Now we drive home to finish the mission.

Mission 9
joe calls and asks us to meet him at the bar. Eddie is there and gives us an introduction to Falcone, the boss of the crime family.
Seems the family that we were involved with before have kidnapped one of the accountants.
We are to find this accountant and rescue him, also to kill Luca if he is involved.
I am to drive to the bar and wait for Luca to leave.
I then have to follow him.
Hilariously Luca hits a police car and the game gets all confused.
I end up being unable to move and having to quit.
Eventually the a.i. or cops manage to let me get to the slaughterhouse.
We have to sneak inside, a man outside tells us that the sewer is the only way in.
I go to the sewer and sneak inside.
We see the men being brought into a building in handcuffs.
I have to sneak inside in a little stealth section avoiding guards.
Then find Luca interrogating the men.
I have to fight one hand to hand then we have a fight with the men.
Eventually I kill them and Luca gets his at the hands of the men he tortured.
We now have to go back to the bar and meet Eddie.
He tell us to go and get cleaned up, as there is something important.
We meet with the bosses of the Family and are taken into the family.
Both Joe and Vito are now fully paid up mafia men.

Chapter 10
We have to meet Eddie over at Joes.
We have a new house of our own now.
At Joe's the big boys are there and it seems that the death of Luca has been the cause of all out war. We are planning to strike at the heads of the rival family.
Joe plans to bomb a meeting at a large hotel.
I have to drive to the hotel, the kid and Joe are with us.
we park in the parking garage and the kid is told to wait in the car, he is the getaway driver.
Joe and Vito get cleaners uniforms.
As we go in a man asks us to clean up some mess.
Henry passes by with a bleeding prisoner.
we go up in a lift.
The mob have taken over the entire floor and we are told that someone has tripped and fell in the conference room. we have to go and clean up. We are left alone in the room to do the job and and we plant a bomb with a wire going out the window.
Then clean up the blood.
Now we go to the roof, however, there are men there so we have a shootout on the roof.
I get to the window platform and have to tie up a cleaner.
We go down to the window and attach the wire to our detonator. Then go up a few floors and blow the conference room.
We go down and find a lot of dead mafia, however Clemente has survived by going to the toilet. we go after him.
There are still lots of guards around.
I chase Clemente into the lifts.
Then down through the kitchen and into the parking garage.
They have killed the kid. Joe is very angry about this.
We now have to chase Clemente's car and eventually  run it off the road.
Joe kills Clemente.
We see Joe talk to Eddie about it and he is upset that nobody cared about the kid. Both Eddie and Vito point out that Joe was the one who wanted him to come.
Joe tells Vito to go home, where the mission ends.
Or so we think, late at night Vito gets a call, seems Joe is drunk in a bar and waving his gun around.
The bartender wants us to come get him.
This may be a trap.
Joe is there just as the bartender said and he is waving his gun around. He ends up shooting the bartender totally by accident.
We have to take Joe home, then take the body in a car and dump it in a car crusher then drive home.

Chapter 11
At Vito's house the  doorbell rings.
It's Henry, he knows we were responsible for the bomb and the hit on Clemente.
He wants to bail on what is left of his old family which isn't much.
He asks us for an introduction to ours. We take him to Eddie who asks him to kill Leo.
Vito does not want this to happen.
We have to get to Leo before Henry does.
When we get there Leo tells us that Falcone is into drugs and that is why the Vinci family are starting to move against them.
Henry arrives and we try and sneak out but are caught.
Henry is prepared to talk. and we decide that Leo will vanish and Henry will tell Eddie he killed him.
We have to drive Leo to the train station.
Then we drive home.
Francessca is on our doorstep in a state, her husband is abusive and a drunk. Vito is going to talk to him, which probably will end up with blood everywhere.
I go to a party and find Eric almost having sex with a girl in the kitchen of the party.
we fight him and warn him to be nice to Francessca.
We are to go back home.
Francessca calls and basically tells us that we are a monster for beating him nearly half to death.
Vito goes to sleep, he is awoken by the Irish chucking molotov's through his window.
We have to escape the fire, then the guns of the Irish.
We are told to go to Joe's.
We arrive in our underwear at his door and Vito is hot to kill some Irish.
Joe gives us some of his tasteful clothes and we go after the Irish.
We go to their pub and find the men who attacked us. A gunfight in the pub then a chase through the streets after the leader.
We are given keys to an apartment of a friend of Joe's that is empty.
We drop him off and head to the apartment.

Chapter 12
We are to meet Joe and Henry in the park.
Henry has a drug deal he wants us to get in on.
We are to meet a loan shark who will give us the money we need upfront.
the loan shark is greedy about his cut and we end up needing to give him 20,000 of our profits from the job.
We go to meet the Chinese and the deal goes down, as we leave police arrive and something is wrong with them, they aren't real police and shooting starts.
We have to escape and then avoid pursuit.
We then have to take the drugs to our buyers.
A cut scene shows our gang becoming fully fledged drug dealers.
Things don't last long though, the mafia learn of our under the radar dealing and demand a cut. Henry wants to meet us in the park to talk about this.
When we find him he is being cut up by the Chinese. We follow their boss wong back to a restaurant and bust in shooting.
We make our way through half the population of Chinatown and eventually come to the boss.
He tells us that Henry was giving information to the narcotics cops.
He also won't give us our money back. Joe shoots him and now we have to get out.
We leave the restaurant and it's underground drug lab and come out to loads of police.
After escaping we go back to Joe's
We now need to find lots of cash for the loan shark and the Triad's think the mob have started all out war.

Chapter 13
Joe calls, he has a job from Eddie, we need to find 55 thousand today.
The job is a hit, we have to kill a Mr. Angelo.
However Mr. Angelo is under fed protection and all hell lets loose when we kill him.
After escaping we still have a lot of money to make today.
Joe suggests splitting up, we are to go to Derek at the docks and see if he has some work.
At the docks Derek wants us to help him keep the workforce in line, which is threatening to strike.
We go in an armed group to meet the union. Derek basically threatens them with broken hands to get back to work.
Seems a crate fell on one of them and Derek has fired him.
One of the men hears Derek say Vito's name and recognizes him, seems we look like our dad.
He delights in telling Vito that Derek had his dad drowned. Vito asks Derek and Steve basically confirms that it is true.
Vito turns on Derek and we are now helping the dock workers fight Derek and his men.
We fight along the dock and then into the warehouse.
Here we are attack by a lot of men and firebombs.
the fire-bombs are a damn nuisance as their area of damage seems huge compared to the actual fire visually.
There should be better checkpointing as well.
nowhere is safe inside the warehouse.
the shooting gameplay is shit really, guns can't be trusted to actually kill people, you need to shoot in between animation frames.
Eventually I hide in Derek's office and manage to kill him.
We get his money and now have to find the rest of the loan sharks money before the deadline.
I do this by giving cars to brewski's crusher.
We now have to go to Joe's, he isn't home. We go to look for him.
We are told to go to meet Eddie, Eddie tells us that Henry is dead and the tong's killed him. He asks if we have had anything to do it.
Vito denies it, which seems stupid as there must be an awful lot of people who can tell Eddie that they did.
Vito now goes to Gueseppe who tells him that Joe was taken by Vinci's men.
We go to a bar and are met by vinci's men who take us to Vinci.
Joe is being tortured, vito is hung up beside him.
We escape and have to fight our way out of the skyscraper building site.
Once out we have to take Joe to the mafia doctor.
Joe tells us to take the money to the loan shark.
I do and the debt is settled. Vito hates the loan shark Bruno even more after he learns that he was the loan shark that loaned the money to his dad.

Mission 14
Eddie calls and asks that we meet Carlo at the planetarium.
On the way a car stops and people with guns ask us to get inside.
Leo is in the back with the boss of the Tong's. Leo knows what has gone on and isn't happy with us. Though he owes us and has called in some huge favors to help. Turns out that Henry really was working for the feds and Carlo Falcone is close to being arrested. The Tongs want us dead and so does Falcone, the only way Leo can appease the Tongs and control the mafia is to have Falcone taken out of the picture.
We are to kill Falcone.
I get to the planetarium and it's all out war.
After some actually nicely designed fight scenery we get to Falcone in the planetarium itself and Joe is there, it seems that he is going to kill us on Falcone's order. He doesn't and we both fight Falcone and his men.
After we kill him We leave the observatory and find Leo and lots of men outside.
Joe gets in one car and we are told  to get in another by Leo.
We drive off and Leo tells us that the deal he did said nothing about Joe. Looks like Joe is going to take the fall for the disaterous drug deal.
The credits roll.

Achievement points 650 for one play-through of main story on normal.

12:21 on in game timer

That is a decent amount for playing through the single player campaign. I have always maintained that for completing the single player all the way through in a game there should be at least half the points. I don't want one hundred percent for a single player game, but two hundred or so is not enough for completing the game.

Killzone 3 Notes

It want's me to use the move controller, silly game, no!
Oh look an update, what a surprise, 58mb of an update, no background downloading means that I can't even go and look at the PSN store or something while I wait. Enthusiasm dented.
Five and a half minutes later and I am back where I started, here we go.
Select language.
I choose alternate control schemes as it's closer to the COD standard.
A quick text resume of the story.
We are an ISA task force sent to Helghan. We have invaded the Capital Phyrus and on the edge of defeat Visari the dictator leader of the Helghast has nuked his own city.
Visari has been killed by an ISA soldier named Rico and the Helghast are rising up in anger.
A cut scene shows Visari speaking to Radec and Stark. It also shows his daughter.
A montage shows how Visari has led his people then turned on them.

Difficulty is Recruit, trooper, and Veteran. There is an unlockable Elite.
I chose trooper.

Controls
Left and right analogue sticks are the usual move and look around.
Circle is use.
Square is reload.
Cross is jump.
L1 is aim down sights
R1 is fire.
L2 is use cover.
Clicking left stick runs.
dpad switches between weapons.
Select brings up objectives.

A cut scene shows a Helghan leader talking to a huge assembly of soldiers, with a fleet of ships in the sky.
Looks like the Helghast are going to wage war.
A bunch of Helghast ride in a cable car up to a remote icy base.
The car arrives at the station and I disembark. It seems that I am a Helghast soldier for the moment.
I am told to report to a desk and I go through a security checkpoint.
I see a prisoner shuttle arrive and Helghans herd prisoners into the station.
I am told to go to the shooting range.
I then follow another Helgast to the broadcast room.
Seems there is to be an execution.
We see the Sting or Malcolm McDowall lookalike who may be called Stark telling the Heghast that the big attack starts tomorrow. However, to whet the appetite the killer of Visari is to be executed. I see Narville who is captive about to be shot. However the executioner pulls of his hood to reveal Sev the hero.

Fade to black and it's flashback time.
Rico and Sev are arguing on the steps of Visari's palace after his death. soldiers try and revive him and fail.
Narville is pissed and tells us that the ISA is evacuating the planet.
We are joining the convoy.
Helghast ships appear overhead and start shooting at our heroes.
There is much confusion and shooting and vehicles flying in all directions. Sev and Rico are in a tank jeep type thing and end up going over a cliff in a comedy style.
With the jeep busted we are on foot looking to rejoin the convoy.

Mission 1
We progress through the ruined city fighting Helghast.
After a few fights Rico and Sev have a little chat. Sev is angry still, though it seems he can't be too angry with Rico for long.
I fight my way through a spider zoo??
The convoy can be heard in the distance.
We have to clear and open a gate for the convoy.
I fight some Helghast and come to the gate wheel control.
The damn annoying sixaxis bits are still here I see.
The convoy is attacked by some green electricity. It seems random and not intentional though.
The convoy is held up until we can find another way.
Rico boosts us up to a ledge.
In cut scene we see some Helghast collecting some of the green stuff.
It gets on Rico's hands.
We break into a building and fight some Helghast inside.
The convoy is being attacked by anti tank wielding Helghast and we have to get up to the roof to take them out.
I have to use a door breaching charge here, again sixaxis use.
We catch up with Narville and the rest of the convoy now.

Mission 2
Narville is frosty towards Rico still.
Sev thinks Narville's plan is a bad one.
We are moving along a highway. A walker is clearing the way, however it is attacked by a mechanical Helghast weapon. It blows and we are on our own again.
I can revive Rico if he is downed using a health ray.
I progress down the road and the tanks follow.

Mission 3
Narville is told that helghast cruisers are approaching.
He wants to continue punching on through to the crater and extraction. sev and Rico think they are all going to die.
A cut scene shows the Helghan brass planning to wipe out the ISA forces.
Stark it seems is a private company head and weapons supplier. He it seems resents the new admiral and wants power for himself.
Now we have a fun emplaced gun on a jeep section. Lots of tanks and soldiers to shoot at.

Mission 4
We come to a gun battery that is blocking the way. We see a squad who have been sent to take it out struggling to advance against machine gun fire.
Rico stays with the squad and Sev goes to higher ground to flank the machine gun nests.
I flank them and then encounter snipers.
Now we have to provide sniper fire cover while the troops attack the arc weapon.
Lots of snipers to kill then to help them mop up the ground troops. I watch as the soldiers lay down the charges and blow up the arc cannon.

Mission 5
A woman called Jammer calls and asks for help.
Narville tells Rico to stick to the plan.
We see a  large electric weapon attacking the cruisers.
Rico and Sev find some walkers to use.
We have a short ride through some road type terrain shooting at tanks and soldiers with the walkers.
Rockets and machine guns, and the walker move the same way as humans do only slowly and more jerkily.
A large Helghast machine can be seen in the  distance blowing things to bits.

Mission 6
Rico wants to go and save Jammer. Narville tells him not to and typically he goes off to do it anyway. I suppose he is already up for court martial anyway, what harm can it do to disobey more orders. maybe he has a death wish and wants to just be killed by the helghast rather than face a trial.
Sev tells Rico that he will come with him, Rico tells him that someone has to get Narville to wait.
I encounter a flamethrower Helghast here.
We now fight through a trench like area avoiding normal Helghast and flame troopers.
I get to the end of the level and a cut scene kicks in.
Sev gets to Narville and lots of Isa soldiers are being lifted on the little hovering platforms to the cruisers. Things do not go well. Rico is left behind. The cruisers are attacked by the large Helghast machine which knocks two of them out of the sky causing huge explosions. None of the ISA ground troops it seems are getting evacuated.

Mission 7
We see more of the Helghan power struggles, Stahl makes a play for power, he has an ally among the generals who moves for a vote of no confidence in the Admiral. However, nobody seconds it. Stahl throws a wobbly and leaves, taking his toys with him. This ruffles a few feathers as it seems Stahl's weapons are of great importance.
It looks like he will get his way soon.
The cut scene switches to the ISA, it is now six months since they were left behind and they have set up makeshift camps and are finding slim pickings for rations. Morale is low.
A recon team has gone missing and we are sent to investigate.
The landscape here is jungle like, though a deadly spiny jungle. There are spiders and jabbing plants. Also explosive plants.
After a little walk a cut scene shows a Fast moving assassin creed rip off Helghast attacking a soldiers and killing him. Seriously did they have to copy the wrist blade lock stock and barrel.
We now have to sneak up behind normal Helghast and kill them stealthily.
We also have to snipe a few Helghast and shoot an exploding plant that some are standing near too.
We are told to hide in grass and stick to the shadows.
I come to a cut scene and Sev thinks that the camp has been compromised. In the shadow of one of the wrecks of the downed cruisers there is a large build up of Helghast soldiers.
Sev thinks they know where the camp is and are ready to attack it. Narville is more concerned with an uplink to Vekta than the camp.
We now have more of the same stealth sections to negotiate.
We meet up with some of  the robotic walkers as well, as long as we stay in the shadow or in the long grass crouched we can move amongst the helghast slowly.
A cut scene kicks in after a while and we see Helghast shooting an ISA soldier with a gun that shoots the green energy, it seems to hurt a lot then make you explode.
I progress and eventually get to the uplink. This allows Narville to speak to his superiors. They tell him that Vekta has surrendered to the Helghast and that he is to surrender as a prisoner of war. This does not go down well.
The Helghast it seems have traced the signal and dropships head for the camp.
Sev is also attacked at the uplink.
I have to fight a squad of Helghast and one of the spider like robot machines.
Then I make my way back through the jungle to the base, fighting Helghast all the way. Flame troops, and hunters appear.
At the base we are to hold off the Helghast to make time for the evacuation.
I move on into the base and a cut Scene shows Narville under fire. He tells Sev to make for the rendezvous points. Sev does not listen and comes to aid Narville.
I fight here for a while but it looks like a losing battle. After a good few minutes of being overrun a cut scene kicks in.
Sev and Narville fight loads of Helghast but are eventually Captured and put into separate aircraft.
The aircraft fly on to an arctic area and Sev is taunting his captors. He manages to provoke one into hitting him and grabs his knife and stabs him. A harpoon flies through the side of the ship and spears a helghast before ripping the door out. Rico is here on one of the flying carpets. Sev gets over to the carpet and wants to go after Narville. Rico thinks it's stupid, yet it's just one of a long line of stupid plans. Off the gang go after Narville.

Mission 8
We are using an emplaced gun on a flying carpet.
Here we shoot at oil rigs type installations. Shooting at structures and soldiers. We shoot down some dropships and attack another rig. In the process we are shot down in cut scene.
We now have to make our way to a safer place to get picked back up.
After fighting through a living area type military structure we have to fight jetpack wearing soldiers.
Once done we get a jetpack, the plan is to go in under the anti-aircraft guns and blow them up.
I fly across icebergs and up inside the rig. Fight some Helghast on top of it and blow up the  anti-aircraft gun with a charge.
Now we are on to the next rig.
Here we have other jetpackers and ground troops to deal with. I have to shoot a bit of the rig to drop a door down so I can reach across to it.
Rico tells us that there is  no way up from under the rig to the top. We will have to put charges on the supporting pillars and blow the rig up that way.
I fight along the rig and place the two charges. I now have three minutes to get clear.
Quite fucking irritating here, death quickly from above that you can't see and shit checkpointing.
After learning the positions it's not that hard, but a sudden difficulty spike it is.
The rig is blown and Sev is picked up.
The gang attack but a huge gun is pinning them down.
We have to get large explosives to take it out.
We have to go to the right of the gun and progress through heavy helghast occupied territory.
Then use a new mounted weapon called a wasp to take out the gun. Tanks arrive as well.
I clear the harbour area and go through a door.
Now we are progressing up a hill.
getting into cover is a hit and miss affair.
I fight my way up the hill and into the arms facility. After getting to the cable car a cut scene shows Sev taking two uniforms.
We are now back to the beginning of the game entering the Stahl facility.

Mission 9
We are now back to the start of the game only this time we don't do the same things as we did before. We go off in a different direction????
After some wandering around the facility we get to the execution and a cut scene shows Stahl broadcast to the Helghan population that he intends to perform a coup and take over the leadership of the planet. The army generals are understandably miffed.
We try and shoot Stahl instead of Narville, however he gets away.
Rico frees Narville, though he still holds a grudge.
We now have to get the other prisoners freed. I fight through the facility a bit, there are some new guns here, though ammo is limited.
Electric and green energy zapper.
sev has seen something that he does not like, possibly plans for a weapon of mass destruction.
I fight through a large lab type room and then have to hold position as rico opens a locked door.
Inside there are plans and details that show a weapon that can destroy Earth from orbit. I thought they were Vektans?
We move through more of the factory and jetpack troops attack.
Narville tells us that he had freed the prisoners.
We meet up with him and find ourselves outside, where we can pick up a jetpack.
After killing all the men in the yard we face two aerial fast moving drones.
A cut scene shows Stahl preparing his weapons to leave for Earth, the generals interrupt with a call and basically tell him that he is finished and to turn the weapons over to them. The intend to kill him after he does. Stahl it seems has a few tricks up his sleeve.
Narville and the rest are rescued by Jammer on the flying carpets.

Mission 10
We are chasing after Stahl's crusiers, using an ice sled.
After this fun little interlude is done a cut scene shows the fleet massing at a space elevator.
We are moving through a junkyard towards the space elevator.
We have to blow up some barrels to make a path at one point.
A cut scene shows a fence around the area light up and it seems to use the glowing green stuff. If you don't move you don't get blown up. Sev and Rico decide that a large mobile factory might be used to breach the fence.
We now move through the junkyard again, a bolt gun is the new fun weapons here.
We have to climb a crane to break through to another area and face waves of enemies up on top of the crane.
Now we face one of the heavy armour guys from the second game.
After this a cut scene shows the gang getting onto the mobile factory which seems to eat up the junk and turn it into raw materials.
We now fight our way up the platforms and stairs of the factory.
Then down into the control room.
In cut scene the mobile factory drives up to the fence and knocks a hole in it, nearly killing everyone in the process though.
Narville now wants something that Rico Doesn't, the usual arguments though this time Rico on Sev's recommendation complies.
We fight through an area filled with helghast and come to a cut scene. the gang are moving forwards, so obviously something has to go wrong. A huge mech spider appears and starts blowing everything to bits, time to retreat. Sev goes to find a weapons bunker.
When we fight through a trench which is surrounded by vehicles and men being blasted by the large mech a cut scene starts.
Narville, Sev and Rico do what they do best and argue, Rico even punches Narville this time.
Eventually Sev gets across that saving their own lives isn't an option and they must save Earth or die trying.
Sev chooses to attack the mech's flank.
We now have a large scale boss battle.
We are just below the mech, which towers above us shooting, We have to use the wasp to blows bits of it off. When it fires it's main gun radiator fins come out and dissipate heat. Shooting them off will make it overheat eventually, so that seems to be the plan.
Troops and tanks also run interference, with the fire coming from the mech being hard to avoid as well. There are little bunkers, though they get shot to bits fairly quickly.
After blowing it a cut scene starts.
Things look ok, then quickly things look bleak, the mech, which i think is called a MAWLR appears to be badly damaged but not borken yet and attacks, it looks like Jammer and Narville are killed.
Sev takes it badly and as usual goes looking for something to shoot at.
We have to make our way to an elevator. Then a cut scene shows assassins coming to kill Sev, he is saved by Narville and Jammer on a magic carpet and then rico saves them.
We now have to ride a magic carpet which is driven by someone else and shoot anything on the Mawlr that is shooting back. Once done we shoot up it's gun mount and the gun falls off. Then it's bridge and it's downed.
A cut scene shows more arguing then the gang going up to the space station using the space elevator.
In space Stahl is up to no good.
We fight along a corridor and into an airlock.
In cut scene Stahl and the Autarch meet, there is some banter and Stahl turns his own weapons the military, his cruiser against the rest and he has much better guns.
The Autarch isn't down and out though and he stabs Stahl and kills his guards.
Now the Helghast are fighting amongst themselves the ISA decide to try and take out Stahl's ship.
Sometimes when you get wounded you know that you aren't going to get saved. The time here is wasted and it's annoying.
Gravity is turned off here for a bit, only to show that the programmers could do it.
We turn a wheel and open a door.
There are lots of soldiers, a heavy and flyers to kill.
Stahl and the autarch have a final fight and the Autarch is killed. Stahl leaves for his cruiser and tells his men to blow the station, even though his own men are on it.
Now we fight along a corridor and eventually get to the ships.

Mission 11
In space we are using the guns while Rico drives. we shoot some small ships with gun and rockets. Then come up on Stahl's crusier. We fly around it shooting it up. It is disables and starts falling out of orbit. Stahl tries to land it and we give chase. After avoiding incoming rockets for a bit we can launch a nuke. The nuke blows up the ship and chain reaction of the green energy spreads around the whole planet.
Everything in space is destroyed. Jammer tells us that the whole planet is silent.
Sev asks how many people were down there and the credits roll.
During the middle of the credits a cut scene shows Stahl's guards coming up to an escape pod type device and saying welcome home sir, though Stahl is not shown.
then more credits.

9 hours 30 minutes.
26% of the trophies.

Crysis 2 Notes

Update time

Set up brightness, choose hard drive to save on.
Oddly I can resume game, even though I have never played it, oh, no I can't it's ghosted, although it didn't look like it until I moved the selection highlight.

Difficulty next, Easy, normal, hard veteran, all dressed up in silly names.
I choose Normal, because, well I am normal, not a supersoldier really at all!

Controls
Usual analogue sticks for looking and moving.
B is crouch.
A is jump.
Y changes weapon. Double tapping Y brings out grenades.
Left trigger is aim down sights.
Right trigger is fire.
Dpad up for visor.
Clicking right stick is melee.
Clicking left stick is run.
Right bumper engages cloak.
Left bumper is armour mode.

We hear a radio sports broadcast, over shots of New York.
There is talk of an alien plague that has leaked from a biolab. Then all of a sudden the news reports show riots in lots of cities.
The game itself starts, I am in a submarine in the Hudson river.
We are part of a marine squad that is being sent to extract a scientist named Gould from New York.
There is some brain donor style marine banter, seems we have been drinking, it's given as an excuse for  our character not talking.
Pretty quickly the confidence drains as the sub is hit by something.
We are told to abandon ship.
There are fires and water everywhere.
We escape the sub and swim to the surface.
There is lots of destruction and the statue of liberty is nearly destroyed in the distance.
Something red comes up from underwater and flies above the swimming men and starts killing.
We are hit and everything goes black. Our character is named alcatraz, and he isn't dead yet.
We see someone in a nano suit come to the rescue and shoot down the alien craft.
He tells Alcatraz that destiny is a bitch and it's all up to him now.

The credits then play with a video showing a nano suited warrior fighting against humans.
Showing off all the different modes of the nano suit. Stealth, armour, strength etc.

Second Chance
Alcatraz wakes up in a room, he finds a body nearby. In flashback we see that the nano suited warrior was named Prophet, he has given Alcatraz the suit because he was contaminated by something. He tasks Alcatraz with protecting Gould. We see him shoot himself.
We have to break a padlock to escape the room.
Outside are large cages filled with dead bodies, there are dead yellow suited workers as well.
I pass through some more devastation and a call comes in from Gould asking where Prophet is.
We are taught to power jump across large gaps.
Gould tells Prophet that he has to find the marines. He already has, obviously Gould does not know.
I am shown how to jump up to a floor above by grabbing a ledge.
I open a door and am looking out over Battery park, Liberty in the distance.
We are shown the visor function. This allows us to tag enemies and see supplies highlighted on the display.
fist we have to find ammo for our pistol.
I then kill two soldiers.
We are told to head towards castle Clinton.
Inside we are shown the stealth feature.
I take out a soldier and then there are two more inside the castle.
They are talking and it seems that prophet has went rogue from the military and the nano suit is being blamed for spreading the plague.
It appears we have suddenly been locked into a suit that is public enemy number one and everyone seeing it thinks we are Prophet.
I kill the soldiers and am told to leave the fort via the roof.
Now in battery park there are more soldiers.
He I see the system the game employs, being gung ho gets you lots of heat. Being stealthy allows you to sneak around and pick off enemies.
They will go around in patterns, until you make a noise, then they come and investigate.
There is also a fairly good cover system, which see you leaning over cover by aiming when next to cover.
I fight through the area which seems to be a processing centre where people were screened for plague.
Inside the decontamination area I am told to stealth kill a few soldiers.
We then go through a large decontamination machine and force open the doors.
Looks like tutorial is over.

Persona Non grata.
I am now in the Wall street area and I am shown an alien floating between the buildings.
I negotiate the barricades and come to a fight, I am shown armour mode which allows us to take punishment at the cost of suit energy.
I find some more soldiers burning bodies.
This is a big fight, each area where you find enemies seems to have a set amount of solider to kill. There is the option to be stealthy, to hide and even just pass by the enemies without engaging them. By accident I found sewers that would let me pass under the soldiers.
I take the gung ho approach as usual and fight it out.
I enter the subway and find some infected people who are still alive, but look far from well.
Gould tells us that there may be a lot of activity in the  subway.
There are little biomechanical bugs running around doing things with the bodies of the infected.

Sudden Impact
We are shown an intercepted transmission. The military have no cure for the nanovirus that is infecting people. They are now just shooting people instead of trying to help. They are also designating us as public enemy number one as well.
An incoming alien threat is detected.
I find a shotgun here.
There is something going outside, something noisy. As we pass between two buildings in a walkway a huge alien ship smashes through it hotly pursued by two helicopters.
They shoot down the alien ship. Gould sounds excited, he wants us to get samples from the ship, he thinks if we can get him samples then maybe they can roll back the invasion.
We have to fight down a street filled with loads of soldiers then at the crash site clear some more soldiers.
We have to investigate two pods which are empty.
Then find a way down to the crashed ships innards. We use a lift to go down under the crash and scan the gloop that has came out of the ship. It seems that it is melted down human tissue. Gould wants alien tissue.
We come back out of the hole in the ground and find our first alien. It grabs us and it seems to be trying to work out if we are a friend or not. The suit can't interface with whatever it is sending on a nano level. Gould tells us to kill one and get a sample. I do so and we now have the ability to upgrade the nano suit by taking loot from the alien bodies.
I am told to take the sample to Gould.
I pass through a tunnel and find the soldiers fighting the aliens, at least they are off my back.
We pass along the tunnel and fight some aliens.

Road Rage
Gould tells us that there are new protocols unlocking in the suit. Someone named Hargreaves is named as the author/designer of these upgrades.
Gould is still needing us to get to him fast.
I pass through a sewer type area and come out to see a helicopter nearby. In cut scene we see Lockhart, the commander of the Cell forces we have been fighting talking to someone named Tara. Tara wants Lockhart  to take Prophet alive, and Lockhart tells her that Hargreaves only need the suit back really and he is going to kill Prophet.
We are now passing along Franklyn D Rosevelt drive to get to Gould. There are lots of soldiers to shoot at along the way.

Tectonic shift
We have to make our way through a cell checkpoint set up on the road, what is left of it after an earthquake knocks it down.
We then get to drive a vehicle with rockets along the road and fight lots of vehicles and helicopters.
Then we have to go back on foot.

Lab rat
Gould has fled to a nearby safe house, however he realises that the address is on his computer, which he is sure the Cell forces will be trying to crack. We have to go to the lab and destroy the computer.
I fight a lot of soldiers in a dock like area then get into the warehouse lab.
Inside the lab I destroy the computer, then have to deal with a swat team type attack on the main room and a helicopter circling the outside.
Survive long enough to blow up the helicopter and you can escape through the hole in the wall it makes when it crashes. I run along the docks and back into the city.
We are now in the building where Gould is.
He is pleased to see us and urges us to sit in a chair which will check out the nanosuit.
He learns that we are not prophet and is going to attack, until he sees the memory taken from us of Prophets last words and his suicide.
Gould tells us that the alien virus is related to Kalamari. Hargreaves designed the suit but it seems to be evolving on it's own thanks to the injection of alien dna.
We need get the new code analysed and see if a cure for the spore can be made. However Gould does not have the equipment. The safe house is attacked and we have to fight off the Cell.

Gate Keepers
We have to get to a Cell base which has a suit cradle. That is the only way the analysis can be done. There is one nearby, though heavily guarded, Gould thinks that by using a tunnel we can access through the wall street church we can sneak in.
I have a long trip over the rooftops before encountering some alien vs Cell fighting.
I have to kill both of them really.
Next we go through a building and out the other side to find the Wall street Church littered with Cell. Gould suggests we cause a diversion so he can sneak inside.
We have to set off two ammo dumps and fight off the cell that are stirred up.
We then go into a door under the church. Here we see an alien cloak.

Dead Man Walking
This is a straight fight across three rooftops with lots of sniping.
We have to blow open a door to get down inside the building.
Inside we meet Gould, he shows us into the suit room which only had one operator.
Holding him at gunpoint Gould gets us to sit in the chair and we find out that the only thing keeping Alcatraz alive is the suit now. His wounds are massive with extensive bone and organ damage. Essentially the suit is now a life support machine.
Lockhart and Tara Stickland arrive and take over. we are escorted out of the building, to be taken to Hargeaves. The fact that we are not Prophet is made known to Lockhart. We are bundles into a helicopter and flown away, as we are taking off a large alien device errupts from the ground and the helicopter is knocked out of the sky.
We are affected by gas which is released from the alien spire. It kills the soldiers around us but after some nano confusion the suit reboots and we have to use a defibrialtor to restart our heart.
Aliens attack in increasing numbers, we are told to leave, a manhole seems to be the way.
As I head for it a cut scene shows meteors flying from the sky, larger enemies appear from them and attack. Everything goes black.

A flashback that seems to belong to Prophet shows scenes presumably from Crysis 1 of suite soldiers and aliens.
I wake up being swarmed on by the little spider aliens.
Hargreaves talks to us, he tells us that there is something we need to see in City Hall.
On the way we pass through an evacuation centre which is full of the dead and some dying still left alive.
Hargreaves tells us that the spiders break down the bodies so reducing enviromental impact.
We now have to fight past aliens to get into city hall.
We come out into a large open area of wrecked street and rail line.
There are lots of aliens to fight.
Hargreaves tells us about the aliens, though not too much and it's obvious he admires them.
We fight through the area and encounter one of the larger aliens which takes some killing.
We then enter a tunnel.

Dark Heart
Hargreaves tells us that there are plans to blow a flood barrier which will flood the lower end of Manhattan. He does not think this is a good plan, though he it seems isn't in overall control.
We are now in the Subway and Hargreaves is urging us to go to the alien hive and investigate in the hope of causing harm.
We pass through tunnels passing wrecked flaming trains and fighting aliens.
Then we come to a large open area where we have to take out all the aliens then disable an alien machine. Hargreaves tells us that we must continue on doing this.
Another spore conduit is broken. Hargreaves tells us to hurry as the flooding is about to take place.
I take out the last conduit and Hargreaves tells us to get up above ground as quickly as possible.
I run to the surface and towards a helicopter, however it's too late the flood catches me.

Semper Fi or die.
I come to and find a squad of marines, I thought everyone else was dead?
I escort them to a location that is safe to defend. Then I have to scout on towards their extraction point. I find another squad further on, we see a helicopter which has come to take them to safety. Of course the aliens object and their pods drop in. One of their dropships also gets in on the action.
Lots of aliens between us and the objective.
We come to a defensive position and have a little last stand, some waves of enemies and then the dropship to shoot down with missiles.
Hargreaves tells us over the comms that the suit is now evolving into a powerful bioweapon against the Zeff.
He needs us to get a stabilising agent from his labs. Our mission is now to get to and into the Hargreaves building.

Corporate Collapse.
After a short trip through some extremely broken up city we reach the building. I am accompanied by a few marines now. One is named as Chino.
I have to find a gun turret to blow open the locked doors to the parking garage of the building.
The garage is sunken under water and we have to swim.
Inside the building we find some soldiers who are it seem not wanting to follow Hargreaves orders anymore. They still think that we are Prophet and want a fight.
I fight my way to an elevator and then to a security area. It is empty and the computer is in the middle. As I access it Lockhart appears on a big screen and it's an ambush. He obviously opposes Hargreaves.
I kill the soldiers sent to kill me and now have to reboot the security system.
The huge windows here are underwater, an alien appears at the glass and breaks it causing a huge tsunami. We crawl from the water and talk with Hargreaves, he is mad and is going to deal with Lockhart. He tells us to regroup with Chino at Grand central Station.

Call to arms
We move through some sewers and broken up areas hearing gunfire and shouting. It seems that there is a battle going on between the army and the Zeff.
We find a new alien, it is called the pinger and it seems to use ultrasound blasts.
It takes a few rockets and c4 blasts to kill but it goes down fairly easily.

Train to Catch
We are now assisting in the military and remaining civilian evacuation.
Hang on if there is a plague why are there soldiers with no suits and why are we evacuating, won't that spread the plague.
I cross a street and help some pinned down soldiers then a dropship arrives and bombs the hell out of Grand Central station.
We have to reactivate two anti aircraft batteries which take out the dropship. We then have to go into Grand Central Station, the place is burning and we have to use armour to pass through the flames.
Out the other side and more enemies to fight.
Here we have more mini bosses and lots of squiddies.
We now get aboard a convoy of vehicles filled with soldiers and civilians.

Unsafe Haven
We still assisting the soldiers evacuation. They are being hit by fire from a large gun and we are to block the line of fire to buy more time.
This is a large area which is filled mainly by road. We have to progress along it fighting until we come to a locked door, which is opened by pressing a switch.
This is the building that is to be brought down. Inside we have to hit three switches to arm the bombs then get out.
We are to make out way back to the station when the man with the detonator is killed. We now have to go and find his body and detonate the bomb.
On the way back to the station a miniboss appears.

Terminus
Now we are to escort the trains as they depart.
We are challenged by freaked out soldiers and making our way past suited tech's who are tending the disease ridden civilians.
We pass through a gate and see that the Cell soldiers have been disarmed and caged.
In the next area we meet the military brass and Gould is with them.
Gould is told to get on the trains with the rest of the civilians.
The military leader believes that Tara Strickland let him go as there is no way he could have got away from her if she didn't let him go. We are told that Tara is a decorated Navy Seal.
We see the trains and the civilians being put aboard.
The Zeff arrive back in the main hall and we are sent to buy time for the trains.
Here we fight lots of Zeff soldiers a mini boss and a Pinger.
We are given a vehicle and ride emplaced gun on it, we are going to Times Square.

Power Out
We are told that we have fifteen minutes to get to Times square where Vtol jets are ready to take us out of New  York.
We have only fifteen minutes before they leave.
Now we have another hold position scene, this time in Times Square.
Pingers and mini bosses with lots of Zeff squiddies.
Next we go through to the vtols and see a lot of them take off. We are chatting as the last few come in to land and take people away, the ground starts to shake and a huge spire erupts from the ground.
Hargreaves comes onto the radio and tells us that we are all going to be dead in under a minutes if we don't do as he tells us immediately.
We have to go inside the spire, a door opens conveniently and we go inside.
We are drawn up inside it and the suit communicates again.
We are chucked out of the spear high up and land with a bump.
The spire sends out it's spore though this time it kills the Zeff.
Not them all though the Pingers are alive though badly damaged. We have some quicktime like button presses to survive and jump onto the helicopter.

Eye of the storm
We are to go to Roosevelt Island and get Hargreaves from a place called the prism.
We jump from the Vtol and land on the Island. We are now fighting Cell soldiers again.
I progress along the island and into a building. Inside Hargreaves tells us that Lockhart has set an emp trap for us.
I fight through an elctric sub station.
Hargreaves wants us to re route the power so that the emp trap fails.
I smell a trap from Hargreaves here.
I go in and reroute the power and then have to get back out in the darkness using nano vision.
Back outside we are heading for the guard tower.
This is the trap and it does not harm us, seems Hargreaves is on the level so far.
Lockhart is angry that we are not dead.
I have to escape down a grate and then back out at the guard house.
Now we have to kill Lockhart, which is done by storming his nano shielded room and throwing him out the window.
Hargreaves tells us that he is opening Prism and we are to come to him.
I do and this time it is a trap. The EMP goes off knocking the suit Offline.
Tara Strickland can be seen coming towards us.

Masks Off
We wake up in an operating room and Hargreaves is talking over video link. Two soldiers and a doctor are in the room. Electronic systems start cutting us out of the suit.
Hargreaves tells us that he is sorry for this and that a grunt just won't do for the job.
We see flashbacks to Prophet and Hargreaves arguing about the suits being symbiotic and that they turn soldiers into dead men walking.
Hargreaves tells Prophet that to beat the Zeff something more than human will be needed.
Tara Strickland comes in and kills the guards and takes us away with her.
Back on our feet she tells us that Hargreaves found Zeff technology 100 years ago at Tunguska.
Tara tells us that we need to get to Hargreaves and kidnap him. She tells us to do it while she secures a helicopter.
I go on into the secure area and eventually find Hargreaves study.
He is augmented also using alien technology. His body floats in a tank while he talks to us from a video screen.
He seems to sense defeat now and grudgingly tells Alcratraz that he must do the job.
He tells us to take an injection that rises from the desk.
The aliens it seems lived on Earth a long time ago. Their machinery is still here deep under the surface.
They have not invaded us they are coming home and as Hargreaves puts it not much liking what has grew behind the fridge since they have been away.
Zeff dropship into the room and it goes on fire. I escape through a door.
We now have to get off the island. Hargreaves has set a self destruct timer in action.
We have to get across the bridge back to Manhattan, there is a lot of fighting between Zeff and Cell here. Hargreaves  has ordered them to help us now.
The bridge is blown when the island goes up and we see a cut scene of us barely surviving the devastation.

Out of the ashes
Gould and Tara meet us when we crawl from the water.
We get into a vehicle and are going towards Central park.
The main Zeff base is under the reservoir in central park.
We have to get the suit in there and it can nano virus attack the Zeff.
There is a driving sequence where we shoot lots of Zeff with rockets and a cannon.
We are blown up and have to go on foot.
There is air support available, though we need targeting aid.
I have to go inside a building and go to the roof to provide targeting for the air support.
There is a drop ship that we have to mark and it is shot down by a jet.
Now we have to get back down.
We fight across rooftops and when we reach a view above central park half the park starts to rise out of the ground.

A walk in the park
We fly into the raised spire that has risen up out of Central park and I am dropped onto it.
We have to make our way over the uneven and sometimes vanishing entirely ground here.
I fight two large groups of enemies in what is left of the park, I find myself battling at the Bethesda fountain.
Here we have to break the Ceph machines like we did earlier.
One machine
Two machines.
Three machines and we have to slide down a pipe that falls from the spire.
Now we fight nanosuited enemies that can cloak, they are hard to kill.
Once I kill them I enter the heart of the ship. I have to make my way along a corridor against what appears to be a strong wind, though it looks like I am on fire.
There is some quicktime and I jump into the heart of the spire.
It looks like Alcatraz is dead as everything goes white.
A view from outside shows a pulse of white energy coming from the spire which kills all the Ceph in New York.
We see Gould, Tara and civilians looking around pleased and celebrating.
Prophet appears and tells Alcatraz that they may have won this battle but they haven't won the war. Looks Like Crysis 3 is on it's way. I see Alcatraz get up and someone speaks to him, I miss his name, maybe Rasch. The nano suited figure declares himself to be Prophet.

12 hours by my reckoning
10 hours on in game clock
315 achievement points for one playthrough on Soldier / normal.

Homefront Notes

Patches already? only been out half a week.

No difficulty choice?

Controls
Usual analogue sticks
X is pick up / use / climb etc.
B is crouch / go prone.
A is jump.
Y switches weapon

Clicking left stick runs, right stick is melee.

Right bumper is grenade.
Left bumper is C4

Clicking left stick sprints.

We see news, North Korea testing nukes, UN sanctions. kim Jong Ill dies and his son takes over. It is 2013 and Korea is united, the middle east explodes and oil is scarce. It is now 2017 and everything is going to hell. Korea is taking over and is now called the Greater Korean republic invading all it's neighbors. A satellite is a a secret EMP weapon that knocks out USA power. The Koreans invade America.
The montage of stock footage ends with America invaded and it's people subjugated.

Mission 1
The game starts in a small room, the radio tells us that we are in Colorado.
The door is hammered on and three soldiers barge in. We are forced against the wall and one of them tells us that we are unpatriotic.
We are smashed in the face with a rifle butt and kicked down the stairs.
Outside loads of people are being herded around and we are dragged towards a bus.
We are herded onto the bus and as it drives slowly along the street we see about fifty people being tied up and cuffed, loaded onto vehicles. Some resist and are beaten, some run and get shot. A mother and father are lined up against the wall and shot in front of their very young child.
We are told by another bus passenger that these people will be taken to a labour camp.
The bus drives through a security checkpoint into a deserted broken down part of the city.
A lorry rams it and rolls the bus. A rebel comes aboard and knife the soldiers and sets us free. we run through a shop and are followed by soldiers. I get an assault rifle.
The people we are with are Connor and Rhianna, seems they targeted us for rescue for some as yet unknown reason.
I fight though some buildings and come to a petrol station, we fight from inside the shop as trucks filled with soldiers arrive.
Eventually it all blows up and we run off into a suburban area.
I am told to wait as a tank and loads of  soldiers pass down a street then sprint past behind them.
I come to a crash site of a plane and we fight soldiers through the wreckage.
The grenade indicator is the same as call of duty. In fact an awful lot is similar.
An APC needs C4 thrown at it and detonated twice.
We move into a civilian area and meet another resistance man. He seems to have some sort of plan involving gas and us being a pilot.
He is angry that Connor brought us to this residential area. He is proved right as the army arrive and starts shooting everyone, rebel or innocent.
We have to defend a house under heavy siege until tear gas is thrown in.
Then we run, a woman with a baby is hidden in the backyard and we run on to draw the army away from her.
We move into another house and the rebels have some heavy gear of their own. We get to use a humvee that is driven by remote control. It just needs pointed at stuff and it goes and shoots at them for us.
I use it to take out a few enemy vehicles and then a plane comes and bombs the area.

Mission 2
I wake up in a house, seems to be a rebel settlement, evidence of children and plant crops.
Boone and Connor argue about the timing of the plan.
After exploring the eco commune we are asked to go on a mission with the rebels.
We go through a tunnel and are told that the resistance built loads of similar tunnels.
We come up into another street.
There is an automatic sentry turret here, it is a chaingun connected to sensors.
We have to throw a grenade at it and stay out of it's searchlight beam.
Then we meet a patrol and fight them.
We then meet up with Rhianna in a school. She has some mortar shells.
Boone has been wounded, he is taken home by Rhianna.
We are going to recon a labour camp.
Recon seems to mean full frontal assault to these people.
We have to fight our way up a street, using back alleys and take out a sentry tower.
Seems we are looking for someone inside the labour camp. The full on attack at the front gates is a diversionary tactic.
We sneak inside using a tunnel and ditch our rifles, keeping only our pistols.
We are told to ask around for Arnie.
A slow walk around the camp reveals intense hardship, like an Indian slum with armed guards.
We find Arnie, who is meant to be leading us to some buses we are going to do something to.
Not very good at explaining the plot here guys!.
Anyway Arnie is a double crosser and we are captured. In slow time we shoot our way out.
We have to climb some stairs and take out all the guards on the balcony above where the two rebels are pinned down.
We then go into the guard station and take three beacons for some unspecified reason.
The plan is finally explained. We are tagging three fuel tankers. Which we will then be able to track. The plan is to fly out following them to a remote location where their support will be negligible and take the tankers.
We come to a baseball field and find the army digging mass graves with loads of victims to toss in.
We fight our way around the field until we take out two towers. We then have to evade a helicopter gunship. To do so we hide amongst the bodies.

Mission 3
We see Boone back to health and we are going on another mission, getting into a van.
There is a mortar in the van.
We are to be a sniper.
I follow rhianna up onto the roof of a building.
We are now looking down onto a walled yard with lots of soldiers.
The van is driven into the compound and crashed, it is designed to bring the soldiers towards it to kill more of them. The weapon we saw earlier is used, white phosphorous. It is a mortar shell that  goes up and then rains down a flammable substance which coats and burns anything below, including people. Lots and lots of soldiers die. We get to snipe. Then a second shell misfires and nearly hits us, lots of rebels and Koreans are caught in this blast.
We have to run through flames towards a tower. Which is then brought down by a helicopter.
We are nearly killed by a soldier when the goliath makes a reappearance.
We attack a more soldiers and vehicle using goliath.
Then we go inside a building and fight lots of soldiers.
We come out into a yard and find the tankers. They are leaving and we have to run to them and throw the tracking device onto one.
We then shoot up some soldiers and regroup.
We go back inside the building for some reason and shoot up some more people. The place is coming down around us and on fire.
We go to some stairs and head up. We are told on the radio to get to the parking lot, weren't we just there?
We go out and use goliath again to shoot soldiers.
We then have to sprint to a truck.
On the truck we have to use goliath to take out pursuers.

Mission 4
We are back at the little homestead, only the Korean's have been to visit. Everyone is dead and it is all burnt to the ground. Boone lies dead in the middle of it all.
Rhianna is distraught. Connor tells her that they have to go.
We are ambushed in a street and have to use goliath. The soldiers target goliath using rockets.
We then have a tank to deal with.
We are heading for the wall now, a wall built around what I don't know.
The Koreans are bombing the hell out of the civilian town in retribution for the resistance attack.
Rhianna is despondent, Connor tells her that we must honor Boone by carrying out his plan.
we meet some fairly banged up resistance fighters and make a plan to breach the wall.
Connor wants all the c4 they have to be placed on goliath and use it to ram and blow a whole in the wall.
We progress to some well defended barricades and must storm them and open the gates.
There is a little bullet time sequence here where I burst through a door and shoot people with a shotgun.
really bad checkpointing here.
We have to take out about four rpg armed soldiers and then open the checkpoint door.
We then have goliath arrive and shoot it with an rpg. This blows a hole in the wall. We steal an army humvee and drive through the hole. This is now an emplaced gun section.
We are told that we are going to a farm to collect a helicopter.

Mission 5
We are told about life after the EMP, which saw modern civilization break down, food became scares and countryside areas became dangerous places, cannibalism is hinted at.
The farmers were known to Boone, Hopper who is Asian is told to wait outside.
The chat with the farmers doesn't get much past the fact that Boone is dead, their leader seems to think the deal is off and just wants to have Rianna as his sex slave. Fighting breaks out and we are into a head on gunfight with the farmers.
We regroup after the first group of farmers and are now going to sneak in and steal the helicopter.
In not so subtle terms we are told this is a stealth mission. We are given a sniper rifle.
The farmers are redneck nutjobs, who were probably batshit insane before the war.
There are hanging bodies and Korean heads on pikes dotted around.
We follow a scripted path and see that the farmers are acting the same way that the Koreans are towards their prisoners. Is this a lesson on how war dehumanises people?
We shoot a few snipers in high places and watch as Rianna chokes out a guard. Then into a garage.
A Korean helicopter flies over spouting propaganda and asking for resistance members to be turned in. It is shot down. If we steal the chopper without taking the rpg's out then it will be a short flight.
We see the farmers making a Korean soldier dig his own grave before shooting him.
Incidentally I see a QR code on the wall here and it gives me a wallpaper.
More stealthy movement and shooting at select targets then it's back to normal with a pitched battle. The Korean helicopter that was  shot down has some survivors and they are fighting the farmers.
We fight both sides and push on through the area.
We can see the church where the helicopter is supposed to be. It passes overhead and appears to be landing at the church.
The chopper is heavily guarded, we are to go up into the bell tower and provide sniper cover for the other three who will attack head on.
I have to go alone and attack the church, after getting inside and halfway up I die and am sent back right outside the church to assault it again. Poor checkpointing is no excuse for a short game.
I get to the top of the tower and find a sniper rifle. Connor tells me what to shoot at.
After carefully shooting a few guards Conner then drives a truck straight at the helicopter and stirs up a hornets nest, so much for the careful approach!
I have to jump from the bell tower down the scaffolding and make it to the helicopter through the mess.
I get to the helicopter and we see it take off in cut scene.

Mission 6
This is a helicopter sequence and surprisingly I am actually in control.
It's quite hard to survive very long, it seems to be asking a lot of you straight off.
One or two hits from the rockets take you out straight off.
We chase the convoy of tankers. Then take out their escorts.
Now we have to hover close to the tankers and let the gang jump onto them and hijack them.
Now we have to escort the tankers and protect them from missile batteries and road blocks.
We take down a bridge in the progress and the tankers have to take a detour.
This is quite a fun section where we cover the convoy as it goes through a town and protect it from solider's, tanks and another helicopter.
There is a large road bridge out of the town and one of the trucks breaks down. we have to protect it as Hopper places c4 to take out the bridge. This will stop any pursuit.
We have a lot  of incoming vehicle to deal with.
Then the bridge is blown and that's it. We are to deliver the fuel to what is left of the military.
We arrive at the military base and join in on an assault near San Francisco.
I am to get into a helicopter.
We have a nice scene as we ride towards the golden gate bridge in the chopper and then start the fight. We have to use a grenade launcher to take out soldiers as we circle one of the bridge pillars.
Then we land and take an area from the Koreans.
Next we push on and find a tank. We have to avoid it's attacks and find something to kill it with.
It's all scripted but it's breathless fun. I find an rpg and then we shoot the tank thrice to kill it.
Now we have too climb up the bridge to the top.
At the top we meet up with the gang and some more soldiers.
We then move along the bridge with a convoy shooting the place to hell.
At a point we are blown off the bridge in cut scene and clamber back onto a lower level.
WE have to fight along underneath and we come up behind the sentry guns that are holding up the gang.
After the sentries are down we have a helicopter to shoot down.
Then we push on to destroy anti aircraft guns.
On the anti aircraft gun platform we have to defend until Hopper reprograms them and stops them shooting our planes down.
We then get to use air support to take out the convoy ahead of us.
Now we get into a humvee and meet a goliath.
We are chased about by it and have to use missile counter measures
We eventually shoot it and it blows up in our face.
In cut scene we see a convoy coming in, the air support has no firm target on it and needs something to shoot at. Connor gets up and using a flare runs towards the convoy. This allows the pilots to aim at the flare. Of course Connor is holding it and is vapourised along with the Koreans.
That's it, news reports tell of the fight in San Francisco and talk about European involvement coming to aid America. All set for Homefront 2 then?

4 hours 30 minutes.
120 achievement points which is quite stingy, though I suppose i only put in four hours work.
I found the difficulty settings buried in the options menu, strange choice. I was playing on normal.

Bulletstorm Notes

First task is to enter the now ever present EA online pass. I firmly fall in the camp that abhors the selling of second hand games by corporations and as such have to endure these things with a smile.

Next up is to choose difficulty, there are 5 options, though I am firmly a normal man these days. Gone are the days of being masochistic and choosing hard levels. Not coming straight from Dragon Age Origins where even the gamer baiting casual difficulty was annoyingly hard.
So normal it is.

Controls
Left and right sticks as usual.
Clicking left stick crouches.
Left trigger aims down sights.
Right trigger is Fire.
B is kick.
X is use.
A is used to climb over low obstacles, holding it runs. Double tapping A slides.

Prologue Chapter 1
On the road to hell
We see a space ship with a skull painted on it.
Presumably on board the spaceship two beer drinking men are interrogating a man tied to a chair, who sounds very scared. Probably because the drunk men are trying to shoot a beer bottle off the top of his head.
It seems our two friends have a large bounty on their heads. Someone called Sarrano is paying for the hit.
We find out that the unfortunate in the chair is a bounty hunter. We shoot the beer bottle, then blow him out the airlock.
We then have to exit the cargo deck. The door is malfunctioning and we have to pry the door open.
As we do the bounty hunter can be seen throwing a grenade at the ship window in presumably his last act. The window shatters and we have a pseudo quicktime sequence to get the blast door shut.
We then get shown the crouching and jumping controls. We are told that the ships is jumping. A call comes from the bridge telling us to get there quick.
Our hero is called Greyson. On the Bridge a large ship is in front of our ship. It is called the Ulysses. Seems that this is Sarrano's ship and Greyson and a few of the others have a grudge.
The pilot named Ishi is less demented than the rest and calls for reason.
However Greyson has the support of the other drunken war veterans and they attack.
We get control  for a little emplaced gun fun, however it's short lived.
The ship is wrecked, Ishi is either dead or knocked out. Greyson pulls himself to the controls and engages the thrusters and tries to warp right through the enemy ship.
amazingly the ship isn't broken entirely and crash lands on the planet they were in orbit of.

The scene shifts to a flashback. We see Greyson standing on the side of a building using gravity boots and on his way to an assassination mission.
We are with all the gang from the ship and are here to kill someone called Bryce Novak.
We find him and look in through his window.
Breaching in we kill him in quicktime lite.
Then we are told that Sarrano wants a bomb placed on a computer. Seems we are working for Sarrano.
Ishi, always the troublemaker it seems finds that Novak was a reporter and was finishing a piece on Sarrano's corruption. It seems the Greyson and his gang thought that they were killing gung runners and mass murderers when it has been civilians all along.
Miffed they call Sarrano for an explanation, he insults them and Greyson tells him that he will kill him. We try and leave and soldiers pour in. There is a kid in the room as well and Ishi is trying to save her. I try and fight but it seems to be a no win fight. I get knocked down and a cut scene shows Ishi about to be shot and Greyson take the bullet for him.

We shift back to the present and Ishi is hurt bad in the crash. We can also see escape pods from the Ulysses landing in the distance.
We have to help the others get Ishi to the med bay. We go down in a lift and into the med bay. We have to get a fuel cell which we don't have to save Ishi. The escape pods have them, so it looks like a little mission is in order.
We progress through the ship and find some local loonies attacking.
We can slide
We fight some more groups of mad maxers.
Then we see an escape pod with one of Sarrano's men.
In cut scene we see him take out some mutants with a whip lash type weapon.
However someone crashes a vehicle into him.
We go to the wreckage and get the leash weapon, which I am asked to use to open the engine and our friend takes the fuel cell.
we are shown how to use the leash to move certain objects in the environment.
Also to pull people into object to kill them.
We get back to the ship and into the med Bay. The doc starts the procedure to save Ishi and we have to stay outside of the sterile field.
As the doc works the savages get inside and attack.
They also start to attack outside as well.
We fight until there is an explosion, In cut scene Greyson wakes to find the savages shooting up his friend. Ishi comes to save Greyson and the other guy grabs an explosive barrel and urges us to shoot. I do and there is an explosion and everything goes black.

Act one Chapter one
Just like the old days
Ishi has had half of his crushed body replaced with robot parts. He is now half robot.
He understandably is pissed with Greyson. He is now more robot that person.
Sarrano is on the planet and stuck on a hotel. Greyson thinks that rescue will be on the way for him.
Ishi needs some fuel to stay alive.
We set out to get some from the natives.
We are shown exploding barrels, we can kick the barrels then shoot them when they are near enemies.
There should be some note made to the nice environment here, a rocky mountainous landscape with jagged claws of rock pointing at the sky. Desert sand and bones of large animals making bridges.
I come to gate and before it is a machine. The machine is dropped from the ship by Sarrano for his troops and is a gated ammo and upgrade cache. We can shop using skill points for new upgrades and weapons.
We are shown about skill points, which the leash gives by grading the style of your kills.
The gate opens and savages attack.
We come to a camp and fight all the savages here.
Then down in a lift into a refinery

Act one Chapter 2
Last train from explosion town
We go down into the refinery, Greyson wonders if this is a pirate mining operation, however Ishi thinks that it is using to much confederation tech and is too organized to be anything other than confederation in origin. Maybe it has been taken over by the savages?
We come to a large room full of gyro copters, Ishi tell us to destroy them. As we do savages attack.
A gyrocopter driven by a savage attacks. We have to leash the pilot and play a little mini game of click the button at the right time, like a golf game to pull him out.
We progress through shanty buildings fighting the savages.
I find a place where I can kick barriers that the savages are using for cover and kill them.
We fight in a room and suddenly the building collapses and we fall down into the floor below.
I come to the power source and Ishi grabs hold and charges up in a spectacularly painful looking fashion.
The impromptu recharge has overloaded the system and we have to leave fast before the place explodes.
A train seems the best bet so we head for it.
As we get there a larger chaingun toting enemy appears.
He is stunned by a charge shot from the gun and then we can hit his unarmored areas to kill him.
We then have some chaingunning from the train as savages swarm it.
In cut scene Ishi gets the train moving, however a  savage sets a grindwheel in motion. It is a huge serated cog type device It rolls after the train.
This is an emplaced gun ride on the train. Jeeps, a barge and gyrocopters give chase. Then a dropship type copter which fires ground burrowing torpedoes.
We then have to hit huge tanks by the side of the track to stop the grindwheel from hitting us.
A another train attacks and while I blow it up, it is still pushing us.
The brakes are out and the train crashes.

Act one Chapter 3
Whatever it is, it's pissed.
We are now in more green and water filled terrain, though still mountainous.
Gyrocopters and savages attack. One of the gyrocopters is damaged and lands. Maybe we can use it. We have to head through a cave to get to it though.
Inside the cave we encounter some eggs. To progress we have to blow up the eggs. As we do the mother creature stirs. We have to run and a timer appears in the top middle of the screen.
I run out to the gyroppcoter and we both get on in cut scene.
The mother creature bursts it's way out of the mountain to chase us, though we can't see it for all the dust kicked up. he train is still hanging above us and we shoot the fuel tank to bring it down on the monster.
The gyrocopter is too broken to fly much further and crashes.
A new gun was taken from the savages here, a screamer.

Act 2 Chapter 1
Damsel in distress
We are closing in on the beacon, the final echo trooper is nearby.
I find a savage that can't be leashed.
We proceed into a new area which is a villa type area, in the distance a huge city can be seen.
I shoot up a bunch of fireflies that I find here.
I also find a newsbot, these appear to be the collectibles.
We fight some savages in a square then find a club, which we enter.
We fight a boss in the disco then out the other side.
Now through some dock like areas.
I now have to contend with exploding enemies.
A dropship brings in a load of enemies and then  suicide bombers come in waves.
Another newsbot here.
A new gun here called the flailgun. This gun fires two chain linked grenades that wrap around the enemy.
I find the escape pod and it is empty.
We don't have to go far before we find the soldier in combat with the savages.
She tells us to get lost and not to follow her. Which I am sure won't stop us.
We fight through some more areas then we see her take out a bridge to prevent us following her. We have to take a detour through an attraction called the monster dome.

Act 2 Chapter 2
Worst family fun vacation ever.
There are a bunch of large robot monsters in here and one of them is missing.
It looks like you get to drive the monsters around and destroy a miniature city.
We enter the small city and have to fight the savages through the streets.
Then the monster turns up. We hide under the city in service tunnels.
We progress through the service areas avoiding the monster which seems to be trying to get to us.
I get dead ended by the monster and we see who is controlling it, one of the savages, killing him stops the monster moving and gives us it's controller.
We now get to semi drive the beast. We can aim to a point where we want it to shoot and we have a shooting gallery of savages and three bosses to take care of.
We then get to make the  beast knock a bus into a canal to make a path for it.
Then another shooting gallery with gyrocopters and jeeps.
We now get attacked by more gyrocopters in the same area and some savages.
The beast is used to break through another wall before finally breaking down.
Seems that the savages here were guarding a hole, it's possible they were guarding against what comes out of the hole. So of course we are going down the hole.

Act 3 Chapter 1
One sniper means a dozen.
We go down the hole and have to kick an obstacle aside, it brings the place down around us and we have another quick run sequence to escape the collapsing mine. We come out into more green and waterfall filled lands, the city is closer now.
I find that I have got a new weapon from somewhere called a boneduster.
We use a lift and go up the side of the dam.
We are seeing signs that suggest this is Kreeps turf.
These are even more crazy cannibal mutilating type chaps.
They avoid being kicked and can't be leashed.
Now we encounter snipers. I get the sniper rifle and it is a guided bullet type sniper rifle.
I pass through a boat house and come out onto some docks.
More snipers to deal with.
The leash can be used as a bomb type mechanism, you hold the left bumper and it thumps the ground raising all the nearby enemies into the air.
We pass through the marina and into a hotel type environment.
There are fireflies in the hotel area overlooking the damn view.
In the kitchen the freakier freaks are cooking the less freaky freaks.

Act 3 Chapter 2
A dam fine mess.
We come to a room with an open roof and balcony and we are ambushed.
We cross a bridge and there are  fireflies here.
Now we come to a blast furnace type area.
Here we fight freaks in a large fight box filled with roaring flames.
When it's done a cut scene shows Trishka kicking the snot, well the snot and the blood out of a freak before shooting it in the head.
Greyson tries to chat, however she knows who we are. She is also disillusioned with Saranno and a truce is called. Ishi is getting all robot overlord destroy all humans again.
Trishka tells us that the skulls and the Kreeps are at war.
Which is basically a prelude to seeing a huge fight between the two which we can get in the middle of.
We fight along the top of the dam, then into it's inner workings. We pull a piece off one of the giant wheels to make a path. However this may have been a bad move as the damn starts to break down explosively.
The large wheels break free and fall bringing the dam down, we end up in a makeshift raft floating down with gyrocopters after us.
A huge tidal wave hits the boat and everything goes black.

Act 4 chapter 1
The only way through.
we are now in the city proper. A soldier with a jump ships nearby, or at least was recently. Trishka wants to find him. The city is called the forbidden zone.
Trishka tells them to be quiet, the road is blocked by a chasm and we have to kick over a sign to make a bridge, when we do it blows up a chain of cars and brings half a building down. So much for being quiet.
New here are glowing yellow balls called nom parasites. They grab onto your head and try and eat you I presume.
You can kick them at enemies, you also have to be careful not to hit your allies as they get immobilized by the nom parasites.
Now we find the creator of the parasites, large man eating plants.
We use a zip line here.
After a fight with some snipers a cut scene shows the capsule we are looking for in the distance.
Gyrocopters attack in the cut scene and while Greyson and Ishi are shooting them Trishka makes a break for it. Ishi shoots the ladder she is climbing and nearly beats her to death.
Greyson is starting to worry about Ishi, also feel guilty.
We are tasked with working out how to pass a road block, when I can't Trishka shoots a large wrecking ball of a sign down and it ploughs into the road block opening the way.
There is a news bot behind the dropkit after the wrecking ball.
Also a bottle of juice in a tent.
Now we find a new boss which shoots exploding balls.
same as before, stun him then grapple his helmet or butt.
We get his gun which is called a bouncer.

Act 4 Chapter 2
Maneaters prefer tight spots.
We move into a sewer type area. Some of the nom plants are here and shooting them releases clouds of rage gas.
Ishi climbs through a tunnel to open a gate, this puts him ahead of us up the stairs. When we start to climb them he shouts for help. A huge tentacle monster has erupted from the ground and it eats Ishi right in front of us, powerless to prevent it.
We progress down a long sloping terraced garden area. It's full of man eating plants and prickly bushes.
A helicopter comes to attack us.
The plants bring it down with their tentacles and a boss gets out to fight us.
We then progress up the terrace towards a large greenhouse type building.
Just before the boss plant there are some fireflies, there have also been a few obvious news bots on the terrace.
Inside the green house we meet the boss plant. It's a bulbous body with a long neck and a head full of teeth. It tries to bite us, which rapidly pressing B solves.
We basically have to circle around it and shoot the red bits as they are presented. A traditional boss battle, yet a fun one as I did it first time with no frustration and it was just pure fun.

Act 4 Chapter 3
Itchin to crumble.
We jump down the plant hole and find Ishi alive.
Trishka tells us that Sarrano was sent here to clear out the skulls and the Kreeps. The soldiers were given the skillshot system in some sort of twisted natural selection type experiment. Those that did well were able to resupply while the rubbish ones ran low on ammo and died.
Some electroflies here.
Now we are into the actual demo that was given away on xbox live.
Getting stuck on objects here, feet tangled in scenery isn't a good look.
A nice scene sees you bring an old lift down on top of about five enemies at once.
News bot just after the lift scene.
We get to fight through some open areas with large drops, lots of kicking the bad guys over the edge.
Mini boss here.
Now the building starts to really crumble and we have to run for it until we reach an elevator. In the elevator it is moving too slow to escape the collapse. Ishi tells us to shoot some canisters we can see and in cut scene we see the elevator propelled out of the building like a rocket on a plume of smoke.

Act 5 Chapter 1
Crash Resistant.
We survive the crash unscathed as usual.
Now we are heading for a monorail.
I use an elevator and a helicopter can be seen landing nearby.
We go over to this area and clear out loads of enemies. Then we  have to get the monorail working. This is really just a horde mode level.
Boss to finish and it's onto the monorail.
On the monorail ride Trishka is asked by Greyson why final echo could not control the skulls and kreeps as is usual in FPS games he is wiping out their entire population single handed. Well Ishi and Triska are there and shooting but they don't seem to kill much.
Triska tells us that we haven't seen the worst yet. There are totally mutated creatures called burnouts to deal with. Oh look, speak of the devil, here is one now.
The monorail is made to crash by the burnouts.

Act 5 Chapter 2
We get hemmed into an area with loads of incoming burnouts, they are men shaped blobs with glowing orbs. Shooting the orbs is advised, however sliding into them knocked them off their feet and nearby prickly plants and bombs make quick work of them.
There are fireflies behind a kick barrier just after the burnouts and a news bot as well.
Now we go into a smaller room and are mobbed by burnouts.
This is a trap and it's a good one.
Sudden difficulty spike though.
There is some juice here to drink.
Skulls attack in a helicopter and blow open the wall. Now there are lots more burnouts. We are told there are too many and to just keep moving.
Though there aren't and I take them out, the skulls chopper goes down and it makes a nice death trap to kick the burnouts into.
Now a boss burnout. Which needs shot a lot then kicked into the blades to take it down.
We get into a lift.

Act 5 Chapter 3
I see we're all a bit upset.
We see another survivor in the distance fighting. We are making for his position.
We fight some more kreeps this time for variety and then a cut scene.
Trishka falls down a hole and is knocked out. Ishi is in robot mode and wants to leave her. Greyson wants to save her. Ishi tells Greyson that they need Sarrano alive and not to kill him or he will have Ishi to deal with. Greyson goes down to Trishka and argues with him about all this being about his issues with Sarrano. Of course her world view of Greyson comes from Sarrano so she is biased. Greyson tells her some home truths about why he was so angry with Sarrano and we find that the reporter we killed was her father, the girl in his office was possibly Trishka. She is angered, Greyson does not tell her that it was him who killed her father.
Now we are in the bowels of this hotel, in a sewage type area. It turns out to be a burnout nest, or feeding ground. Lots of bits of body lying around. The game tries for  some Dead Space style scares here.
I come to a cauldron of glowing green stuff.
A large boss burnout appears however it falls in the cauldron, it might be dead, but I think we are going to be seeing it again soon.
We crawl through some rubble and out into the hotel type area again.
A news bot here.
We fight some more skulls.
I come out into an open area and fight some burnouts and leash a bus into a gap in the street to progress.
There is something wrecking the skyscrapers around here. Looks like the thing we met in the cavern way back on the second level or so is still looking for us.
The burnouts attack again and we progress down the street. The creature appears at last and is a huge burnout boss, Trishka calls it a Hekaton.
In cut scene we see Greyson and Trishka run from the huge monster into a lift.
We come out onto a rooftop and find Ishi fighting skulls. A helicopter is nearby and Trishka flies while we use the emplaced gun.
We shoot at skulls and protect  Ishi, also the Hekaton which has a point on the back of it's head that is vulnerable. The ship flies around and eventually a cut scene starts.
Ishi saves Sarrano who is running out of ammo. The escape pod is set to self destruct and the monster eats it and blows it's head up.
Sarrano and the rest of the gang are reunited. Ishi won't let anyone kill him.
Trishka asks about her father. Sarrano tells them that a bomb which will kill everything on the planet that is living is set to go off in two hours. The problem is that the dropship is coming in three.
I need to go to the wreck of the Ulysses and deactivate the bomb.
Sarrano pushes Trishka off the building, claiming to have done Greyson a favour.
I don't think we have seen the last of her. Though I am guessing that the game can only handle two a.i. players so we needed her out of the way.

Act 6 Chapter 1
Daddy'll get you out.
Saranno tells us about tunnels that will take us under the city and away quickly and safely.
A large electrical storm has started in the city.
Basically any window or hole in the ceiling lets the storm in and gives you plenty of opportunity for electrocuting enemies.
We fight a lot of enemies here in a more fight box style of gameplay.
Sarrano tells us that the city was staffed with convicts.

Act 6 Chapter 2
Bad trouble a knockin'
We take a lift down to the prison level where there were cells for 28,000 inmates.
Seems that they also stored the toxic waste here as well.
We take a run through some toxic waste after being dumped in it by a rickety platform.
Then some burnouts appear for a fight.
Some good fun here with lots of burnouts and lots of exploding stuff to hurl them into.
We see Sarrano get knocked off a platform and we have to go and save him.
Greyson and Ishi have a little heart to heart and Ishi tells him that he doesn't blame Greyson and that he followed him of his own free will. The quest to kill Saranno was one of atonement not revenge for all of them.
We have some snipers to take out.
We go down into a large canal type area filled with radioactive waste. Sarrano tells us that the population here is probably mostly tourists who missed the evacuation ships.
We see some burnouts coming towards us, however they are actually running form scorpion type enemies.
We have a scene where the scorpions try and break a lift that we are going up in for some unknown reason, they don't attack us just the lift cogs.
We have to shoot as many of them as we can to keep the lift going up.
At the top we have too run for it before a door closes on us.
I come out onto the surface and we are at the wreck of the Ulysses.
We use a zip line to get there fast.

Act 6 Chapter 3
Ponderin' them bodies.
I get caught in the ground here by Ishi and can't escape, I have to restart the checkpoint.
We have to make our way through the building that the Ulysses is crashed on top of.
There are lots of the crew of the Ulysses lying around dead. The burnouts have been eating them.
I get into the Ulysses.
We progress through the ship with Greyson and Sarrano arguing. Sarrano trying to make him feel guilty about all the people dead on the ship and Greyson ragging Sarranno about taking down his prize battleship with a much smaller ship.
I come to some flammable fumes.
We have to fight some burnouts using only kicks and leash.
There are some handy giant fans to use.
Now we come to a large hexagonal multi story area. There is a control in the centre that turns off low barriers which have glowing pink energy on top. We have to turn of the field and jump quickly over. The enemies can be hurled into the pink field for fun.
We come to a corridor with a giant burnout, we have to push it back towards an electrical field to kill it.
We come to the bomb, Sarrano tells us that he has to turn a key when we enter the deactivation code on the bomb. I sense a trap here. Of course it's fairly obvious and I don't feel that I am clever by saying that.
Of course Saranno has betrayed us and we have now just armed the bomb and he gets away leaving us trapped in the room with the bomb.
I run around frantically trying to find a way out and climb through some ducts. They just lead to huge drops or back to the bomb. Trishka appears to save the day.

Act 7 Chapter 1
That thing is leaving without us.
We are now heading for the spaceport where Sarrano is getting picked up.
Here we split up from Ishi and Trishka and they take a lower road and we cover them from above, while also fighting people on our level.
We then come to a lobby type area with a few levels, this is a survival room, which soon fills with loads of bosses and enemies.
Now we have a two minute timer to get to the ship before Sarrano leaves without us.
Which is a headlong dash through loads of skulls. We have to get to the dropship, a vehicle explodes and Greyson is knocked down. A cut scene shows Sarrano being escorted onto the dropship.
We have to run to it in a very tight time limit and leash the ramp back down.

Act 7 Chapter 2
I don't hold you accountable.
We are now on the escaping dropship, which is filled with heavily armored troops.
Again we kill lots of soldiers by ejecting the cargo hold that is filled with them.
Sarrano again tries to make us feel guilty about killing all these people just to get to him.
We get to a door that is locked to us. Trishka goes through a vent. Ishi thinks she isn't coming back and has gone on to kill Sarrano on her own.
He opens the door by electrocuting himself again.
We rampage through the ship, these enemies take a lot more pounding but go down just as well as the freaks.
We get to a door that needs hacked. Ishi hacks it while we hold off waves of soldiers.
Inside we get a cut scene.
Trishka is holding a gun to Sarrano's head. She asks if he killed her father, he tells her that he ordered it and Greyson did the deed.
Sarrano uses a leash to hack into the robot part of Ishi and control him. Ishi beats up Trishka and Grey and we have to press B repeatedly to stop ourselves from dying in Ishi's chokehold.
Ishi resists the control and Sarrano shoots him. Sarrano throws Grey around with the leash and is about to shoot him when Ishi dives in front of the shot.
we have some quicktime to do to finally beat up Sarrano and apparently kill him.
Some soldiers appear and we see a not quite dead Sarrano eject us from the ship.
Back on the planet we are left fighting some more soldiers that got ejected with us.
Trishka forgives Grey for what he did.
We find ourselves back at the Ulysses just in time for the DNA bomb that is going to wipe out all life on the planet to go off.
We have to run through the soldiers to get to the escape pods on the ship before the bomb goes off. Some technobabble excuses why we didn't just do this the last time.
The final cut scene shows the escape pod leaving the atmosphere as the dna bomb goes off killing everything on the planet.
In the escape pod Greyson is guilty about all the friends he lost. Trishka asks what now and it looks like there is still Sarrano to go after. Bulletstorm 2 anyone?

10 hours approximately.
290 Achievement points for one normal playthrough.