These are my favorite levels. As long as you are not on death wish they become playable to the point where you can even make a mistake and recover(only one for all the levels). I don't think you are supposed to play through that final battle, I only did once. A big part of Red is running from fights that you are heavyily outnumbered in. After this level it is more of a choice then its previous tight packed levels.
In all the other gauntlet levels I've played I never had reason to rush. Now The monsters after me give me a reason to not only run, but freak out. I have played these levels a ton due to the fact that you can just pop in with out any ammo and play them alone.
The fact that Ian took advantage of his cutimizations to the degree that he created a set of levels that need his monsters to play right shows how well he knew what he was doing.
I think that his beta testers did a blind play, ignore terminals and pass the levels.
: RED's take on the "gauntlet" level is as pure as any we've seen
: since Where Are Monsters In Dreams: Overwhelming enemies, huge obstacle
: courses, nothing to do but run. And run you must- on Death Wish, you'll
: reach the end with a tiny sliver of oxygen, not even enough to read the
: terminal.
: On the first 3 levels of this 4-level obstacle course, all you have to do is
: run. You have to get the maneuvers absolutely perfect to have enough
: oxygen to survive the final battle, which means strafe-running all the way
: and never stopping to kill the monsters chasing you. The first level's map
: writing instructs you to "hull arse here"[sic], to a yellow
: plate which is used as a teleporter on all the G3 Sunbathing levels, and
: it's a pretty simple run. If you look back, you'll see that you're being
: pursued by group of tall, loping monsters which look more than a little
: like the velociraptors from Jurassic Park. These are Raptors , the
: strongest common Organic enemy. They're somewhat faster than you are (not
: sure if they are "near three times as fast" as Ian promises) and
: attack with a bite like the Beast. However, among these is a black version
: which I believe is called an Omega Raptor, which shoots a rapid stream of
: fireballs. But you shouldn't look back, because you need literally every
: second of oxygen you can get.
: On the second level, things get more tricky. There's a pattern buffer- save
: as a new game, as Steve said, because you can sometimes shave extra
: seconds off subsequent runs. Then, make sure you turn right at the first
: choice, *away* from the lighted corridor, into the harder-to-notice spiral
: stairs. Leap over the arena the first chance you get (you don't have to
: completely circle around to get to the exit path) and proceed through a
: set of automatic doors into the area with the two towers. Go to the right
: of the towers, up the stairs, hang a hard left to avoid falling back into
: the arena, and keep going until you can't avoid falling back into said
: arena. Now there's a new door open immediately to your right. Through here
: is a Beetle who shoots a "sparkly" version of their normal acid;
: dodge him and keep going. You're back in the starting area, but the
: entrance is closed off and the exit is open.
: On the third level, immediately turn around and save, then head out because
: the entrance room is about to fill with Raptors. Dodge the Beasts and head
: into the passage the Raptor just came out of (you have to go a bit farther
: and double back to get over the ledge in the floor) until you find a door
: to tab open. If you're at top speed you can make the jump to the center
: ledge directly, then teleport out.
: All of that was a cakewalk compared to what comes next: You're trapped on a
: small section outside the bridge of the ship, surrounded by Beasts, a
: "unique" variant of Turtle that shoots a rapid stream of guided
: grenades, and with about 20 seconds worth of oxygen. The only way to beat
: this place, on Death Wish at least, is to have the Beasts kill the Turtles
: while you distract them (the Turtles) with your pulse rifle, then
: carefully step into the airlock (a quirk of geometry makes it easiest to
: do this by approaching from the side), hit the 2 switches, tab open the
: inner door, quickly tab through the conversation with Ian, and exit to the
: next (non-vacuum) level with a a second or two's worth of oxygen to spare
: (there's a very close pattern buffer there). If the Turtles kill all the
: Beasts, more will spawn, but you don't have enough time on DW to rely on
: that. Your reward for being good enough to survive on Death Wish is being
: unable to read the terminal- gee, thanks, Ian, we really deserve that
: after all our hard work. Would it have killed you to put at least an
: oxygen canister in the bridge or airlock, since the combat is over and the
: time limit should be lifted in the "safe" area? To add insult to
: injury, there is actually an oxygen charger panel in the bridge, but if
: you plug into it it turns out that it is actually a HEALTH charger, and
: then you suffocate (I unfortunately discovered this while actually in the
: game, but would you believe this is not the part of RED that makes me
: most want to just give up and cheat?). I'm starting to doubt the beta
: testers even played this level.
: When you read the terminal in Hex, you see that "you're still leaking
: air, probably because you punctured your tank". This is actually a
: pretty good rationalization of Marathon's inability to mix vacuum and
: non-vacuum areas in a single level, but it still doesn't quite make sense
: since you should be breathing the atmosphere in the cabin since everyone
: else is in shirtsleeves not spacesuits- and IMHO having the player not die
: immediately after defeating the really dangerous part of the level on the
: 20th try (again, by giving them an oxygen canister when they enter the
: bridge) is more important than consistency. The terminal also mentions
: that you're supposed to pick up an extra Mercury Pistol in there near the
: broken oxygen charger, but I didn't because I was in too much of a rush to
: get off the damn level.
: (One thing I tried after saving my Volunteers game on the next level, just
: for the hell of it, was to simply start the level, run up to the airlock,
: squeeze past the Turtles as they rose up from their pits, and get into the
: bridge before getting killed, and it actually worked. I don't know if
: that's a feasible strategy for everyone or just luck, but either way I'm
: not going to do that level again for a LONG time :P )
