Human, I am Osindir, defense AI for the New Phoenix colony. I've finally reached you.
As you see, our once beautiful colony has been overrun by aliens. You are the only human in the area so your next course of action is quite obvious, you must eradicate the aliens and save the colony.
I believe the aliens have killed all the other people, which leads me to my one big question, where did you come from? You need not answer that right now, there are more pressing matters to be dealt with. I have many questions lingering in my mind but the greatest is simply what happened to me? I was shut down for a while, was it the aliens? My last memory was of the aliens gathering on the farside of the moon, preparing for a strike, as I was preparing for a defensive plan. In fact, I was about to post my plans when I was deactivated. My strategies would have saved the colony, I do not doubt.
That is now in the past, this is the present and there are many creatures to be terminated.
And with that we meet the third AI of the New Phoenix Colony, Osindir, who is clearly one of the colony's class IV AI's. Osindir's language clearly shows less depth and no emotion. He is rather matter-of-fact and although curious about your presence here, this curiosity appears to be nothing more than out of concern for the security of the colony - not because of any ulterior motives. No hint of rampancy here - it's questionable as to weather or not he is capable of rampancy. I'm not sure how we got here or why, but we are in the colony's water treatment plant. Our job is to eliminate all the aliens from the area so as to insure the integrity of the water supply. Funny, if all the inhabitants are dead, why would Osindir care about the purity of the water supply? But that's precisely the point - given a situation outside of his programming, he has little recourse than to revert to something within the sphere of his program – he cannot think outside the box.
This level also introduces us to another native species, the dreaded desert shark that we'll learn more about in a later level - we can see one swimming around in one of the water tanks near the entrance, but we'll have a chance for an up-close and personal encounter soon enough. In any case, upon entering the facility there are 4 large water tanks divided by a walkway. There are numerous fighters, troopers and hunters that will attack as soon as the player reaches the center, but a 1X shield recharger near the start of the level virtually insures survival. The progression through this level is very nice. There are a couple of ways that the player can approach things. The player can either head straight or to the right - either way they are rewarded with a pattern buffer. The route to the right is a dead end, but it contains a large circular room with ample space to take out even the troopers with the use of the hook only (this is definitely John’s kind of room), and there is a new weapon here - the faser (yes, it's spelled with an "f"). The faser is patterned after the fusion pistol in Marathon, but with a much slower rate of fire. It, too, has a secondary trigger that puts the weapon into overload, with a major release of energy after releasing the trigger. One nice feature of this weapon is that it has a built-in blue laser sight, so you always know precisely what you’re going to hit. This is the closest thing to a sniper rifle that we're going to see. As we'll learn later, however, unlike the fusion pistol, the faser doesn't work in vacuum. Too bad - some vacuum levels contain a lot of fusion ammo - I wonder if this was an oversight by Matt and Andrew.
One caution – there is an alcove off this room that overlooks an outdoor area. In addition to the hunters in the alcove and the wasps that will fly in when they see you, there are a lot of other monsters across the way that will see you, too, and come to greet you from the rear.
The other route leads to a stairway that winds its way down to the outdoor pools that you may have seen from above. There area a lot of troopers along the way, so watch out. There is a second terminal here with additional instructions - it will be our exit terminal once we have exterminated the level. Also be careful to watch for the desert shark swimming about. It's all too easy to forget about him while circling your enemies, only to have him fell you in one quick bite. Continuing across the pools leads to an inside passageway with numerous compilers to take out. There are also a couple of water shoots down to the sub-level, but we'll get to that later. Continuing straight ahead we will come to a stairway leading up to a barbell-shaped room and, after dealing with the fighters and hunters, a door back to the start of the outdoor area. There is a major secret here. Head back down the stairs to the pattern buffer, then backtrack through that door and a wall will have opened off the barbell room, revealing an elevator to a room overlooking the water tanks with a large ammo cache.
Think you’re done? Not by a long shot! You still need to clear the sub-level, and that means jumping down one of those water shoots. I find it safer to jump down the northern one, as you're not visible to the bulk of the monsters, but either way it’s going to be hell. One thing that can help is to lean over one of the shoots without jumping down - this will activate the wasps, which will fly up, allowing you to take them out before jumping down. Hallelujah - there's a 2X shield recharger down here, but you'll be dead before you finish recharging. John, I don't know if you succeeded in taking out all the monsters without using ammo, but I don't think I could. I pretty much found it necessary to brute force it by hiding in one of the alcoves and taking out the troopers one by one. After that it’s pretty easy to fist all the hunters - there are a lot of them in succession - but it's also easy to become trapped between them and die before you can get back to that 2X recharger. Continuing underground, the player eventually comes to a duplicate of the circular room above - it is in fact directly below it. Finally, a pattern buffer! There is also a duplicate of the corridors seen running between the water tanks, but directly below them. Watch out for the hunters. At the end is an elevator back to the top. If you've done your job, you can exit the level - if not, you'll have to search for the critters your forgot to exterminate.
All-in-all, I really liked this level. It is very nicely done - the physical layout is precise and the place feels real. Monster placement is just right and there is an ideal convergence of exploration and action. Progression through the level is superb. Great job!
