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	Message: : TOUR OF DUTY : 16 - Pfhor Your Eyes Only... : Previously on Tour of Duty, we sucked up all our Grenades to deal with : Hunters, received a major gift from Durandal in the form of the SPNKR-X17 : SSM Launcher, and charged back up to 3x health. : Immediately after teleporting off the last level, we are greeted with this : beautiful little image recalling the events of the Marathon Manual : : We now find ourselves... WOAH! : Say hello to alien space-tech. If it's not obvious just based on the huge : change in texture style and music , then a quick glance out the window : will do it, as the only thing in sight (other than endless fields of : rather pixelly stars) is the UESC Marathon itself. Considering just : about the only thing within visible distance of the Marathon is the Pfhor : ship, it's only natural to assume we're on it. Unlike one might expect : when teleporting into a random point on an alien mothership, we are not : instantly set upon by confused and unpleasantly surprised foes. Instead, : we're given a moment to realize what's going on. Behind us are two... : waterfalls... of slime? : Needless to say, the Pfhor ship is the strangest location in the game. It's : never really even revealed what that slime even is , but it does seem : vital to the ship somehow, considering the vast amounts encountered : throughout the six Pfhor ship levels. There are a number of other : oddities, of course, but we'll find them as we go along. : This level is perhaps best described as an incredibly long (and also a fairly : wide) corridor with lots of turns going around what looks like some kind : of intestinal structure, with a varitable menagerie of foes spread : throughout: : Strangely, this map misses out on one crucial element: there's a 2x health : charger in the room that's the furthest to the south-west. If you're : scratch-starting this level (my own term for starting a level with : Command-Option Begin Game), you should return to this location constantly. : Immediately after rounding the first corner, you'll be greeted with two of : these dudes. They are certainly more annoying than any of the other : enemies, and can pose a real threat if you're not careful (particularly : the greenish-looking ones, who are much more aggressive and harder to : kill), but with a quick application of Grenades, you can dispose of them : easily. If you're scratch-starting, though, your best weapon against the : first ones you meet is probably the Pistol, as they're quite likely to : deal some damage to you in between punches if you're using the Fists. So : long as you don't kill them with a Flamethrower (or by dropping them into : harmful lava or goo), they'll drop a nice little gift that, despite : lacking an official name besides the Alien Weapon, is often called the : Scatter Rifle (if my memory serves me correctly). It's so called because, : despite being slightly more accurate than the Assault Rifle, it fires : bazillions of little (but very powerful) pellets all in a horizontal line : in front of you. This ability, combined with the sheer power of each : projectile, makes it an incredibly deadly weapon in close-quarters and : especially in corridors. : The Scatter Rifle alone makes this level much easier to scratch-start: if you : use it for all your combat (unless you run out of ammo for it, in which : case you can revert to using your Pistol or Fists) and return constantly : to the recharge station, you can make it through fairly easily. : Nevertheless, this level isn't necessarily a cake-walk, and without proper : care you can find yourself getting caught out by Hunters and Enforcers all : over the place. : To make things all the more simple for us, there's an entertaining little : secret on the map: if you punch the switch in the outside corridor (I : believe there's only one, and even if there's more I think they all do the : same thing - correct me if I'm wrong, though) and run quickly to point A : on the map above, you can edge out so you're just barely hanging off the : edge overlooking the slime pool, though not enough to fall down or get : damaged. A platform will soon activate and take you all the way up to a : teleporter. If you hop inside, you'll find yourself in an : otherwise-inaccessible room at the far north-east end of the map. In it : are a bunch of Scatter Rifles just laying around and-- W'OH MY GOD!!! : : Fear not this lot - they harm you naught. Indeed, if you shoot them, the : bullet detonates the same way it would if it hit a wall or a scenery item, : partly because that's exactly what these are: scenery items. Of course, so : long as you're not playing on Total Carnage (where all the real Hunters : are green), you could easily assume these are real the first time you see : them and start unloading a whole clip of Grenades into the bunch. In : truth, I think Jason Jones (yes, this is the only Pfhor level done by : anyone other than Reginald Dujour) did this intentionally, purely because : it would mess with our heads. He certainly seems to love doing that, what : with the pillar trick on Habe Quiddam and the lava dilemma on Fire! : (x5) . : Nevertheless, this little game of trickery on Jay's part forces us to ask a : question we might not have previously asked: what are the Hunters? : Normally we'd assume they're Pfhor in robotic shells, but it seems like : these Hunters are... deactivated? Either they're robots or this is just : armor in storage. Considering the presence of a bunch of Scatter Rifles : just laying around in a fashion that suggests they're being stored for : later use, the latter option certainly seems possible, but you never know : - might as well run a Voight-Kampff test while we're at it. ;) : As I said, the Pfhor ship is a strange place, and so far we've only scratched : the surface. Just wait for the eggs... Eggs?!?! Nobody told me abo-- : Yeah, so anyways, the goal, as Durandal said earlier (and you were paying : attention when we finished Neither High Nor Low, right? ), is to simply : explore as much as possible. In M1A1 this meant you had to run around : literally walking over every polygon marked 'Must Be Explored', but in : the latest betas, which use all the old M1 assets, you merely have to get : the game to recognize that you 'saw' all those polygons. The best way to : check if you've looked everywhere (literally) is to just open the Automap : and see if there's any rooms that look 'unfinished'. Once you're sure : you've explored the whole map, empty your current Scatter Rifle (unless : you haven't used it since picking it up), grab a fresh one, and return to : the start of the level. You'll be teleported out, just as Durandal said. : Okay, so maybe he's not that bad after all? : Vale, : Perseus
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