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Re: Tour of Duty - Beware of Low-Flying Defense Dr
Posted By: PerseusSpartacusDate: 7/26/13 9:28 p.m.

In Response To: Tour of Duty - Beware of Low-Flying Defense Drones (Martin)

: The subject line didn't offer enough characters to include the final ellipsis
: - that might make M2 interesting :).

If necessary, feel free to decrease the size of that text from 4 to 3.

: We start in an area that immediately warms us up with familiarity, and not
: just from a dream. Odd that these military grey walls should warm us up,
: but at this point I don't think we could have been hoping for anything
: better!

Indeed. Everything after Pfhor Your Eyes Only has a strangely depressed feeling. Somehow I begin despising the world I'm running through - even the Pfhor are no longer fun, just irritating nuisances to blast into oblivion. I have no honest idea why. Ingue Ferroque sort of rescues this, but by then it's too late - especially after Try Again made me paranoid and scared of what might be lurking in the dark (something about that music, perhaps).

: Turning right again we find something missing - where's mah pattern buffah!?
: If we die here before finding one you can be damn sure we're going to tidy
: up the last 2x2 save to leave as short a run as possible. But oh well ...
: back to turning right. Hello, there's a window! And through it we see ...
: well I can't resist - Wikipedia suggests this was from the '70s but I
: guess when Play School came to NZ they used the original intro:
: "Here's a house, here's a door. Windows: 1 2 3 Pfhor , ready to
: knock? Turn the lock - It's Play School."

You'll have worse nightmares soon.

: Our first alien encounter down here introduces us to one of the styles of
: much of the level - friendly green or blue tiled walled rooms with
: enforcers, troopers, mad MADDs and ledges containing ammo. With my
: scratchstarts just now, I took the leap of faith several times, which
: leads to a blue room; it was harder to confirm that this way leads to
: green - trying to run past the initial trooper and enforcers gets you
: stuck behind MADDs rising up to attack. After a few tries I timed it so
: that I actually managed to claim an alien weapon on the way past :). That
: made the first green room possible, or at least a lot easier, but then a
: mad MADD survived the fight through the next door, and confirmed Durandal
: a liar or at least joker, before eponymously flying low, if only to dance
: on my corpse.

Durandal's a joker, Tycho's a liar, Thoth doesn't care about us, and Leela is constantly on the depressed side of a bipolar disorder. No wonder I'm starting to hate computers. ;)

: Yeah, we could have made it a very small level and gone straight to the end!
: Okay so now I won't bother going back to talk about the differences.
: Instead, we'll carry on from the leap of faith "blue room". Hang
: on! The way we've been, we STILL haven't seen a pattern buffer! That could
: be considered quite a difference, especially with so many grenades with
: the potential to be in our faces on this level.

Strangely, those grenades seem more dangerous in the recent betas than in M1A1. Not sure why.

: The first time we feel like we're not supposed to be reading this stuff -
: what the AIs do when we're not watching, and the feeling that this
: terminal is live and they will be carrying on after we're rudely kicked
: out. Like the Pfhor diary terminals of Moo, which again, I completely
: missed the concept of first time around.

Indeed. I do love the concept of seeing two AIs communicate so directly. It also gives us a real direct glimpse of their true faces - particularly Durandal's. It never really seemed he was a good guy, but up until this point, we may have been getting our hopes up about him turning out half-decent. Now that sounds like so many feathers in the wind.

Also, you totally missed a significant portion of that terminal (and a very important portion at that), which I will provide presently:

***

[Excerpts from the "History of Battleroids"]

In 2194, a war was fought between the Independent Asteroid
Government of Icarus and its neighbor, the Republic of
Thermopylae on the asteroid of Onicis 492. These two small
governments soon became the testing grounds for new weapons.
Dead soldiers were recycled in makeshift battleroid factories.
Easy to manufacture chips enhanced the fragile human brain,
and genetically enhanced muscles and titanium bones replaced
the fragile human form. The modern battleroid was born. Of
course, the war was short. Battleroids got onto both
asteroids and killed almost everyone.

The rampage of the Battleroid was short lived.

Twenty years later, the United Interplanetary League set up
rules for the appropriate use and storage of Battleroids. Of
course, any nation that used them for the allowed purpose,
also had them lying about in stasis chambers in case of war.

***

Up until this point, the concept of Battleroids and Cyborgs is meaningless. It's only when you look back that the pieces start to fit together...

You are Destiny.

It's funny, but you've always been the colony's trouble shooter. You're bigger and stronger, and a better shot. In games, you always scored the most points and looked the hero.

Bernhard was scared of you. He never dreamed of using you the way that I do.

You slam your fist in frustration onto the control board, leaving a dent.

All those... moments...

I think I'm getting a bad head-ache all of a sudden.

: Anyway, from here it's just one more ammo room, one more short corridor, one
: more terminal, and some dumb stones.

Stones... stones, stones, stones...

Stones?

: PS will return now, but I'll be back for Try Again, and PS is aiming for August 5
: for Ingue Ferroque, so we had better get a move on :).

Aww, you spoiled the surprise. ;)

Vale,
Perseus

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Pre-2004 Posts

Replies:

Tour of Duty - Beware of Low-Flying Defense DronesMartin 7/26/13 6:35 p.m.
     Re: Tour of Duty - Beware of Low-Flying Defense DrPerseusSpartacus 7/26/13 9:28 p.m.
           Re: Tour of Duty - Beware of Low-Flying Defense DrPerseusSpartacus 7/26/13 9:29 p.m.
           Re: Tour of Duty - Beware of Low-Flying Defense DrMartin 7/28/13 7:50 p.m.

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