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	Message: : TOUR OF DUTY : 21 - Eupfhoria : Last time on Tour of Duty, we returned to the Marathon , killed some : aliens, got our face blasted wide open by evil MADDs, and discovered the : Tru 7 h. Well, some of it at any rate. : Now that we're fully equipped and decked out with 3x Shields, we find : ourselves in a tiny room on board the Pfhor ship, with a… window? What the : heck? It's in the floor? It seems we must be in the lowest deck of the : ship (at least it's the lowest for this part, considering how some parts : are higher than others). When we open the door, we're attacked by a few : Wasps. The Fusion Pistol takes care of them quickly, and now we move into : the room… and are greeted with howls all around. When Narcogen-Blackstar, : Inc. said Bungie didn't use monster closets, they were sorely mistaken. : This little ambush at the start is quite dangerous, especially for a : scratch-starter and/or Vidmaster. However, there's a simple workaround: if : you jump straight into the room as soon as you open the door, you'll end : up standing on a glue trigger when the Wasps activate. Something about : this ends up stopping the Hunters from activating, and you'll only have to : deal with one that's standing in the corridor leading to the rest of the : level, so long as you don't go back over the glue trigger. : Time to look at a map, I'd say. : : Despite the fact that this level's number (in the original Marathon - even : the latest betas always show Arrival as being level 1, thus messing up the : level count) is a multiple of 7 (7x3=21), this is NOT , repeat NOT , a : lucky level. You'll have to deal with lots of Wasps and Hunters in spaces : which offer you very little room to move. Your only comfort as a : scratch-starter is that there's a 3x Shield Charger and a secret area with : a Flamethrower and a Rocket Launcher, though even these are guarded so : heavily you might not even survive trying to get to them. You can skip the : last two big battles, but you'll still have to contend with a few randomly : spawning Wasps and Hunters, sort of like on Unpfhorgiven, though perhaps : slightly less brutal. : Even for someone who's playing through from the previous levels, this level : is annoying if not deadly. Furthermore, you'll probably find yourself : returning to the only Pattern Buffer on here… again… and again… and again. : Think you can 'finish' this level seven times in a single play-through? If : you're playing Major Damage, that's easy enough, and if you're playing : Total Carnage, you may start wondering if your constant sense of deja vu : is from using Pattern Buffers all the time. ;) : Heading down the rabbit-hole at the end of this corridor (notice how that : platform activates a little too soon), you'll have to deal with an ambush : of Wasps and some Hunters. Notice how that test bed damages us if we get : too close. : If you're attentive, you may also happen to notice the first of the two : window oddities on this level. If you look through the southern-most of : the two windows in this section, you'll see the Marathon: : Now look in the nothern-most window: : Now you see me… now you don't! This is the simple result of Reginald Dujour : forgetting to connect the exterior view of the two windows, leaving the : northern one with just a plain image of space. Tssk, tssk. I see this in : Reggie's future: : Moving on, you'll find a large room with a central pillar with green slime : flowing down it in parts (that stuff is everywhere, isn't it?) and : numerous Wasps. As always, the Fusion Pistol deals with them handily. But : if you're a Vidmaster, you ain't got one - time you use that .44 Magnum, : buddy! Though this room is large, you're pretty much confined to a few : ledges and a staircase, which leaves you with very little space. The ledge : you jump to is large to enough to offer a little dodging room, but by : then, most of the Wasps here will be dead. The door on this ledge leads to : a pulsating hallway and the room with the 3x Charger. Gotta wrestle it : away from two Hunters, though, at least one of whom will probably be a : Major! : After charging back up (isn't that a satisfying feeling you get from using a : recharge station?) you may notice yet another window oddity! If you : position yourself correctly (as shown in the overlaid auto-map), you'll : see this: : It appears that one of the exterior polygons has a very low ceiling height, : causing it to obstruct the top part of the Marathon when you're standing : in the wrong spot. Now Reggie's definitely getting the Hangar treatment! : ;) : In the large room you were in a moment ago, it's possible to fall down to : that ledge (and I'm sure many newbies who try to go up that staircase have : fallen prey to this possibility), but you can easily get back up using a : platform that's underneath the first door we used to get in here. Isn't : that sound just weird? Of course, in the original Marathon, you could : always escape using the Flamethrower (which would allow you to reach the : lonesome ledge in the north-west corner of the room), but this is : impossible in the recent betas because you can't get off the ground enough : for the Flamethrower to be any help. After going across the Incredibly : Narrow Staircase™, you'll enter an Incredibly Narrow Corridor™, which : contains another Hunter. In addition, the part with the tiny pillar also : contains the secret room with the Flamethrower and Rocket Launcher (point : A on the map above). : Don't let your guard down just yet, as there are several Hunters (some of : which are set to be Majors) and Wasps, along with a Wasp that pops out at : you from an Incredibly Tiny Monster Closet™ as soon as you actually go : inside the room. Strangely, sometimes you'll find Hunters that spawn : embedded in the weapon ledge, and can only be freed by shooting them. : Indeed, this level is prone to doing lots of weird stuff with spawning : enemies: for example, I tried to retreat after opening the door and firing : off a few Grenades, and was caught by a Wasp that had spawned in an : earlier part of this corridor. Strangely, when he tried shooting at me, he : did his animation, sound and all, and no projectile came out, as far as I : could tell. Needless to say, I killed him before I even started asking : myself what had really happened, so I can't be sure if the projectile just : went off-screen so fast I couldn't see it (he was probably firing at an : upward angle, considering that I was a step above him and he was near the : floor of his step). : As soon as you exit the Incredibly Narrow Corridor™, you'll be faced with a : polygon that's colored pink (the mark of a teleporter) and some more : enemies. Once you take care of the immediate threats, you'll realize : you're in a giant hallway filled with offshoots. In the end of the hallway : closest to where we entered (which I always think of as the 'back' of the : hallway, for some reason), there's two small offshoot corridors. One leads : to an empty room, and another leads to a dead-end with a Major Enforcer, : two Wasps, and a stream of slime. Interestingly, I think I once somehow : managed to get the Enforcer stuck behind one of the Wasps, who didn't : activate, thereby trapping him (although in truth this wasn't necessary, : as I dispatched them both within seconds). : If you look around, you'll find most of the offshoots lead to ledges : overlooking rooms with lots of enemies below. Strangely, they're all : positioned so they can't see you: : They sure look dumb, don't they? :P : If you move on, you'll find some more Enforcers coming out from a corridor : attached to a gigantic room containing… cryo-chambers? With Hounds in : them? If you don't know what that looks like, here's the texture for the : Hound chamber: : If you're an avid reader of the Marathon Story Page, you'll know the Hound : was an enemy that got cut from the original game. The Marathon Scrapbook : has this to say about it and other such cut monsters: Reg designed three : aliens that didn't make the cut for the final game: The Hound, the : Armageddon Beast and a non-combatant alien crewman. The Hound moved quite : fast but could not climb stairs and only had a melee attack. Hounds acted : a lot like piranhas, guarding low spots on a map and wandering off when : they couldn't attack the player any longer. The Armageddon Beast sucked : down damage like the Big Blue Meanie in Pathways and shot streams of : highly damaging little pellets. Both were dropped because no levels had : been planned where these monsters would conceivably be fun to fight. The : alien crewmen were intended to be Pfhor counterparts of the human : civilians on the Marathon: weaponless and unable to defend themselves in : any way. A memory limit on the number of monster types per level forced : Bungie to abandon them. : What a shame. Still, at least we can remember them fondly. : In another corridor linked to this room is the only Pattern Buffer on this : level. If you miss it, you're gonna be hating yourself for it when you : find yourself restarting way back on Beware of Low-Flying Defense Drones : after dying on the next level, which completely lacks any Pattern Buffer. : The simple solution: don't miss it . Unless you have a death-wish or are : trying to speed-run the game ( a la Cody Miller, who now seems to have : moved on to higher things ), you'll really want to use this Pattern : Buffer the first chance you get. Only then should you continue down the : other corridor. : Eventually you'll reach another large door (the Pfhor sure love that : galaxy-style door thing, don't they?) guarded by some Enforcers and Wasps. : Despite the fact that this is an Exploration level, you don't actually : need to go through this door - it just leads to those two large rooms with : all the enemies, and all you need to do is look around at them from the : ledges to exit the level. However, if you really feel the urge to let all : hell break loose, then by all means, go through this door. When you do, : you'll be greeted by a roomful of Wasps… all looking the wrong way. In : fact, you can easily get directly behind them just for the fun of toying : with the idea of not being noticed by a bazillion space Aliens: : If you fire a shot, however, all the aliens in this whole area will activate, : and then you'll have to pay. If you're scratch-starting, use the : Flamethrower and/or the Alien Weapon to deal with these areas - the Magnum : is useless against these kind of numbers and the Rocket Launcher could : easily kill you if a Wasp gets too close. If you've played the previous : levels, however, use the Fusion Pistol on the Wasps and the Assault : Rifle's Grenades on the Enforcers. Once you've cleared out all the enemies : here, head back to the Pattern Buffer and save your game. Now take the : teleporter back to the recharge station, fill up all the way, grit your : teeth, and let yourself be taken off the level as you stand next to the : window. : Not a whole lot of Tru 7 h on this level, and it's hard to say why we're even : here, really. We haven't seen the cyborg Controller that Durandal : described, and yet he refuses to take us off the level until we've : explored everywhere. Either he's got faulty information, or he wants us to : 'learn' a little more about this place before we kill the Controller. Or : maybe he messed up and just wants us to think we ended up here on : purpose? ;) : I guess we'll have to wait for the next level if we want to learn anything. : Vale, : Perseus
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