Your Name:
	Your E-Mail Address:
	Subject:
	Message: : : : Tempus Irae 14 Theater of Pain : Last time on Tour of Duty we were indeed on a boat, and it was rather : claustrophobic making. Not only were the colours really good at hiding : openings and such, but the ambushes from both sides made it a panicky : place. We did our job and sank the thing, and right at the end there, : there was a secret with a 2x shield recharge canister and an invincibility : powerup, and those are gold for the start of our level today! : We start in a courtyard with a couple of open doors leading into rooms, and : of course more of the courtyard on the other sides. We are soon joined by : Troopers and Fighters, and as we explore out a bit, Hunters and Enforcers : shooting us from behind windows. They are a right pain here, but we : hopefully have some SPNKR ammo left to sort them out. : There is quite a bit to deal with before we get to our first Pattern Buffer, : so don't be surprised if you find yourself back on that boat again many : times. Apart from anything else, it is not exactly obvious where we have : to go here. There is a staircase that leads us to some ammo, a 2x shield : recharge canister, and a locked door that wants a key. There are some : Drones and a Cyborg a little further on through the courtyard and into a : hedge area, and if we follow this path to its end, there is a switch that : doesn’t seem to do anything we can work out. : Back a bit there is a raised area with a small sewage pond and a sewagefall : behind it! To the right against the wall is a platform that keeps rising : and falling, and we can take it up there. Then sinking in the sewage : teleports us to the top of the sewagefall, to some ammo, and the ability : to drop down on a ledge in the wall to the right. Carrying on along it, we : can also jump across to the tops of the hedges. Walking around this area : causes a wall to start opening, further along the ledge we were on, and : that's where we’re headed next. : Let’s have a look at that in the context of the map. : : : The main thing that stands out there is the round area to the northeast, but : we’re a ways from that still. We have so far travelled northwest across : what really is a reasonably uneventful courtyard, as far as the map is : concerned. : Now down a large tiled staircase, a whole lot of Pfhor are waiting. Waiting : for a SPNKR to the face! This room is walled with tiles with Latin words : that I think we have seen before; through the next switch controlled door : is our first Pattern Buffer, along with several Pfhor bearing down on us, : and the door happily closes behind us. Yes there's a switch on the other : side also, but still, it was clearly meant as a bit of a trap. At least : now we're saved! : This room seems like a dead-end. The door at the far end won’t open; what : looks like a door on the wall opposite the Pattern Buffer won’t open … but : it doesn’t make sense to have a door there, and those rather decorative : walls to the sides look a bit suspicious, and even more so on the map! : Indeed, actioning the left one reveals a switch. Grenading that opens the : right wall, revealing another switch, and this time it opens the door … : not the nonsense one, but the one at the far end of the room. Now, I don’t : care who you are: that is an awesome lock mechanism. : Not far past that door, we come to our central hub for the next little while, : and also the site of the secret exit to Never Satisfied, which I’m going : to have to actually finish now, obviously! The hub is a courtyard with : walls to the east and west and behind those, two doors on each side, as : well as Troopers ready to pounce, and a fair share of Pfhor in the middle : to boot. To the north is a door that doesn’t open, and a switch beside it : that doesn’t open it, but opens the northeast door off the courtyard : instead. : It leads us to a more round courtyard that is just too quiet, and there is a : switch on the reverse side of a wall that we have to go around to enter : the courtyard. Surely nothing could go wrong in hitting that switch, : right? Au contraire! Suddenly the outside of the courtyard turns into : stairs, and two openings reveal Pfhor including Hunters and Enforcers – a : nasty trap at higher difficulties. And what’s more, the stairs are all out : of our reach, until a platform descends opposite the switch, revealing a : whole lot more Fighters and another opening. When they are all cleared : out, we find that where the Enforcer was is a dead-end; where the Fighers : were leads to a door that doesn’t open, but does supply some ammo, while : the north opening leads us around to the west, past a Pattern Buffer, and : to a small room just north of our main courtyard, pretty much just : spitting us out back into it, through the door that wouldn’t open, and : even now only does so temporarily via a switch, and can’t be propped open. : Now the southwest door off the courtyard is open, but it closes behind us, or : at least a platform replaces it when we go through it; the texture from : the courtyard side is different. Behind the door go down a corridor around : another courtyard, getting a small preview of it through a window, a small : sewage pool its main distinguishing feature. A door stands between us and : the courtyard, but for a change, it opens, and can be propped open : obediently, via the switch just next to it. When we actually enter the : courtyard, we cannot be surprised to find that things change – to the tune : of Drones from the pool, some Fighters, and a Blue Hunter! A slightly : off-key tune if you ask me! : An opening leads us into the Theatre for real, with stone aisles on the sides : of uncomfortable looking stone bench seats, and a wooden stage with : curtains to the left and right. Tonight’s performance stars an Enforcer, : and there’s a Hunter somewhere waiting in the wings … or was he an usher? : It’s a nice touch and they really did have fun theming this scenario. The : backstage doors both just simply open, it’s quite a miracle really! And : backstage there is a Fighter and some ammo, not the most obvious of props! : A switch on the wall heading back towards the stage opens a door next to : it, revealing some stairs to up above the theatre, and clearly they didn’t : want actors leaving, because straight ahead at the top of the stairs, : there’s a Juggernaut through a window! : We can look in on him, but we can’t join him in his space, so I’m quite happy : just to let him be – although it is a rather large room on the map to : leave inaccessible! A door to the right takes us back downstairs, and back : to the room north of the courtyard, to be spat out there once again – I : guess that’s why the PB was nearby. And, you guessed it, our next door is : now open, to the southeast. : Viking pointed out to me that there is actually a terminal on this level, and : perhaps it is somewhere in that inaccessible area? Or is it just a : technical thing? It speaks for itself pretty well, but leaves me wondering : what about the Pfhor ship levels in M1? How are they treated in A1? : : : : We head down a few stairs and enter a room with a few Pfhor. Two doors to the : left take us into a large hall, church-like but nowhere near as grand as : others we’ve seen. The ambush that awaits is quite grand though, including : two Blue Hunters and various Troopers. When all is said and done, switches : to the left and right of the altar open corridors with another switch each : – in coop I guess you could do this in synchrony, like the keys for : activating Skynet. The end result is the rise of a platform above the : altar, a bit more innocuous than the rise of the machines. : It is harder to time the jump for that opening than I remembered. You need to : take a run up, hit the stairs and leap to the altar, just as we did for a : secret on Downward Spiral. Then the jump still seems to require a bit of : side-stepping, or just several attempts, at least. Carrying on,, we follow : a corridor to a door, with a switch that doesn’t let us hold it open – : there is no going back, a point which can seem rather confusing given that : the next area holds rather a headscratching puzzle. First though, we get a : Pattern Buffer and some health and ammo, also starring some Pfhor, oh and : the key for that door back at the start of the level … kind of. And then a : courtyard with a Juggernaut. Just what we’ve always wanted! : Once he is downed, we find that the courtyard is rather empty. At the far end : to the left there’s a switch to open the door at the far end to the right, : and going to the switch spawns one Projectile Fighter, but that’s about : it. Through that door is a room packed with Pfhor, and then another with : more including a Juggernaut, and a central pillar that houses the earlier : mentioned puzzle. The only way forward from this room is a locked door, : and when I first reached this room, I just didn’t get it – I went back to : earlier parts of the level trying to find a switch somewhere; I’m not : actually sure whether -that- would have been a more acceptable path to : success than what I found out was the actual one courtesy of these here : Internets. : The pillar has a slightly flickering face to the southeast, higher up, and it : is actionable even from ground level, revealing an L switch, which opens : the door! So irritatingly simple, but so nasty at the same time, and a : complete freeze on progress – but an intentional one, not like the : slightly buggy door in the non-secret level that follows this one. Oh yes : there is also a secret way to leave this level, and while we’re here, we : can trigger the ability to access it by grenade jumping ourselves up onto : the ledge of the pillar … but that’s fine as it is supposed to be a : secret! : Once we’re through the door, we pass the other side of the keyed door from : early in the level, without noticing it at all, and then hook back up to : the big door we opened from the window ledge quite early on. With key in : hand we kind of know where we’re headed, and it doesn’t take long. The : door doesn’t actually open; rather our exit teleporter is revealed in the : wall just over to the right. The secret exit is via the fourth door from : the level’s central courtyard, and the teleporter there opens in the right : wall at the end of a short corridor. And that leads us to Never Satisfied, : which clearly refers to the puzzles, because that level is just rife with : them!
	If you'd like to include a link to another page with your message, please provide both the URL address and the title of the page:
	Optional Link URL:
	Optional Link Title:
	If necessary, enter your password below:
	Password: