STICKGHOST'S GUIDE TO D2
Note: This article is not really a guide and should not be used for a walkthrough (nor should you play this game.)
Note: This article is not really a guide and should not be used for a walkthrough (nor should you play this game.)
Out of all the oddball games I've played, I recently
dusted off the disks of the hands-down winner, D2. In case you're wondering,
yes the 2 means the second installment, and the D is in fact the title
of the first game. Well, the English title is "D". In Japan,
it was D no shokotaku, which I think means 'Dracula's dinner table' or
something. Makes sense, although I guess they thought it was too spoiling
so they changed it. They were probably going to think of another name
that began with 'D', but then forgot about it.
Anyway, in the first D, a woman named Laura went to a hospital to talk some sense into her crazed father, who shot up the place and holed up inside. The place turned into a castle and she solved a bunch of puzzles. She then confronted her father, who was about to become a vampire, and killed him. Oh, and the game sucked. But if you actually enjoyed D and are looking to see how Laura's life was afterwards, well forget about it as there is nothing in here that acknowledges the events of the first (like her last name changing.)
Anyway, this game's a doozy. It's marketed as a survival horror, but it's not really scary. It has attempted jump scares, but you can see them coming from a mile away. What this game does have is some seriously FUCKED UP story and goings on. Given a short video, you'd probably guess this was an adaptation of a Stephen King novel. Forget Silent Hill, this is hands down the most messed up game I've ever played.
And that's really the only reason you'd actually play through this game. Actually, that classification is only correct in the sense that it is a disc played in your Dreamcast and it requires your input from time to time. Roughly 1% of this 'game' is you controlling Laura. The rest is comprised of cutscenes and FMV's. Strangely, for as little gameplay as there is in the game, there's a metric ass-ton of different modes in this game. Part survival horror, part Myst-like exploration, part first-person shooter, part role-playing game, and all CRAP. All this junk is just thrown into the game with no real thought or competent execution.
For example, you actually gain experience by killing enemies which randomly appear just like most RPG's. With these experience points, you can distribute them among your stats to raise your Hit Points, Charisma, Strength, and... Oh shit, my bad; gaining levels merely gets you more Hit Points. Then there's the battles themselves. You are given full control of your aim, allowing you to shoot the enemies anywhere you please (you can also shoot away from your enemies, but that's kinda pointless), but you can't actually move yourself. It's like playing Halo by standing still and firing all around you. But when the enemies hit you, just go into your inventory (which pauses the game) and dig out those First-Aid Sprays you've got.
Onto the actual 'game', if you put in disk 1, you can either start the game or watch the intro, which requires you to put in disk 4. After that, you can start the game and reinsert disk 1. WARP tried and tried, but in the end they just SIMPLY COULD NOT FIND A WAY TO PUT THE INTRO ON THE FIRST DISK.
Laura's taking a flight to... Canada I guess, since the plot would suggest so, and that's where the game takes place. Although if she did, she sure hasn't thought ahead, as she's wearing just a business suit and skirt. She drifts off to sleep but is jolted awake suddenly, knocking her little compact to the floor where it rolls away. A man picks it up and goes to return it, but becomes overly fascinated with it first. I dunno who this guy is, but I suspect he's one of the members of Men Without Hats.
Anyway, in the first D, a woman named Laura went to a hospital to talk some sense into her crazed father, who shot up the place and holed up inside. The place turned into a castle and she solved a bunch of puzzles. She then confronted her father, who was about to become a vampire, and killed him. Oh, and the game sucked. But if you actually enjoyed D and are looking to see how Laura's life was afterwards, well forget about it as there is nothing in here that acknowledges the events of the first (like her last name changing.)
Anyway, this game's a doozy. It's marketed as a survival horror, but it's not really scary. It has attempted jump scares, but you can see them coming from a mile away. What this game does have is some seriously FUCKED UP story and goings on. Given a short video, you'd probably guess this was an adaptation of a Stephen King novel. Forget Silent Hill, this is hands down the most messed up game I've ever played.
And that's really the only reason you'd actually play through this game. Actually, that classification is only correct in the sense that it is a disc played in your Dreamcast and it requires your input from time to time. Roughly 1% of this 'game' is you controlling Laura. The rest is comprised of cutscenes and FMV's. Strangely, for as little gameplay as there is in the game, there's a metric ass-ton of different modes in this game. Part survival horror, part Myst-like exploration, part first-person shooter, part role-playing game, and all CRAP. All this junk is just thrown into the game with no real thought or competent execution.
For example, you actually gain experience by killing enemies which randomly appear just like most RPG's. With these experience points, you can distribute them among your stats to raise your Hit Points, Charisma, Strength, and... Oh shit, my bad; gaining levels merely gets you more Hit Points. Then there's the battles themselves. You are given full control of your aim, allowing you to shoot the enemies anywhere you please (you can also shoot away from your enemies, but that's kinda pointless), but you can't actually move yourself. It's like playing Halo by standing still and firing all around you. But when the enemies hit you, just go into your inventory (which pauses the game) and dig out those First-Aid Sprays you've got.
Onto the actual 'game', if you put in disk 1, you can either start the game or watch the intro, which requires you to put in disk 4. After that, you can start the game and reinsert disk 1. WARP tried and tried, but in the end they just SIMPLY COULD NOT FIND A WAY TO PUT THE INTRO ON THE FIRST DISK.
Laura's taking a flight to... Canada I guess, since the plot would suggest so, and that's where the game takes place. Although if she did, she sure hasn't thought ahead, as she's wearing just a business suit and skirt. She drifts off to sleep but is jolted awake suddenly, knocking her little compact to the floor where it rolls away. A man picks it up and goes to return it, but becomes overly fascinated with it first. I dunno who this guy is, but I suspect he's one of the members of Men Without Hats.
Getting the idea that he will become important later
on? He then flips it over and starts reading aloud:
"'To Laura, from your mother Lucy.' You wouldn't
want to lose it! It was from your mother, wasn't it... Laura?"
Weirdo. Just give her the damn thing back. Oh, and great
deduction skills jackass. Suddenly, a flight attendant is shot. A pair
of terrorists with submachine guns stand in the front. One tells everyone
to shut up, which is kinda strange since NOBODY IS MAKING ANY NOISE. After
speaking, the passengers realize they missed their part and start freaking.
Spouting gibberish, they start firing at random locations in the plane
until the man who grabbed Laura's compact pulls a gun and shoots one of
them. At the exact same time, the other hijacker starts to freak out on
an unrelated episode. Suddenly the compact glows and reveals a vision
of the plane getting struck by a comet. Sure enough, it does...
Laura awakens in a cabin days after the wreck with a fellow passenger named Kim. At that very minute, one of the terrorists randomly walks into the cabin and turns into a monster. Kim is entangled and gets violated (seriously, it was toned down for the American release) by a tentacle. Laura grabs a hunting rifle, but alas, we all know you can't use a hunting rifle in actual combat. Some dude named Parker also happens upon the cabin and shoots the monster, scaring it off. Kim doesn't like the look of him and orders him to go away despite saving both their lives. He refers to the act of becoming a monster as 'blossoming'.
Laura awakens in a cabin days after the wreck with a fellow passenger named Kim. At that very minute, one of the terrorists randomly walks into the cabin and turns into a monster. Kim is entangled and gets violated (seriously, it was toned down for the American release) by a tentacle. Laura grabs a hunting rifle, but alas, we all know you can't use a hunting rifle in actual combat. Some dude named Parker also happens upon the cabin and shoots the monster, scaring it off. Kim doesn't like the look of him and orders him to go away despite saving both their lives. He refers to the act of becoming a monster as 'blossoming'.
Whatever you say Parker. You're the expect! By the way,
notice that he's very conspicuously sporting a cap. Anyway, what follows
is one of the games 1027 philosophical essays. (paraphrased)
Whoa, slow down there dude. I haven't even KILLED one
of these things and you're already questioning the morality of it. However,
he also says...
What? One moment you're saying "Is it right to
judge people with green blood to be a monster and kill them?", another
you're saying "Kill everything. It's all about survival!" Make
up your damn mind! He leaves you 2 alone in the cabin after this speech.
Now in control, search the cabin for First-Aid Sprays and Shotgun shells. While in buildings or enclosed areas, you are shown an 8 second movie of Laura looking intrigued by the item she has discovered and then her picking it up. Granted, the objects are HUGE in those movies, but you'd think the amazement of a health spray would wane by the 30th time. Look in the cabinet to find a submachine gun.
Once outside, you get a hunting tutorial and lessons on how to use the portable cooker. WARP seems to think 'portable' in this case means 'something you can carry in your pockets'. If you didn't find it, Kim gives you the submachine gun now. Otherwise, you'd be defenseless, as a SCOPED RIFLE is not a good weapon to use to defend yourself. Anyway, little goodies are scattered around in the snow such as more health sprays and grenades. Each grenade has "G-Bomb" carefully handwritten on it, presumably by a worker in the factory. Must be some sort of Canadian slang.
There's not much to do outside but go to a stone building not far from the cabin. Inside you find a locked cabinet, a locked safe, a nonfunctional phone, and a picture of the little girl from the plane with her grandpa. She drops the frame and breaks it (clumsy bitch) and takes the photo. This is totally optional though, as this picture is NEVER ever seen, mentioned, or otherwise again.
Return to the cabin and Kim deduces you went to the other building and saw the locked cabinet. She'll give you the key, saying that the cabinet held a cache of weapons and she didn't want the monsters to grab them. Why not take them into the cabin where you're actually staying then? Anyway, return to the stone hut and unlock it to discover the weapons stash: A whopping 1 grenade... I mean G-Bomb, yo. Well, and a tape recorder and magic wand. What a stash. Good thinking, Kim; I don't know how we would have made it without this G-Bomb or magic wand. Maybe they could've Abracadabra'd us out of existence.
Return to the other cabin and talk to Kim again. She decides to play a tape of a poem that she wrote, but the machine eats the tape, probably by the hand of God as smite for wasting our time with the locked cabinet. With naught else to do, go back outside and you'll receive a distress message from the plane. Shall we tell Kimmy? Oh yeah, you can't talk. Strangely, if you DO talk to her now, she says she can hear a stewardess's voice over and over, apparently all in her head. Leave her and get to the plane.
The plane is full of death, but there is one person alive; the stewardess who made the distress call. However, she's infected, as evidenced by her suddenly sticking to wall via a spider web and a tentacle bursting from her chest. BOSS BATTLE! It's just like a normal fight, only the enemies take longer to kill. To speed it up, hit the flying butterfly to score a large damage bonus. You may win the battle, but Laura loses the war and is trapped. But before the tentacle thingy can strike, Kim just happens to show up and kills it by throwing a SHARPENED STICK at it. I shoot the thing for few minutes with a machine gun and then she kills it with a sharpened stick. And how the hell did she manage to hit the tentacle right in the 'mouth' yet impale it to the side wall, let alone with enough power to penetrate the wall of a plane enough to support the weight of the limb? I guess she also learned that from her philosophical hunter bar buddy (Oh, I guess you'd need to play the game to understand that one.)
Remarkably calm after this scene, she comments on how "a butterfly could symbolize the stewardess's desire to fly." That may be so, but is this really the first thing that you think about after killing a monster? Laura passes out and Kim returns her to the cabin. Kim's apparently found a snowmobile while you where out, but there's not enough gas for it. She's gone when you awake, so go out by yourself. Once outside, Laura tries to fire up the snowmobile to no success. Well no shit Laura, THERE'S NO GAS. Pay attention. She decides to take the key ring anyway. Great idea: take the keys to the only way out of here so if you get killed, Kim can't escape either.
This time, head to the right of the map to the Tyrell Mining Company complex. Jump into the truck parked outside. Inside the glovebox are a health spray and a box of shotgun shells (gotta love those Canadian truckers.) Use the keys that came off the snowmobile (in Canada, all vehicles use the same key) to start up the truck. The truck starts going, and Laura can't stop it. The truck smashes through the gate and promptly dies. You can't enter the actual complex due to a pass number lock. So walk out and another truck shows up driven by some old guy (who you'll easily recognize as the man in the photo if you saw it earlier.) He simply keeps on driving as he approaches, and Laura takes this as enough reason to open fire. The truck crashes and ejects the man from the cab.
A strange necklace thingy lies next to the man... Laura goes for it... Any takers on whether or not the man is going to suddenly jump up and scare her? Didn't think so. Another boss battle, and this one's even more messed up. During the fight, a bird occasionally flies in and picks him up to carry him around for a while. Okaaaaaay. His weakpoint is his open tentacle. After killing him, he bursts and several birds fly out. I think those birds are supposed to be metaphorical, because I don't remember since when this infection caused birds to propagate inside your body. Now you can grab the necklace, which contains a picture of Jannie and her grandpa, the guy you just killed. Laura freaks out at this point, having just figured that out now. She somehow failed to catch the clues, like him saying "Jannie" about 300 times during the fight.
She passes out and Kim brings her to the cabin again. Head out, ALONE as always. Enter the stone hut and unlock that safe with the keycard. Whoohoo! A shotgun, and another G-Bomb! There's also a cellphone which Jannie just happens to call at that very moment but you can't reply because the batteries also just happen to die at that exact same moment. And you can't talk. Remember the numbers written on the paper on the door. Try to leave, and pair of people approach. Laura hides under the bed as they enter. One seems to be Kim, the other one of the terrorists. Kim threatens the man, but when she calms down, the man decides to make some sexual innuendo (nothing gets me hotter than when chicks threaten to kill me) and gets killed. Once the coast is clear, get out and head back to the mines.
Enter those numbers to open that gate. Down in the mines, you come to a room with a bunch of lunchboxes with names from Enemy Zero on them. The Mercus one has a health spray, Ronny's has some shotgun shells (a must when you're 30 miles underground), and checking George's box triggers a monster to attack. No biggie, but you get no experience for killing him. After all that, Laura decides not to open the box. In the same room you'll find cans of gasoline. After that, you find Jannie trapped in a pit. Laura saves her by holding out the magic wand (so that's why it exists!) but then the place suddenly caves in for no reason. Man, you just can't catch a break.
Or maybe you can. The Great Mother speaks to you and you both magically warp back to the cabin, wrecking the roof in the process. The 3 of you take the snowmobile (hey, gasoline survives divine teleportation too) out of the valley and the first disk. They come across an inn or something like that. They (well, Kim) decide that Laura check out the building and Kim and Jannie will go explore outside. I'd figure that it'd be safer to leave Jannie at the inn rather than ride along in monster country, but that's just me. A search of the place turns up a map of the area, various ammo/G-Bombs, and health items. However, when you open a door marked 'Restroom', you discover nothing beyond it!
Don't worry, Laura manages to save herself from falling into the abyss. Returning to the hall, you find some guy yelling at Kim, who is clad is nothing but a towel for some reason. Apparently the crazy man and almost-naked woman walked into the inn while you fell out of the bathroom. Man, that sounds like the start of a really good joke. Although the man isn't wearing a hat, he does have a bandage covering his entire head, so my theory is holding up quite well so far. He accuses her of being a monster and eating his father. Strangely, he also uses the term 'blossom' to describe the transformation. Wonder if he's been speaking to Parker or if 'blossom' has been decided on by the scientific community for this epidemic. For a crazy guy that wants to kill someone he's convinced is a monster, he's awfully talkative. While eavesdropping, Laura slips up and reveals herself.
Now both girls are tied up. After a bit more talking, puking, and pill-popping, he finally goes ahead and shoots Kim, revealing green blood... But before he can finish her, she 'blossoms' a tentacle and bites his head off. His body runs about for a while before collapsing. Now I'm sure there was some black humor intended within this FMV, but I doubt the entire sequence was meant to be so hilarious. Kim stands, still wearing her magic white towel despite a huge limb bursting from her chest and also completely devoid of blood. No, it's not censorship, because the towel then falls to reveal full frontal nudity. Not that it's something you really want to see unless you've got a thing for hentai involving tentacles coming from a vagina. I'm sure it's got a name but I'm even more sure I don't want to look it up. Since Laura's still tied to the chair, death seems certain, but then the real Kim shows up and takes her down with a single shotgun blast.
Once again, after saving your ass from a boss she is totally unfazed and already making a full analysis on what she's just witnessed. This little episode introduces a subplot involving clones, something that has absolutely NO fucking bearing on the plot and simply raises more questions. Questions like: Why are there clones of Kim and nobody else? Suddenly the clone rises up and grabs the real Kim and tosses her up. Seriously. The monster just grabs her and throws her straight up to let her fall right on her back. Stephen King couldn't have come up with monsters with more atrocious attacks. This knocks her out, leaving you to fend for yourself. She falls, making a 'gush' sound straight out of a Loony Toons cartoon. Way to completely ruin the mood morons. It's like having Micheal Myers chase some victim down and than having a 'BOINK!' noise when he stabs him.
But the unnecessary subplots don't stop there: Kim is also taking the same drugs the crazy guy was (Linda.) Apparently, the drug comes from this region, and several patients taking it performed violent acts, including even cannibalism. Nowadays a drug linked with violent acts wouldn't last a minute, but let's humor these guys. Just what does this have to do with anything? Linda certainly isn't what's turning people into the monsters you've been facing, because I doubt patients covered with green blood and extra appendages would go unnoticed, even in Canada.
Back in control, either talk to Kim or try to walk out without talking. Either way, she'll give you a key to the building she checked out. If you had gone there early, you'd find she locked the doors behind her. But to open the door, you also need to solve a puzzle, which involves flipping one of the 2 switches. Whee. Inside you find another dead Kimberly clone (okay, so there's a second reference to clones.) Other than that, you find a frozen hatch and another (totally unchallenging) door puzzle. Inside, push the button on the machine to make a long number appear. Remember these, and don't press that button again unless you want to write down those too.
Head out and proceed further down the path. It may seem like a good idea to check in with the others back at the inn, but they're still sleeping. Along the way, you can head to an island the middle of a frozen lake and spot another subplot never followed up on... I mean a UFO. Yeah. After going as far as you can, you come to the entrance to a planetarium. There's a gate locked with a pass number system, so use that combination you got earlier. The actual combination is generated randomly each time you press that button on that weird machine back in that supply depot. Now, I think having a combination that changes every 15 minutes would be a bad idea.
You find a man upstairs who's in the process of transformation. He's also accompanied by a talking computer that used to be his wife. See, he's solved the mystery of Stonehenge, predicted the end of the world (well, at least the catastrophe that's befallen Canada), created Linda, and is also the father of both the crazy guy from the inn and the man who saved Laura on the plane. Wow, could this guy have possibly been involved in any other subplots? Anyway, you may notice he has no hat, but he's no longer a man, so the theory is still holding up well. He asks you to kill him and destroy the entire lab with the flamethrower that every planetarium has. After that, return to the depot and use the flamethrower to melt the ice off the hatch. But under no circumstances should you use it as a weapon in battle!
It leads to a cellar with a bunch of Linda plants and pictures of the man's sons. Gasp, it's the man who saved you! (Oops, I already revealed that little bit in the last paragraph.) His name is David... But just then, someone closes the hatch (apparently Kim... or a clone!) Bah, fuck it. In the negative-0 temperatures, Laura passes out and gets another Great Mother vision. Cut to Parker driving a pickup that he's found... Suddenly, Laura comes crashing onto his hood in the flash of golden light. This totals the vehicle, so the 2 start pushing it. Whaddya know, Kim and Jannie happen across you in the snowmobile.
Now all together, the group crashes at someone's home. The owner is busy playing the piano upstairs and refuses to come out of the room. Talking with Parker, he mentions that he's with an extraterrestrial search organization and discusses the possibility of aliens. Remember the UFO earlier? Don't worry if you don't, cause aliens are never mentioned again. Go into the bedroom and sleep. When you awake, Kim and Parker are having an argument over her drugs. Parker leaves, and Kim just sits in the house, so what should you do?
Go out alone! The snowmobile is strangely absent, so you'll have to hoof it. If you head down the road, you'll find the truck Parker was driving. Guess they gave up and just left it blocking the entire road for someone to crash into. Way to go assholes. Instead head down the mountain and go left to a dilapidated building. Inside is some prophecy guy with a fake hand. After hearing his speech, head back to the house.
The upstairs room is now open. Inside, you have to play some notes on the piano to open a secret room. I think you need to have some real-life piano knowledge to figure it out; I don't know if the answer is directly stated in the game, and I simply looked up a walkthrough. If you actually know knew how to solve the puzzle, I have no respect for you. Well, I actually took a piano class in highschool. Not really voluntarily; it was my 4th backup choice (since the other choices sucked.) Lo and behold, one of my preferred choices fell through, and so did my first, second, and third backup choices. Didn't learn a damn thing (I didn't even attempt my final.) Piano is for pussies.
Anyway, it's no wonder he went insane with a door opening every time he played those 5 keys. Within the secret passage are a few framed butterfly connections. Behind one display is an assault rifle (oh yeah) and a key.
Head on out again, this time going further down that path to a house. It's locked, but that's what that key is for. The house belongs to the mother of the man in the house. Turns out she forced him to play the piano nonstop as a child and hooked him on Linda as well. He returned the favor with a burning log (or something like that) to the face. Aren't there any NORMAL people in Canada? You know, I bet this game is the reason Canadians got so worried about the use of their country in games and didn't want Sony to unleash Syphon Filter in Toronto. Thank you WARP for ruining it for the rest of us.
Jannie's run off again, and Kim goes to look for her. However, you can't help but notice a golden butterfly flittering around her... Is it supposed to symbolize that Kim has a desire to fly too? For some reason you check upstairs, another display opens and a dead body tumbles out... Parker JUST HAPPENS (as always) to have decided to come back to the house at this minute and comforts her.
Return to the prophecy man's place to find him dead. Grab the key in front of him and head into the back room. Unlock the the cabinets to find a handgun with a laser sight and 2 timebombs. Right. Return to the house and talk to Parker to give him one of the bombs. Head back to the house of the music man's mother. She's not in, but guess who's also in the neighborhood and decided to stop by? That terrorist that attacked you at the start of the game! Laura believes him, but he quickly blossoms for another boss fight. He goes down with another of of those Loony Toons 'gush'.
As Laura goes to close his eyes though, he suddenly comes back! Might have been scary if the game didn't take forever to build up suspense. Just as Laura is about to die, the Great Mother does her teleportation trick again. She sure bails your ass out a lot, doesn't she? Laura comes crashing through the roof of the music man's house right above the bed. So far, the Great Mother has ruined: 2 buildings and a pickup. You've ruined our cabin shelter, totaled a possible escape vehicle (which was a hell of a lot better than the snowmobile), and now I have to sleep with a giant fucking hole in the ceiling above my bed! Thanks asshole! If you're going to look out for me, could you please stop breaking things? Anyways, in the next room Parker gives you the scoop.
Now in control, search the cabin for First-Aid Sprays and Shotgun shells. While in buildings or enclosed areas, you are shown an 8 second movie of Laura looking intrigued by the item she has discovered and then her picking it up. Granted, the objects are HUGE in those movies, but you'd think the amazement of a health spray would wane by the 30th time. Look in the cabinet to find a submachine gun.
Once outside, you get a hunting tutorial and lessons on how to use the portable cooker. WARP seems to think 'portable' in this case means 'something you can carry in your pockets'. If you didn't find it, Kim gives you the submachine gun now. Otherwise, you'd be defenseless, as a SCOPED RIFLE is not a good weapon to use to defend yourself. Anyway, little goodies are scattered around in the snow such as more health sprays and grenades. Each grenade has "G-Bomb" carefully handwritten on it, presumably by a worker in the factory. Must be some sort of Canadian slang.
There's not much to do outside but go to a stone building not far from the cabin. Inside you find a locked cabinet, a locked safe, a nonfunctional phone, and a picture of the little girl from the plane with her grandpa. She drops the frame and breaks it (clumsy bitch) and takes the photo. This is totally optional though, as this picture is NEVER ever seen, mentioned, or otherwise again.
Return to the cabin and Kim deduces you went to the other building and saw the locked cabinet. She'll give you the key, saying that the cabinet held a cache of weapons and she didn't want the monsters to grab them. Why not take them into the cabin where you're actually staying then? Anyway, return to the stone hut and unlock it to discover the weapons stash: A whopping 1 grenade... I mean G-Bomb, yo. Well, and a tape recorder and magic wand. What a stash. Good thinking, Kim; I don't know how we would have made it without this G-Bomb or magic wand. Maybe they could've Abracadabra'd us out of existence.
Return to the other cabin and talk to Kim again. She decides to play a tape of a poem that she wrote, but the machine eats the tape, probably by the hand of God as smite for wasting our time with the locked cabinet. With naught else to do, go back outside and you'll receive a distress message from the plane. Shall we tell Kimmy? Oh yeah, you can't talk. Strangely, if you DO talk to her now, she says she can hear a stewardess's voice over and over, apparently all in her head. Leave her and get to the plane.
The plane is full of death, but there is one person alive; the stewardess who made the distress call. However, she's infected, as evidenced by her suddenly sticking to wall via a spider web and a tentacle bursting from her chest. BOSS BATTLE! It's just like a normal fight, only the enemies take longer to kill. To speed it up, hit the flying butterfly to score a large damage bonus. You may win the battle, but Laura loses the war and is trapped. But before the tentacle thingy can strike, Kim just happens to show up and kills it by throwing a SHARPENED STICK at it. I shoot the thing for few minutes with a machine gun and then she kills it with a sharpened stick. And how the hell did she manage to hit the tentacle right in the 'mouth' yet impale it to the side wall, let alone with enough power to penetrate the wall of a plane enough to support the weight of the limb? I guess she also learned that from her philosophical hunter bar buddy (Oh, I guess you'd need to play the game to understand that one.)
Remarkably calm after this scene, she comments on how "a butterfly could symbolize the stewardess's desire to fly." That may be so, but is this really the first thing that you think about after killing a monster? Laura passes out and Kim returns her to the cabin. Kim's apparently found a snowmobile while you where out, but there's not enough gas for it. She's gone when you awake, so go out by yourself. Once outside, Laura tries to fire up the snowmobile to no success. Well no shit Laura, THERE'S NO GAS. Pay attention. She decides to take the key ring anyway. Great idea: take the keys to the only way out of here so if you get killed, Kim can't escape either.
This time, head to the right of the map to the Tyrell Mining Company complex. Jump into the truck parked outside. Inside the glovebox are a health spray and a box of shotgun shells (gotta love those Canadian truckers.) Use the keys that came off the snowmobile (in Canada, all vehicles use the same key) to start up the truck. The truck starts going, and Laura can't stop it. The truck smashes through the gate and promptly dies. You can't enter the actual complex due to a pass number lock. So walk out and another truck shows up driven by some old guy (who you'll easily recognize as the man in the photo if you saw it earlier.) He simply keeps on driving as he approaches, and Laura takes this as enough reason to open fire. The truck crashes and ejects the man from the cab.
A strange necklace thingy lies next to the man... Laura goes for it... Any takers on whether or not the man is going to suddenly jump up and scare her? Didn't think so. Another boss battle, and this one's even more messed up. During the fight, a bird occasionally flies in and picks him up to carry him around for a while. Okaaaaaay. His weakpoint is his open tentacle. After killing him, he bursts and several birds fly out. I think those birds are supposed to be metaphorical, because I don't remember since when this infection caused birds to propagate inside your body. Now you can grab the necklace, which contains a picture of Jannie and her grandpa, the guy you just killed. Laura freaks out at this point, having just figured that out now. She somehow failed to catch the clues, like him saying "Jannie" about 300 times during the fight.
She passes out and Kim brings her to the cabin again. Head out, ALONE as always. Enter the stone hut and unlock that safe with the keycard. Whoohoo! A shotgun, and another G-Bomb! There's also a cellphone which Jannie just happens to call at that very moment but you can't reply because the batteries also just happen to die at that exact same moment. And you can't talk. Remember the numbers written on the paper on the door. Try to leave, and pair of people approach. Laura hides under the bed as they enter. One seems to be Kim, the other one of the terrorists. Kim threatens the man, but when she calms down, the man decides to make some sexual innuendo (nothing gets me hotter than when chicks threaten to kill me) and gets killed. Once the coast is clear, get out and head back to the mines.
Enter those numbers to open that gate. Down in the mines, you come to a room with a bunch of lunchboxes with names from Enemy Zero on them. The Mercus one has a health spray, Ronny's has some shotgun shells (a must when you're 30 miles underground), and checking George's box triggers a monster to attack. No biggie, but you get no experience for killing him. After all that, Laura decides not to open the box. In the same room you'll find cans of gasoline. After that, you find Jannie trapped in a pit. Laura saves her by holding out the magic wand (so that's why it exists!) but then the place suddenly caves in for no reason. Man, you just can't catch a break.
Or maybe you can. The Great Mother speaks to you and you both magically warp back to the cabin, wrecking the roof in the process. The 3 of you take the snowmobile (hey, gasoline survives divine teleportation too) out of the valley and the first disk. They come across an inn or something like that. They (well, Kim) decide that Laura check out the building and Kim and Jannie will go explore outside. I'd figure that it'd be safer to leave Jannie at the inn rather than ride along in monster country, but that's just me. A search of the place turns up a map of the area, various ammo/G-Bombs, and health items. However, when you open a door marked 'Restroom', you discover nothing beyond it!
Don't worry, Laura manages to save herself from falling into the abyss. Returning to the hall, you find some guy yelling at Kim, who is clad is nothing but a towel for some reason. Apparently the crazy man and almost-naked woman walked into the inn while you fell out of the bathroom. Man, that sounds like the start of a really good joke. Although the man isn't wearing a hat, he does have a bandage covering his entire head, so my theory is holding up quite well so far. He accuses her of being a monster and eating his father. Strangely, he also uses the term 'blossom' to describe the transformation. Wonder if he's been speaking to Parker or if 'blossom' has been decided on by the scientific community for this epidemic. For a crazy guy that wants to kill someone he's convinced is a monster, he's awfully talkative. While eavesdropping, Laura slips up and reveals herself.
Now both girls are tied up. After a bit more talking, puking, and pill-popping, he finally goes ahead and shoots Kim, revealing green blood... But before he can finish her, she 'blossoms' a tentacle and bites his head off. His body runs about for a while before collapsing. Now I'm sure there was some black humor intended within this FMV, but I doubt the entire sequence was meant to be so hilarious. Kim stands, still wearing her magic white towel despite a huge limb bursting from her chest and also completely devoid of blood. No, it's not censorship, because the towel then falls to reveal full frontal nudity. Not that it's something you really want to see unless you've got a thing for hentai involving tentacles coming from a vagina. I'm sure it's got a name but I'm even more sure I don't want to look it up. Since Laura's still tied to the chair, death seems certain, but then the real Kim shows up and takes her down with a single shotgun blast.
Once again, after saving your ass from a boss she is totally unfazed and already making a full analysis on what she's just witnessed. This little episode introduces a subplot involving clones, something that has absolutely NO fucking bearing on the plot and simply raises more questions. Questions like: Why are there clones of Kim and nobody else? Suddenly the clone rises up and grabs the real Kim and tosses her up. Seriously. The monster just grabs her and throws her straight up to let her fall right on her back. Stephen King couldn't have come up with monsters with more atrocious attacks. This knocks her out, leaving you to fend for yourself. She falls, making a 'gush' sound straight out of a Loony Toons cartoon. Way to completely ruin the mood morons. It's like having Micheal Myers chase some victim down and than having a 'BOINK!' noise when he stabs him.
But the unnecessary subplots don't stop there: Kim is also taking the same drugs the crazy guy was (Linda.) Apparently, the drug comes from this region, and several patients taking it performed violent acts, including even cannibalism. Nowadays a drug linked with violent acts wouldn't last a minute, but let's humor these guys. Just what does this have to do with anything? Linda certainly isn't what's turning people into the monsters you've been facing, because I doubt patients covered with green blood and extra appendages would go unnoticed, even in Canada.
Back in control, either talk to Kim or try to walk out without talking. Either way, she'll give you a key to the building she checked out. If you had gone there early, you'd find she locked the doors behind her. But to open the door, you also need to solve a puzzle, which involves flipping one of the 2 switches. Whee. Inside you find another dead Kimberly clone (okay, so there's a second reference to clones.) Other than that, you find a frozen hatch and another (totally unchallenging) door puzzle. Inside, push the button on the machine to make a long number appear. Remember these, and don't press that button again unless you want to write down those too.
Head out and proceed further down the path. It may seem like a good idea to check in with the others back at the inn, but they're still sleeping. Along the way, you can head to an island the middle of a frozen lake and spot another subplot never followed up on... I mean a UFO. Yeah. After going as far as you can, you come to the entrance to a planetarium. There's a gate locked with a pass number system, so use that combination you got earlier. The actual combination is generated randomly each time you press that button on that weird machine back in that supply depot. Now, I think having a combination that changes every 15 minutes would be a bad idea.
You find a man upstairs who's in the process of transformation. He's also accompanied by a talking computer that used to be his wife. See, he's solved the mystery of Stonehenge, predicted the end of the world (well, at least the catastrophe that's befallen Canada), created Linda, and is also the father of both the crazy guy from the inn and the man who saved Laura on the plane. Wow, could this guy have possibly been involved in any other subplots? Anyway, you may notice he has no hat, but he's no longer a man, so the theory is still holding up well. He asks you to kill him and destroy the entire lab with the flamethrower that every planetarium has. After that, return to the depot and use the flamethrower to melt the ice off the hatch. But under no circumstances should you use it as a weapon in battle!
It leads to a cellar with a bunch of Linda plants and pictures of the man's sons. Gasp, it's the man who saved you! (Oops, I already revealed that little bit in the last paragraph.) His name is David... But just then, someone closes the hatch (apparently Kim... or a clone!) Bah, fuck it. In the negative-0 temperatures, Laura passes out and gets another Great Mother vision. Cut to Parker driving a pickup that he's found... Suddenly, Laura comes crashing onto his hood in the flash of golden light. This totals the vehicle, so the 2 start pushing it. Whaddya know, Kim and Jannie happen across you in the snowmobile.
Now all together, the group crashes at someone's home. The owner is busy playing the piano upstairs and refuses to come out of the room. Talking with Parker, he mentions that he's with an extraterrestrial search organization and discusses the possibility of aliens. Remember the UFO earlier? Don't worry if you don't, cause aliens are never mentioned again. Go into the bedroom and sleep. When you awake, Kim and Parker are having an argument over her drugs. Parker leaves, and Kim just sits in the house, so what should you do?
Go out alone! The snowmobile is strangely absent, so you'll have to hoof it. If you head down the road, you'll find the truck Parker was driving. Guess they gave up and just left it blocking the entire road for someone to crash into. Way to go assholes. Instead head down the mountain and go left to a dilapidated building. Inside is some prophecy guy with a fake hand. After hearing his speech, head back to the house.
The upstairs room is now open. Inside, you have to play some notes on the piano to open a secret room. I think you need to have some real-life piano knowledge to figure it out; I don't know if the answer is directly stated in the game, and I simply looked up a walkthrough. If you actually know knew how to solve the puzzle, I have no respect for you. Well, I actually took a piano class in highschool. Not really voluntarily; it was my 4th backup choice (since the other choices sucked.) Lo and behold, one of my preferred choices fell through, and so did my first, second, and third backup choices. Didn't learn a damn thing (I didn't even attempt my final.) Piano is for pussies.
Anyway, it's no wonder he went insane with a door opening every time he played those 5 keys. Within the secret passage are a few framed butterfly connections. Behind one display is an assault rifle (oh yeah) and a key.
Head on out again, this time going further down that path to a house. It's locked, but that's what that key is for. The house belongs to the mother of the man in the house. Turns out she forced him to play the piano nonstop as a child and hooked him on Linda as well. He returned the favor with a burning log (or something like that) to the face. Aren't there any NORMAL people in Canada? You know, I bet this game is the reason Canadians got so worried about the use of their country in games and didn't want Sony to unleash Syphon Filter in Toronto. Thank you WARP for ruining it for the rest of us.
Jannie's run off again, and Kim goes to look for her. However, you can't help but notice a golden butterfly flittering around her... Is it supposed to symbolize that Kim has a desire to fly too? For some reason you check upstairs, another display opens and a dead body tumbles out... Parker JUST HAPPENS (as always) to have decided to come back to the house at this minute and comforts her.
Return to the prophecy man's place to find him dead. Grab the key in front of him and head into the back room. Unlock the the cabinets to find a handgun with a laser sight and 2 timebombs. Right. Return to the house and talk to Parker to give him one of the bombs. Head back to the house of the music man's mother. She's not in, but guess who's also in the neighborhood and decided to stop by? That terrorist that attacked you at the start of the game! Laura believes him, but he quickly blossoms for another boss fight. He goes down with another of of those Loony Toons 'gush'.
As Laura goes to close his eyes though, he suddenly comes back! Might have been scary if the game didn't take forever to build up suspense. Just as Laura is about to die, the Great Mother does her teleportation trick again. She sure bails your ass out a lot, doesn't she? Laura comes crashing through the roof of the music man's house right above the bed. So far, the Great Mother has ruined: 2 buildings and a pickup. You've ruined our cabin shelter, totaled a possible escape vehicle (which was a hell of a lot better than the snowmobile), and now I have to sleep with a giant fucking hole in the ceiling above my bed! Thanks asshole! If you're going to look out for me, could you please stop breaking things? Anyways, in the next room Parker gives you the scoop.
And by 'wandered off', you of course mean 'was killed
and stuffed into a display case', right? Oh Parker, you and your silly
terminology. Does he really not make the connection between the dead body
and the man? Parker, you DID at least tell her that there's a dead body
upstairs and not to freak out, right?
Head all the way down the path to meet Kim at bridge with a sealed gate. They head back to the house where Kim quickly talks Parker into giving her a set bomb to blow the bridge. Now the logical way to do this would be to drive to the bridge, place the bomb, and then set it to explode in say, 3 minutes, giving you time to run to safety. Right? Well, these guys have an even better idea: set the bomb at the house to explode in 15 minutes and make a run through monster country to the bridge! Fucking BRILLIANT! After she leaves, Parker suddenly realizes that he set the bomb to explode at 1500 hours (That's military time for you bozos), which is in 5 minutes! Bombs that detonate at a certain time of day? Do those even exist? And why would you even need it? Is there a difference between setting a bomb to go off at 3:00 and setting it to explode in 1 hour at 2:00? And how and why did this prophecy guy get ahold of this stuff?
Haul ass to the bridge in the snowmobile. Kim didn't even take the snowmobile? She was just going to walk to the bridge in a monster-infested country in the snow with a bomb set to explode in 15 minutes? Way to think ahead girl! Well, I guess this is the hardest part of the game. Too bad I didn't need half of the provided time on my first run. Laura grabs the bomb from Kim and throws it over the canyon as it explodes (never mind you probably got here with 2 minutes to spare.) Thank goodness we had a spare bomb! Another argument between Parker and Kim breaks out.
Kim finally resolves to not be such a bitch to Parker, but he discovers he's been infected at some point. Just as the girls realize he took the other bomb, there's an explosion some distance away. They head to the bridge to find the gate destroyed and that Parker took his life with the blast. Now that's how you do it! Both suicide and the bridge, I mean. Kim goes off to be by herself, and you should go back to the house. Jannie reappears, but the music man's mother comes down the stairs with a vengeance and a new pair of tentacles.
After the fight, Jannie tells you that Kim was acting strangely and that's why she ran off again. By strangely, she means 'violently' and that she was "doing bad things" to the man upstairs. Kim returns at this exact moment and simply says something like "So that's what happened..." Despite this newly uncovered tendency for sudden extremely violent outbursts, Laura and Kim are perfectly cool with staying with her.
They head for the bridge again. They decide to stop and stand around for a while before crossing. Just then, Parker reappears in bad shape but still pretty intact. Way to mess up suicide dude. Kim runs to him and embraces him. He impales her with a tentacle, she blasts him with her shotgun, and they both fall. I guess WARP just had so much fun killing them in Enemy Zero they had to do it again. He survives ground zero at an explosion, but a single shotgun blast kills him? And how come nothing I face dies so easily? Disk 3 is over!
Across the bridge leads to the Lucy Parton observatory. It's sealed though, and works on a voice-recognition lock. "Please state your name" the intercom repeats as if to mock the fact that you can't speak. I wonder how Laura gets into the...
Head all the way down the path to meet Kim at bridge with a sealed gate. They head back to the house where Kim quickly talks Parker into giving her a set bomb to blow the bridge. Now the logical way to do this would be to drive to the bridge, place the bomb, and then set it to explode in say, 3 minutes, giving you time to run to safety. Right? Well, these guys have an even better idea: set the bomb at the house to explode in 15 minutes and make a run through monster country to the bridge! Fucking BRILLIANT! After she leaves, Parker suddenly realizes that he set the bomb to explode at 1500 hours (That's military time for you bozos), which is in 5 minutes! Bombs that detonate at a certain time of day? Do those even exist? And why would you even need it? Is there a difference between setting a bomb to go off at 3:00 and setting it to explode in 1 hour at 2:00? And how and why did this prophecy guy get ahold of this stuff?
Haul ass to the bridge in the snowmobile. Kim didn't even take the snowmobile? She was just going to walk to the bridge in a monster-infested country in the snow with a bomb set to explode in 15 minutes? Way to think ahead girl! Well, I guess this is the hardest part of the game. Too bad I didn't need half of the provided time on my first run. Laura grabs the bomb from Kim and throws it over the canyon as it explodes (never mind you probably got here with 2 minutes to spare.) Thank goodness we had a spare bomb! Another argument between Parker and Kim breaks out.
Kim finally resolves to not be such a bitch to Parker, but he discovers he's been infected at some point. Just as the girls realize he took the other bomb, there's an explosion some distance away. They head to the bridge to find the gate destroyed and that Parker took his life with the blast. Now that's how you do it! Both suicide and the bridge, I mean. Kim goes off to be by herself, and you should go back to the house. Jannie reappears, but the music man's mother comes down the stairs with a vengeance and a new pair of tentacles.
After the fight, Jannie tells you that Kim was acting strangely and that's why she ran off again. By strangely, she means 'violently' and that she was "doing bad things" to the man upstairs. Kim returns at this exact moment and simply says something like "So that's what happened..." Despite this newly uncovered tendency for sudden extremely violent outbursts, Laura and Kim are perfectly cool with staying with her.
They head for the bridge again. They decide to stop and stand around for a while before crossing. Just then, Parker reappears in bad shape but still pretty intact. Way to mess up suicide dude. Kim runs to him and embraces him. He impales her with a tentacle, she blasts him with her shotgun, and they both fall. I guess WARP just had so much fun killing them in Enemy Zero they had to do it again. He survives ground zero at an explosion, but a single shotgun blast kills him? And how come nothing I face dies so easily? Disk 3 is over!
Across the bridge leads to the Lucy Parton observatory. It's sealed though, and works on a voice-recognition lock. "Please state your name" the intercom repeats as if to mock the fact that you can't speak. I wonder how Laura gets into the...
Whoa, excuse me. I was just blown out of my chair and
went backflipping through the window. HOLY SHIT! THE MAIN CHARACTER OF
A WARP GAME HAS ACTUALLY SPOKEN ALOUD! (Well, besides gasping and screaming.)
Jannie seems completely unamazed at this however, probably so that the
producers wouldn't have to write more lines for her then what would be
required for the plot. You regain control at a computer screen with 4
choices of talking. Select them all and you automatically proceed to somewhere
below the facility (I don't remember what it was called and don't care.)
Laura's mother died somehow (the game is vague on that one) and had her brain preserved inside a computer. You might be surprised to encounter 2 humans-turned-AI's in your trip to Canada. However, it's actually quite common there for people to be converted into a artificial intelligence system when they die. I think that's where they filmed those Blade Runner scenes with those talking walk signals. It also turns out that there was a government-sponsored cloning project which led to Laura's birth using sperm from a winged being. The supercomputer then asks you to kill her, which is accomplished by shooting several orbs on the covering, which then opens up to reveal a fleshy inside. Here's a screenshot.
Laura's mother died somehow (the game is vague on that one) and had her brain preserved inside a computer. You might be surprised to encounter 2 humans-turned-AI's in your trip to Canada. However, it's actually quite common there for people to be converted into a artificial intelligence system when they die. I think that's where they filmed those Blade Runner scenes with those talking walk signals. It also turns out that there was a government-sponsored cloning project which led to Laura's birth using sperm from a winged being. The supercomputer then asks you to kill her, which is accomplished by shooting several orbs on the covering, which then opens up to reveal a fleshy inside. Here's a screenshot.
Anyone else noticing a disturbingly yonic design here?
Anyway, kill the computer before she repeats her lines again. By destroying
the computer, Laura kills the power to the lift, thereby trapping her.
Yep, time for another Great Mother-assisted teleportion, which amazingly
doesn't involve breaking ANYTHING this time. Laura wakes up with Jannie
in a cabin near Death Mountain. After a long-winded conversation, there's
a bright flash from the mountain, and Jannie melts. I don't know if this
is another metaphorical, since she's still talking even when she becomes
a puddle.
Now all that's left is a long walk to the summit and the final boss. It starts off noticeably harder than any other boss, with him shooting bolts of lightning which deal major damage. Oh wait, then you just go into your inventory and dig through your healing items (I beat the game the first time using only the meat I got from hunting.) The fight pretty much consists of aiming, then just holding down the trigger, patiently waiting when Shadow attacks (which is done with a 10 second cutscene), and immediately pausing afterwards to heal when your life gets low. Aim for his eye to make this go faster. Not much faster though.
After a while, he takes your vision, plunging the fight into darkness. The fight still goes the same, except now you have to go by sound to be sure you're hitting him (of course, he doesn't move in the slightest, so just don't move your gun EVER.) After another while, he takes your hearing, which just means now you gotta go by his lifebar to make sure you're hitting him (which you WILL as long as you never move the damn cursor) and you have no idea otherwise how the fight is going. Finally, he'll take your ability to move.
Whip out the compact you've been carrying the entire time yet never thought to open to find a flower. No, I don't know how you can do it if you can't move. Use it to symbolically triumph over the boss. Now you're back in business, and he can't attack! YEAH! Now it's just a matter of holding down the fire button until he croaks, which is exactly the same thing you've been doing this entire time. Congratulations, you have defeated what is most likely the lamest boss battle ever created.
Laura is then warped to a bookstore in New York just before New Years day where she discovers David alive, Kimberly a thriving poet, Jannie still just a little girl, and Parker... Being something. I guess WARP forgot about him.
Now all that's left is a long walk to the summit and the final boss. It starts off noticeably harder than any other boss, with him shooting bolts of lightning which deal major damage. Oh wait, then you just go into your inventory and dig through your healing items (I beat the game the first time using only the meat I got from hunting.) The fight pretty much consists of aiming, then just holding down the trigger, patiently waiting when Shadow attacks (which is done with a 10 second cutscene), and immediately pausing afterwards to heal when your life gets low. Aim for his eye to make this go faster. Not much faster though.
After a while, he takes your vision, plunging the fight into darkness. The fight still goes the same, except now you have to go by sound to be sure you're hitting him (of course, he doesn't move in the slightest, so just don't move your gun EVER.) After another while, he takes your hearing, which just means now you gotta go by his lifebar to make sure you're hitting him (which you WILL as long as you never move the damn cursor) and you have no idea otherwise how the fight is going. Finally, he'll take your ability to move.
Whip out the compact you've been carrying the entire time yet never thought to open to find a flower. No, I don't know how you can do it if you can't move. Use it to symbolically triumph over the boss. Now you're back in business, and he can't attack! YEAH! Now it's just a matter of holding down the fire button until he croaks, which is exactly the same thing you've been doing this entire time. Congratulations, you have defeated what is most likely the lamest boss battle ever created.
Laura is then warped to a bookstore in New York just before New Years day where she discovers David alive, Kimberly a thriving poet, Jannie still just a little girl, and Parker... Being something. I guess WARP forgot about him.
He suddenly notices Kim's book and cracks it open.
Yep, he's still a freak. Finally, he takes Laura
silence as a hint and leaves. Laura then musters up the strength to scream
"DAVID!" several times and the game ends with them embracing.
Then there's more of those weird FMVs that the Great Mother showed you
and a shitload of statistics. World population, number of people infected
with HIV, number of people without power, concentration of carbon dioxide
in the atmosphere... Blah blah, the world sucks... YEAH WE GET IT.
Anyway, the head honcho of WARP apparently got his lifelong dream of being a music composer and left the company, which pretty much fell off the map. I guess that's his true calling in life. Or maybe it's just a ploy to get him out of the gaming business.
Anyway, the head honcho of WARP apparently got his lifelong dream of being a music composer and left the company, which pretty much fell off the map. I guess that's his true calling in life. Or maybe it's just a ploy to get him out of the gaming business.