An Educational View of Red Faction: Guerrilla: Session 5 - 2/8/10

I'm doing this week's session early since I have an exam on Friday.

I beat Mass Effect 2 for a second time. I did a speed run in ME1 to create a character to import into ME2 because, by doing so, I start at level 5, have 55,000 of each mineral resource, and I think I started with 200,000 credits. I couldn't keep my entire team alive when I played the game through the first time, but I was able to when I used the imported character. The game was definitely worth the wait, but now I'm anxious for Mass Effect 3. Bioshock 2 is supposed to come out today, I'll check that out since I liked Bioshock.

The screenshot archive can be found at:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~pastorek/RFG/Session 5/

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I'm starting in Oasis, but I'm going back to the Badlands to finish clearing that sector. The loading screen showed a picture of Alec's demo permit, but the shading on his eyes makes it look like he has some mental problems.

I'm heading towards a transporter mission that apparently is bunkered deep within an EDF stronghold. The route up the hill is slalomed with barricades.

When I got to the top the mission disappeared and I wasn't attacked. There are a number of EDF supply crates nearby so I'll destroy them while I'm here.

Destroying them manually is too slow. I'll use the truck to ram through them.

I found the transporter mission again. I'll go to it now since I'm done with the crates. The yellow arrow path showed that I had to travel down the hill and circle around to get to the safehouse, but I took an obvious shortcut.

An uneventful mission.

I'll take on a story mission in the western border of the Badlands. I'm escorting a medical truck to Oasis and my job is to destroy the EDF checkpoints ahead of the truck. I don't like missions where I'm under time constraints because it always feels like I'm rushed.

I wasn't given enough time to kill the EDF soldiers. I'll have to try killing them in my vehicle at the next checkpoint.

The two remaining soldiers jumped in a nearby transport and started chasing the medical truck, which was standing still in the middle of the road. I was able to commandeer the transport and I'll use it at the next checkpoint.

The medical truck was getting close to the next checkpoint so I started to rush. Of course I ended up under a guard tower as it was collapsing. I'll restart the mission with the foreknowledge that I'm under severe time constraints.

I was able to defeat the EDF here and now I'm supposed to hold this position while the truck heads into Oasis. I don't have the remote mines with me so I'll have to do what I can with this EDF transport.

I positioned it perpendicular to the gate and used the roof gun to mow down the incoming soldiers.

That was surprisingly easy. I didn't even have to get out.

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Fraps stopped taking pictures again. I caught it early so I only lost a couple pictures. I'm finding it increasingly difficult to trust it's reliability but I don't know of any others I can use. I'll just have to keep a strict eye on it from now on.

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I'm on a mission to use a mech to destroy EDF vehicles while the guerrillas do something. I wasn't paying attention since all I need to focus on is "destroy 25 vehicles."

The game has to render a lot of explosions and it's lagging, but all I have to do is get close to the vehicles and right click to smash them against the mech. I was even able to destroy a tank.

The Marauders are here. I'm not sure what their intentions are, but trying to fight me, in a mech, while they're on foot is suicide. I'll assume they're here to just kill whoever's exposed.

I completed the mission and the EDF threat level instantly dropped to green. The mech's gone too.

If I pop a few rounds at the tank it releases streams of white smoke where the bullets entered. Interesting.

Just for fun I climbed to the top of a nearby tower and then started smashing my way to the bottom. As soon as the top supports were destroyed the dome they were holding up fell through the middle, causing a chain reaction that eventually destroyed the tower. I didn't walk away unharmed, but I was still alive.

An EDF base. I don't have the right weaponry or vehicle to cause destruction on a large scale but I'll see what I can do.

This Marauder is acting strangely. He glanced at me but didn't attack. I know from a programming perspective that it's likely the Marauder's friend/foe response system has failed so it doesn't know what to do. From Alec's perspective, there's a Marauder being shot at but isn't responding or trying to avoid the bullets.

I picked up one of the rifles that fires blue tracers. I noticed that even when I wasn't aiming at a soldier the bullets hit him anyway. I'm sure there's something about the rifle that compensates for the ability to autohit any target I fire at.

This is taking too long. I'll come back when I'm properly equipped.

I can equip at a safehouse, but there's a transporter mission nearby. It's within the Marauder territory so I'll likely be driving a Marauder vehicle.

I found the vehicle at the edge of a cliff. A number of statues made out of scrap overlook this cliff and the one across the ravine. It's night time right now and the ambient silence makes them appear ominous.

This is similar to the vehicle that Jenkins drives, sans the plow and rotating turret. It has very sensitive steering and is weaponless. It's very light, much like the ATV, and like the Marauder vehicle I drove earlier it has a heavy back end so I can parking brake slide easily.

I have enough salvage so I'm going to buy the rocket launcher. I'll test it out on a nearby EDF convoy station.

The front gate is guarded. Not surprising. I'll try to find a sneakier way inside. Amidst the chaos I didn't find the building, but I found an APC to transport. I pulled out to the right to try to escape over the hill but the APC wasn't powerful enough to get up. I watched as the armor bar drop quickly and in a panic I started driving the APC in reverse to get away, but I was constantly under fire and eventually failed.

On the second try the entire way back I was being hit by small arms fire and finally was destroyed. The minimap showed no EDF and when I cycled the camera around there was nothing attacking me. How frustrating.

Before I blew up though, I unlocked a cheat. I'm not sure how or what, but there it is.

That small arms fire thing was definitely some kind of glitch because it didn't happen on the third try. The building this APC was in was the convoy station, but I'll have to go back and destroy it after I'm done with this.

When I pulled into the base I had 12 seconds left and there were guerrillas casually wandering around in the middle of the road so I knocked into a few of them. I didn't get any alerts about guerrilla deaths so no harm no foul, right?

I accidentally hit escape instead of enter so it had me restart the transporter mission. I didn't have to drive the APC again though, I was just given the opportunity to retry it if I wanted to. Instead I used the rocket launcher on the shed the APC was in and died as soon as it collapsed. Mission accomplished, I think.

There's one of the Oasis vehicles at the safehouse. It's a compact with hubless wheels and rotating doors. It's really slow, like the golf cart from Parker, but it's easy to maneuver.

I want to take it on a hostage mission but I doubt it's got enough armor to survive. I'll take one of these giant lumbering things instead. When I cut off the driver he retorted "Get your ass outta the way!" but when I tried to get into the vehicle he quickly jumped out and said "Take it Mason". As expected, it's slow but has a lot of momentum.

I don't doubt the bus's ability to keep the hostages safe, but I found an ambulance and I know they're fast so I'll trade out.

I had to really unload my arc welder to keep the EDF stunned while my health regenerated. I parked the truck on the other side of the soldiers so I could run out the back. Both hostages survived, although I thought one was going to die.

The drive was uneventful except for some rough terrain. Since I've completed 25 guerrilla missions I unlocked what I think to be an improved sledgehammer. It's cheap so I'll buy it.

Why do I have the option to buy my old sledgehammer? Why would I ever want to?

There's a vehicle inside the Red Faction safehouse area, yet it has a transporter icon on it. What's the point of transporting this vehicle? Why hasn't Sam noticed that this one has a transmitter?

Oh. That's why. Hey lets put a vehicle in one base but wait, suddenly it's needed on the other side of the planet RIGHT $#^@IN' NOW HURRY UP.

Driving into the Martian sunrise sure is helpful when I don't know the layout of the terrain, although I've purposefully driven the ATV over jumps and stuff so I know how it handles in the air.

I'm doing random missions to afford the extra rocket launcher ammo. Unlike Bibliobouts this isn't a brutal grind and I'm having fun while earning salvage.

As Jenkins pulled up he said "Wanna get some ice cream?" Sure Jenkins, lets go get some ice cream.

I figured out where that supposedly glitchy gunfire was coming from. Apparently the gunships follow me and are able to shoot me with perfect accuracy, but I can't shoot at them when I'm driving.