Sunday 4 November 2012

Play This You Bastard - Vampire Rain Part 2


Cool and the gang
In my previous post I'd mentioned how I wasn't sure if there were even any vampires in this game, due to the fact that the villain's are called Nightwalkers, and I presumed they were referring to prostitutes and not blood sucking murderers... I presumed wrong.

Any doubt I had to the legitimacy of the threat was swept to one side in an excruciating trial and error 3rd level, which was way more error than trial...

On meeting up with the Captain and the lady, we were told we had to go knock out an antennae which  was enabling the Nightwalkers to communicate. Obviously, we split up, as it's the wisest thing to do. (?)

I got to shoot my gun for the first time before I was able to leave the roof. I primed my weapon, which is a silenced pistol, aimed the gun at my victim and with no regret or remorse I shot a cold bullet into my target, and it fell to the floor without so much as a murmur of complaint.

Adamicus3rd 1 - Padlock 0

After defeating my first adversary, I used the stairs to get to ground level, so that I could then make my way to the Antenna. I get to yet another alleyway, and a cutscene happens. This is where I see the first Nightwalker.

A woman and a man walk into the alley ahead of me, he's beginning to regret picking this woman up from whatever rock she was hiding under and before you can say "It's a trap" she has a freakish spasm and turns into this game's version of vampires.

Another cutscene happens next where I get a call from the Captain telling me to shoot some birds that are in the alleyway so they don't give my position away. I do so, and the vampire moves to investigate, after which she moves back to the end of the alley she was guarding.

This section took me a good ten minutes to figure out how to proceed, I foolishly tried to take on the vampire and found out that being seen by a vampire is pretty much an insta-death, they're faster than The Flash and deadlier than something very deadly.

Moments before I was about to turn the game off and move to something else, I found I had to sneak around a different path, leaving the vamp to her own devices. It appears that anyone on the street will turn into a Nightwalker if they see me. You get a pretty cool sfx and visual for when they've seen you, and have a few seconds to get out of sight before they turn and pursue. When they're a Nightwalker they have a strange visual effect following them, (alot like the monsters from Deadly Premonition) which makes them look mildly more threatening.

I snuck around for a bit and finally met up with my team. Then a random guy spotted us as he walked to his car, as quick as you like he was a Nightwalker and running after us. The other members of the team were separated from me and I was thrown a new weapon to take it down with. (An automatic machine gun)

The weapons in this game may as well be firing jelly at the vampires, as they don't really seem to slow down when hit or even notice any damage. Luckily this particular vampire died pretty sharpish (team must have been shooting too) and we could continue with the quest. The head honcho at base decides that my character should go alone to destroy the Antenna (I think he must have found out that my character's been sleeping with his wife/daughter/pets.

A few moments later I'm climbing ladders, drainpipes and walking across ledges to get to the Antenna. One cool moment was before I was able to scale the building that the antenna was on, a door opened infront of me and a person walked out. Knowing that they turn if they see me, it did make me jump and I went and hid. Well done game.

Needless to say I disarmed the antenna, and was told to meet the others at the extraction point. As I approached the alleyway (another) I saw birds on the ground, I decided to shoot them, just in case. Luckily nothing happened. Till I got to the exit, my team turns up and a woman behind me turns into a vampire. We take her down with ease (as there are more people than me firing, because if it had just been my guy... I'd be dead.)

I also learnt in that level that the rain is working to our advantage as it dulls the vampire's senses. So it doesn't appear that rain is turning people into monsters as I presumed it was.

The next level had the team relocate to a new area, where the advance team's van was located (in a car park) The Captain, The lady and I step out leaving the Tech guy to do the logistics of it all. I volunteer to go check the car park out by myself... the others agree (cowards)

I begin to walk down an alleyway (this game should be called Vampire Alleyways) and see a dumpster. These are for climbing on and I figure the game wants me to go this way... sure enough if I'd carried on, I'd be dead as there was a vampire waiting by the exit of the alleyway near a dead body. As I manoeuvre around above it's head, it begins to walk away and the body turns into a vampire in a gruesome cut scene.


Just hanging around.
Continuing undeterred, I get startled again when a vampire jumps onto the roof in front of me, it hasn't seen me, but it did make me wee just a little bit with the prospect of fighting it (aka, restarting the chapter)
Luckily for me it jumped away over other rooftops. These Nightwalkers should be called Nightjumpers as they are able to leap large distances in a single bound!

I get to the carpark and surprise surprise I can't get in as it's alarmed, so I have to go to the security building where the alarm is stored and turn it off. What follows is quite a labyrinth of alleyways and roads, as I try to avoid various Walkers that await me. I get to the building and have to scale it and drop down in the courtyard, where two annoying security guards are patrolling, it takes a few attempts to get by them, but when I do, I get into the building and press a button. All done!

Just have to return now, so on my way back to the courtyard I see another door with an exit sign above it... I'm glad I took it as it led to stairs, and the door I was going to go through burst open to reveal a cop. I ran to the roof, and then got back to the ground.

Meeting up with my team, we found the van bereft of life and no bodies, but plenty of blood and bullet holes. What happens next? Find out in my next post!

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