\ufeffWhen we last left Jack Walters, he was doing extremely dangerous work for a man who\u2019d just tortured him for no reason. Oh, I know what you\u2019re thinking: he doesn\u2019t have a choice, right? Herbert Hoover will send him up the river if he tries anything funny, and Jack can\u2019t just shoot him, or else\u2026<\/p>\n
\u2026yeah. Exactly. Or else what? He\u2019ll dock the pay that he\u2019s not giving me for participating in this raid? Oh, okay, I guess there\u2019s a bunch of other guys who might report me. Except: within 10 minutes of entering the level, they\u2019re all dead as Dillinger. Fate conspires to remove all possible witnesses to the most justifiable homicide in history, in a way that makes it all the more justifiable. I mean, when the people who are trained to handle this sort of situation starting dying in truly unpleasant ways, you know there\u2019s trouble. In fact, at one point, Hoover\u2019s last man is injured and incapacitated, and Hoover stone-cold shoots him in the face. Then he says, \u201cDon\u2019t look at me like that. These men knew the risks!\u201d Then he proceeds to give me a job not unlike <\/em>the one the guy who just got killed had. I don\u2019t care if you\u2019re Mother Theresa, at this point in the employer-employee relationship, you\u2019re going to want to submit a formal complaint by way of bullet<\/em>. See, at some point, Marsh manages to string Hoover up over a vat of gold, and starts lowering him into it very slowly. To rescue Hoover, you have to fire on Marsh to drive him away, run up, reach the controls, and then punch yourself unconscious in an act of self-defense to prevent yourself from doing something so stupid as rescuing Hoover<\/em>. I mean, seriously, check yourself here. Consider the situation. This utterly loathsome fellow, the only thing between you and a fruity cocktail at a relaxing nightclub, is being lowered to his death. There is literally, like, nobody else who would ever find out if you just ditched Hoover and went off to get burgers, but if you dawdle and don\u2019t manage to free him, I\u2019m pretty sure it\u2019s game over. Why? I\u2019m pretty sure I don\u2019t need that guy. I\u2019ll just figure out whatever\u2019s least in my interest, then stick my nipples in an electrical socket until I decide I want to do it. Frankly, getting Hoover killed is my real game objective at this point. When you get a game over for achieving everything you\u2019ve ever wanted and deserved, you know there\u2019s something wrong.<\/p>\n At least Hoover\u00a0 has the decency to not be even remotely thankful, and to berate me for letting Marsh escape while I was busy saving his life. My new instructions are to go hunt the guy down, and when I hesitate even a moment to do this, he yells, \u201cWhat are you waiting for?\u201d A reason why I shouldn\u2019t have given you a golden bath would have been nice, thank you.<\/p>\n Uh. That\u2019s, that\u2019s a bath in molten gold. Like, dipping him in the hot gold. That\u2019s all I\u2019m talking about. Shut up.<\/p>\n I chase after Marsh, he lures me into a trap, and I end up fighting a big ol\u2019 nastiness called a shoggoth. It\u2019s an intense boss fight, and fun (when it\u2019s not making me reload the checkpoint every five minutes to go through the same monotonous tasks), but it\u2019s also fairly standard, so I\u2019m not going to talk much about it. I\u2019m just going to move on to the next part, and believe it or not, this pissed me off almost more than anything that\u2019s happened so far.<\/p>\n I escape the shoggoth, get topside, and find out that Hoover managed to grab Marsh on his way out. He\u2019s a total pill about this, too, berating me for not having caught him myself. Sorry, but if you want competent employees, try hiring people who were trained to do the things you yell at them to do. Also, consider a hiring process that doesn\u2019t involve gratuitous torture, maybe.<\/p>\n We\u2019re not done here, though\u2014oh no. Hoover found a key on Marsh\u2019s person, and he wants me to go down to the lower levels and search for something it belongs to. This would just be annoying, except for three things:<\/p>\n 1.)\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0The elevator\u2019s broken and neither of us can figure out any way to get down there, 1.)\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0It\u2019s best to make sure your employees are loyal and motivated. Kidnap them, brutally torture them, and threaten to ruin their lives by wrongly imprisoning them in an asylum. So, yeah, I\u2019m not loving this plan. Jack does tell him to go to hell, to which Hoover replies: \u201cI told you in the asylum, Jack. I don\u2019t make requests.\u201d<\/p>\n Oh yeah? Well, see, that\u2019s just one difference between you and me, because I make requests all the time. Here\u2019s one for you: piss up a rope, you sad sack of monkey turds.<\/p>\n Of course, Jack says nothing of the sort, and only asks for a new pistol to replace the one he lost a few minutes ago. Hoover gives him one. See, there\u2019s another point right here where you could kill Hoover and absolutely nobody would witness it, but Jack lets it slide in favor of going up against a shoggoth and a host of plastic explosives, all in a quest for stuff nobody cares about.<\/p>\n Mind, I would probably be much more angry about all of this if I were still rooting for Jack. I literally have not met a person who wasn\u2019t doing their damndest to get Jack killed, and this includes all of my ostensible allies\u2014and myself. And really, how can you like a guy with that many enemies?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \ufeffWhen we last left Jack Walters, he was doing extremely dangerous work for a man who\u2019d just tortured him for no reason. Oh, I know what you\u2019re thinking: he doesn\u2019t have a choice, right?...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[153],"tags":[220,300],"class_list":["post-1903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lets-play","tag-clod-of-cthulhu","tag-lets-play"],"yoast_head":"\n
\n
\nFirst half of this level\u2019s pretty boring stuff, mostly. You run around and do a bunch of improbably dangerous things, have some visions, and catch only occasional glimpses of your target (the Marsh guy) through a haze of chemical smoke and dudes you have to kill. Nothing terribly stupid, up until it starts going downhill at this one point halfway through the level.<\/p>\n
\n2.)\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0There\u2019s still a kill-crazed unkillable shoggoth down there that I just barely managed to escape a second ago, and
\n3.)\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Hoover is inexplicably going to plant timed explosives before I go downstairs, meaning that if I take too long finding my way back, I\u2019m going to die in a fireball.
\n<\/em>
\nTo recap, this is the Hoover recipe for success:<\/p>\n
\n2.)\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0When an employee saves your life, be sure to reward this behavior. Try abusing them slightly less in your very next sentence.
\n3.)\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Make sure your employees are efficient! Plant bombs before they go to explore an area. Make it clear that if the employee is still inside the building, they will die when the bombs go off, and that you don\u2019t give a damn about this fact. This will motivate them to seek simple, quick methods of problem solving, like shooting you until their gun runs out of bullets and then skipping merrily away.<\/p>\n