When I last abandoned Jack, he was drafted into a raid he was unqualified for, on behalf of an agency he is not employed by, all for an employer who is a sadist and a blackmailer. The thought of just straight-up either refusing to do this or running far away does not appear to have occurred to him; I think the last thought that went through his head was about fudge, come to think of it.<\/p>\n
To be fair, the overall density of stupid decisions does sort of take a dive for the next few hours. While he\u2019s still sticking his nose in places where it doesn\u2019t belong and picking fights he has no earthly right to win, this isn\u2019t exactly unheard of behavior for an adventure\/action game protagonist. Hell, for him, it\u2019s practically the cautious, reserved approach\u2014he may be intruding on nests of ancient horrors, but at least he\u2019s not taking a nap once he gets there. Gameplay\u2019s on the upswing too\u2014there\u2019s some good stealth and combat sequences here, and the levels are fun to explore. Quality is up, irritation is down, and I\u2019m starting to once again be entertained.<\/p>\n
Needless to say, I\u2019m furious.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
There\u2019s an entire chapter here that has almost nothing for me to make fun of. It\u2019s not even that Jack is wising up, there\u2019s just really been no opportunity for him to let his jackhattery shine through. He\u2019s already resigned himself to poke around in a bunch of dark, nasty places for no adequately explored reason, so once he starts actualizing that plan, it feels a bit redundant to mock him for it. Again, he\u2019s not even going about it in a particularly stupid way.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll just give a quick summary of this one, then. Jack gets split up from his unit within like twenty seconds of the level starting, finds a frozen door in the side of a cliff, melts it open, watches a nasty-lookin\u2019 creature devour someone, lights the creature on fire, then sets off into the tunnel. Before long, we find an old cryptic advice-spewing quasifriend, Mackey, who\u2019s been imprisoned by the fishmongers and wants Jack to help him get out. Mackey is clearly torn between his intellectual side, which tells him that Jack may be his only chance of ever leaving his cell alive, and his survival instinct, which is telling him that getting as far away from Jack as possible is one of the 7 traits of highly not-dead people. He settles for asking Jack to find the key to his cell and reunite him with his firearm, then directs me to where both are located\u2014a manor that can be accessed at the end of the tunnel.<\/p>\n
Turns out, Robert Marsh (that\u2019s the senior Marsh) is conducting some sort of evil clandestine ritual inside. Honestly, I\u2019m not 100% sure as to what it\u2019s for, I think it\u2019s protection or something. This was explained, it just doesn\u2019t really matter. Cultists waving their arms around and gabbing in the basement, you\u2019re a red-blooded square-jawed theoretically heroic detective type, go break it up. Anyway, before you can do that, you have to poke around and find the stuff to free Mackey, taking out sentries and discovering secret passages. This level\u2019s actually a lot of fun, for a variety of reasons. One is the creative level design, which is at the very least more entertaining than the smells-like-gunmetal standard FPS refinery level we just got out of. Since the FBI took your weapons before the raid began, for reasons I won\u2019t bother speculating on, avoiding straight-up fights via stealth is once again a viable strategy. Super viable, actually, since you find a sweet backstabbin\u2019 knife that can absolutely brutalize anyone from behind. It\u2019s not mechanically much more effective than bullets, but it\u2019s far cooler, so you find yourself using it a lot.<\/p>\n
About halfway through my sweep of the manor, I find a side room with a crank in it. It\u2019s obvious that turning the crank lifts a section of floor in the next room, which itself reveals a secret passage into the depths of the earth, either leading to a secret cult headquarters or a really fancy and exclusive wine cellar. Either way, I wanted me some of that, so I started leaning on the crank.<\/p>\n
It took longer than I anticipated to turn. For some reason, Jack is only capable of manipulating the darn thing at the pace of a hamstrung snail, so it literally took about thirty seconds of work to get the trapdoor open all the way.<\/p>\n
At which point I stepped away, the crank began instantly unwinding, and the trapdoor fell back down. Jack says something to the tune of, \u201cNo good. I need to get someone else to turn it for me!\u201d<\/p>\n
Okay, I know this is a nitpick, but dammit, that\u2019s 30 seconds of my life I\u2019m not getting back in a hurry. Why did you have to let me turn the thing all the way before letting me know it wasn\u2019t going to work? It\u2019s just a little thing, but I feel like this kind of shenanigan wouldn\u2019t have made it past a developer that knew what they were doing. If this were Valve, they\u2019d find out who was responsible, drag them out into the street, then cave their skull in with a toilet seat.<\/p>\n
Right, let\u2019s wrap this chapter up. I rescue Mackey, he opens the door for me, and I go break up the ritual downstairs. The head honcho, Robert Marsh, manages to run away\u2014when I go after him, the tunnel I\u2019m in collapses and I end up in the ocean.<\/p>\n
Wait, what? Were we that close to the\u2026how did I\u2026wouldn\u2019t I just be\u2026<\/p>\n
Screw it. That\u2019s another chunk of gameplay down. Before long, we\u2019ll be done with this goddamned thing once and for all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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