Tocky on 16/2/2003 at 06:17
Yes indeedy Danny, the GEP gun was the only weapon I kept in my arsenal the entire game. Love those smoking pieces of meat.:cheeky:
Azal on 16/2/2003 at 12:47
One thing you can do with mission is take advantage of the AI programming.
The AI will only kill the girl if the alarm is set off. If you have a high level skill in sniping and a silenced sniper rifle, you can shoot-off the alarm controls and then take your time.
The alarm control panel inside the garage can be shot just by climbing in the roof or you can hide by the petrol tanker, make a little bit of noise and shoot it when the MiB runs outside to investigate.
Fade on 19/2/2003 at 08:51
A succesful method I used was to climb up onto the roof, drop through the trapdoor to land on top of the room they were holding her and lob a gas grenade to immobilise the two MIBs. Take them out while they're coughing, then leave her locked up as you clear a route to the helicopter at your leisure.
rachel on 19/2/2003 at 10:19
Yeah, that's exactly what I do, too... :thumb: There's about 90% probability of success
SJamieson on 19/2/2003 at 13:44
Even on my non-lethal approach, I had to bend the rules
and fire a gep at the alarm panel (If any bad guys got in the was that was their own fault.)
There just wasnt the time to shoot out the panel, with the rifle.
Not sure how Ferret did it in his "Use no Weapons" walkthrough.
JustinZyme on 19/2/2003 at 17:41
A lot depends on what augs you've got installed, what skills you've upped, or what equipment you've got. My preferred method is one mentioned above; lob a couple of gas grenades into the room from the trap door in the roof (making sure to stay crouched, of course), then drop down and pick off the MiB and troop while they're choking and crying like the secret society sissies that they are.
Then I go outside and turn the patrolling commandos into a fine layer of paste on the desert floor before leading the damsel to the safety and comfort of Jock's helicopter.
This is one map that demonstrates the brilliance of DX; if you mess up and they kill the girl, you don't get some dumbass message that says the "mission failed," making you start the level over again. Instead of forcing you to play the same part over and over and over again until you get it right <cough-Splinter Cell-cough>, you must deal with the consequences of your failure within the game itself. This is truly great design, and more developers should pay attention to what they're doing at IS.
Dragonclaw on 19/2/2003 at 20:45
Well, that isn't exactly DX'is invention... I remember such things back to Wing Commander, and most likely games before that. Not forgetting good ol' RPGs, which DX wants to come after...
JustinZyme on 20/2/2003 at 03:31
DX was the first game I played that gave you such a wide variety of choices in how you accomplished the missions. I missed out on Wing Commander and earlier games, came on board the PC wagon right around the time of Jedi Knight. I'm a relative newbie, I guess, but your point is a good one.
Compare the almost three-year-old DX to the majority of the crap coming out today, though, and you'll see even more contrasting examples of DX's amazing design. Take Splinter Cell, for instance; once you get past the pretty pictures, it's an absolute pain-in-the-ass and overall no bloody fun, because of the rigid mission structure and forced failure elements. What's the point of going to the trouble of crafting an amazingly detailed environment, only to destroy the credibility of those environments by yanking the player back to the beginning of the level because he set off an alarm? This is why DX and SS2 work so well for me. Set off an alarm? Alert a guard? Deal with it.
Basically any game that responds to my choices with consequences more meaningful and original than a simple "Game Over" has got a fan for a long, long time.
Dragonclaw on 20/2/2003 at 10:56
Yes, and I agree with you, DX made a rather good figure in the matter of leaving the player to his playstyle.
A shame you never got to WC. Origin, by tht game, pushed the limits of Computer gaming...If a new WC came out, you knew you had to also buy a new PC to play it ;-)
Seiously though, it's one of those great games that make a name, and keep it. And if you can replay it, it's still fun to play, even in today's times. The principle behind the missions there was usually the following:
Complete a mission, and you get a good result, which includes cutscenes, next missions, etc. Get a bad result, and you'll have different missions, cutscenes, etc. WC had something like a "mission tree", meaning that you could win the game in several ways, or, if you lost too many missions or critical missions, well, then the war is lost.
Which is, in my opinion, a brilliant design.
With today's games, I have to say I'm not too much into them. I play a couple, but not too many. I rather replay older games, I get more ot of that. For me, graphics isn't as important as for many others, especially reviewers from game mags. I'd rather play a bad graphics game with good "innards", than a lousy game with superb graphics. And under those conditions, frankly, most newer games would prolly go from shelf to shelf for me...
JustinZyme on 22/2/2003 at 08:01
That's the problem with most newer games--no one's doing anything like SS2 or DX, (unless, of course, you consider DX2). Where are the immersive, story-driven games that grab hold of you from the first cutscene and don't let go until the end? Where are the games that reward creativity and skillful character development? Even something like System Shock 2, which is linear in design, remains almost endlessly replayable in execution because of the character development system. Likewise DX, which is even more replayable because of the many secondary goals and multiple paths.
I know there's a bias here against consoles, but since I work in a game store I play games on all platforms, and it's a sad state of affairs out there, let me tell you. The majority of what sells seems to be overhyped fluff like Vice City, Splinter Cell, and The Sims. Games that make you think, or challenge the way you look at the world just don't move, which is why Doom III will beat the snot out of DX2 in sales. I'm looking forward to Doom too, but if I had to choose to play just one, either DIII or DX2, it's DX2 without a doubt.
