Hey Space Cadets, I decided that I wanted to keep playing some of those adventure games I briefly looked into during E3's usual "anything but E3" series of mine. I've been on an adventure game kick of late, and Legend's stuff is so well written and thematically interesting that I figured it was worth showing more of it off.
Mission Critical is a sci-fi themed adventure that, unlike most of Legend's other games, is based on an original story penned by writers from within the studio rather than being based on a novel, or series of novels. It's also the first Legend game to feature FMV actors, though they're only used sparingly for exposition cutscenes. It's not quite the FMV digitized actor nightmare that adventure games were lamentably evolving towards heading into the late 90s.
Before I resume, I'll recap the story so far (though you are very welcome to go back to the original thread and check it out there):
The USS Lexington and USS Jericho, a warship and science vessel respectively of the progress-focused Alliance, have reached the end of a long and trying journey across the cosmos: the planet Persephone, in the Deneb Kaitos star system 68 light years from Earth. Though the details of the mission are top secret, known only to Captain Dayna (played by Star Trek TNG's own Commander Worf, Michael Dorn) and his first mate Lt. Com. Jennifer Tran (played by Manhunter/Desert Hearts' Patricia Charbonneau), they still find themselves ambushed and outgunned by the sudden appearance of the Geneva-class UNS Dharma, a powerful warship of the enemy UN forces (yes, the UN are the enemies in this game).
The UNS Dharma handily defeats the USS Lexington, and demands the unconditional surrender of the entire crew. Knowing the critical importance of the mission, the Captain knocks out an officer (the player) assuming the enemy captain would overlook a single casualty and provides them with a note explaining the circumstances, leaving Tran to record a few logs to instruct them on what needs to be done to fix the ship and complete the mission. He then carries over a live warhead in the crew shuttle to the UNS Dharma, destroying the enemy vessel and the crews of all three ships.
After fixing a hull breach and averting a catastrophic engine meltdown due to a malfunctioning coolant system, the protagonist's next task is to get the ship's main computers and sophisticated AI back online. We've also discovered some worrisome reports that points to a turncoat officer as the one responsible for setting up the ambush. The officer in question is dead, along with the rest of the crew, but I doubt we're quite done with that sub-plot just yet.
Anyway, let's get down to it:
Part 3: To Hell With Ship Repairs, I'm Going To Write That LP About the Sassy CPU
Well, now that we're no longer at risk from being disintegrated by a faulty engine core, what say we get around to fixing our computer buddy?First though, I take a gander at the only floor we haven't visited yet (well, besides the Weapon Bays. Ain't much going on down there though.) Deck 6 contains the shuttle bay and the cargo bay.This cargo bay is packed floor to ceiling with all kinds of fun looking stuff, but the only thing we need here (and the only reason to ever visit) is for that Multitool in the bottom left corner. Unsurprisingly, a Space Swiss Army-like device will be pretty useful.Man, shuttlebays always give me the creeps. It's like a big empty room with a giant door that will kill you if it opens. We don't need to be here yet, since there's no shuttles left to take us anywhere.Right, so if you recall last time, we weren't able to access the computer room because this corridor got torn the eff up. Fortunately, we have a cutting tool that allows us to squeeze past the worst of it.Miura, the paranoid hacker dude that he was, left a four digit password lock on this door to stop us passing through. Given that we've already raided his stateroom and found the programming code that allowed us to generate Pi to a thousand places, finding out that the answer was "3141" wasn't exactly breaking the Enigma code.Sweet Win 2k burn there.I caught another screenshot of Tran, this time mid-duckface. I swear I'm not doing this on purpose. She gives us more details on the mission itself, now that we're pretty much done fixing the ship. Turns out they found an alien "marker" on Persephone (oh no way, I hear you exclaim) and since the UN is focused on maintaining technological standstill, they're likely to reduce any high-falutin' alien super-advanced whoosits that might lie underneath the marker to slag. That's why we need to get there first.The computer's a lot more chatty now that it's back online, and freely provides as much additional exposition, backstory and technology talk as you could want.You can even get deep into an interesting discussion about emergent AIs and whether or not it's possible to actually create a computer-based sentient life-form. Essentially: Yes it is, but it needs to be the focus of the computer's design. As in, it needs all the capacity for rational thought and learning that a human has, which means multiple databanks and processors dedicated towards that express purpose. Our ship's AI ain't going to be sentient anytime soon, for the same reason a toaster won't.But let's get back on track here. The next task is to get navigation back online so we can communicate with the other ship, the USS Jericho. We'll need their lander to reach Persephone. We've also been informed to contact the Erebus Colony to report our situation to the higher ups within the Alliance, since they'll have the release codes to activate the lander.But because there's always a "but", we'll need to replace some electronic parts on the dish that the ship uses to make long-range communications. Guess what that means?I didn't screencap the reply to this first query, but it's basically "Nope. Sucks to be you." At least we can find the parts easily enough, as we found a storeroom on Deck 2 filled with all sorts of oddly-named gizmos.Or so you'd think. The EC2001's been borrowed for that Holovideo VR thing in the mess hall. Sure, let's just add more walking around.It took me a while, but there's a very small spot on the VR system where you can emancipate the required EC2001 from the rest of the system's hardware. I did manage to rip out its cables during my awkward scrambling, though. Looks like no-one's going to get to enjoy "Welcome to This Horse's Anus" any time soon.So this sucks, I now gotta go out into space to actually fix the dish. I mean I guess it was inevitable that we had one of these tense spacewalk sequences, right? Doesn't mean it won't be vertiginous and eerie.Ah, right. This is a problem. There were no oxygen tanks in the suit locker, and I can't really go out into space without one. I'm no scienceman, but air seems important. Fortunately, we don't have to worry about it right now, because the ship just told me that an antimatter bomb has been activated somewhere on the ship. ...Wait, what?
Part 4: Giant Bomb and Space Linkin'
So yeah, we already knew Poole was the culprit. Using the multitool we picked up, I've taken apart that suspicious spaceship model and found all sorts of interesting things. The first is this note that Poole left for his brother back on Earth, explaining his motivations for betraying the Alliance. Essentially, his parents got turned into pink goo by prototype nanomachines, so he's kind of anti-technology as a result. It's nice they bothered to humanize the guy, really.Also in the package is this binoculars device, which I ascertained immediately had something to do with the Medical Officer's safe, as well as a sub-space transmitter and a little blue key.The safe was actually a red herring. The only things in there was a weird headset, an ampule and some instructions about an experimental drone interface device. None of it seemed to have anything to do with the bomb though. I'll admit it took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out where this blue key goes. Given Poole's propensity towards airship models, I guess it should've been more obvious.The second model contained the bomb itself, here stopped for dramatic emphasis at close to 20 minutes. Hey, I wasn't going to wait around for it to say "007".Yeah sure whatever lady computer, I'll just carry around a 1 kiloton yield explosive in my briefs. That'd make for one hell of a pick-up line.So now that the second imminent disintegration threat of the day has been taken care of, it's time to look at this manual for the Hype/Telecon system I obviously stumbled upon far too early. I'm not a fan of this "the user goes insane and then dies" Known Shippable they've got listed here. That's frickin' Early Access for you.Since I'll have to do it eventually, I go down to the Weapon Bays and ensure all the drones are coordinated with the Hype/Telecon system. I recognize the "inevitable heroic tragic death by experimental superhero drug" trope when I see it.Excellent. I don't know why I didn't do this sooner.Ah, right. That spacewalk I've been putting off.Remember when I said how embarrassed I was about taking my sweet time finding that bomb? That's nothing on the half hour I spent wandering around on the ship looking for an oxygen tank. I even tried cutting a few things with this cutting torch, which has its own oxygen tank now that I look at it closely. Surely not... What's this tiny thing going to be good for? Like five minutes? Like I need more things to be trepidatious about.Well, here goes absolutely nothing. Literally.ohgodohgodohgodohgoditsspaceohgodohgodjustreplacethepartssowecangobackPhew. So after we get the dish working, the oxygen tank decides it's had enough and goes out for good. The next part is navigating a route through a series of beacons to establish a link to Erebus base.It's actually kind of neat. There's various nodes to select, each either takes you closer to the goal or further away. Some simply terminate. By using this starchart, you can see how much closer you're getting to the target star system.Until finally, you reach the Erebus Colony and can send a message.The Jeffrey Jones-esque Admiral Decker (actually avuncular character actor Henry Strozier, who was in Contact and has had multiple voice roles in Legend Entertainment games, including Lord Xar of Death Gate) gives us a direct order to pull out of the system and wait for back-up, but I'm too much of a big damn obstinate hero to go for it (and also it leads to an early game over anyway). He finally relents and gives us the codes to activate the Jericho's lander, as well as sending the computer more details about the mission. He also gives us the official breakdown of the Hype/Telecon drone interface system, in case we hadn't found it yet.
So now we've made up our mind: The mission must be completed! And we'll almost certainly be killing ourselves one way or another in the process! Stay tuned for additional parts to come.
Oh hey look, here's another one:
Part 5: Keeping Up With the Droneses
Now that I'm done swinging my giant balls around, I guess it's time to do that thing where I inject poison into myself so I can tell a bunch of robots how to fight, dang it. Admiral Decker gave us a pretty decent idea that there's more UN ships on its way, just in case the Dharma didn't succeed.This is like the least wisest thing I've done so far. Day's still young though.Ohhh shit it's kicking in.So this is when the game reveals its hand: there's an entire hidden RTS mode. It's actually kind of neat, though I suck at it.The Hype/Telecon system means I can control drones directly in real-time environments, whereas every other drone is beholden to its programming. I'm also able to think so quickly that I effectively slow down the passage of time, allowing me to make split decisions faster than the enemy drones can. It's simply a matter of telling each of my nine little buddies what to do.Drones have three types: nimble fighter drones, strong but slow attack drones and sluggish bomber drones who are best used against capital ships. Once a drone has met with an enemy, both health bars steadily drop. I can actually tell a drone to escape the battle if their health drops to critical, at which point they go repair themselves back at the capital ship (for us, that's the Lexington).There's other little details, like setting drones in formations that lets them gang up on smaller groups, and ensuring that a drone stays behind to protect the capital ship from ship-to-ship missiles, but it's fairly perfunctory stuff. It's still surprisingly deep for a point and click mini-game, and there's difficulty options if you just want to whizz past it (or let the computer play for you).After the above eight training scenarios are completed, the actual UN reinforcements show up. Nice of them to wait until I figured this shit out. The actual skirmish is only about as tough as the training exercises, except for......the fact that you immediately have to fight another battle afterwards. The first encounter is against two destroyers, with about six drones apiece. This second fight, against a Helsinki-class cruiser, is a bit tougher. It has sixteen drones to our nine and is more powerful to boot. It's actually not too bad, despite the numbers, but the danger comes from losing too many drones in the first skirmish. They don't come back.Eventually, though, we incinerate the Helsinki with a wave of bomber drones after all its fighter drones are taken care of. Take that, Finland!This is my favorite thing about leaving combat: I always forget to unplug the headset from the tactical console, so I imagine I get three paces away before it just pops out.Now that we're reasonably assured that no more ships will show up, I establish a link to the Jericho and use the codes Decker gave me to bring the lander across.This means getting down to the shuttle bay to let the thing in.Importantly, this means more looting! As well as this spool of wire and gas cartridge, we also snag a probe and a probe launcher (it's like Worf's big purple space bazooka from Star Trek: Insurrection, coincidentally enough) with which to launch said probe.Also we get all the oxygen we could ever want. Hooray! I get them attached to my EVA suit and cutting torch pronto.Before we leave for Persephone, using the autopilot's already laid course, we decide to get all morose about the gravity of the situation. So we're going down to some weird alien planet, upon which there'll be a race to see if we die from radiation poisoning, lack of food, oxygen deprivation or a painful death from all those toxic experimental brain-altering drugs we took. Look on the bright side: at least we don't have to keep wandering around corridors all day.Ah, the old "taking away all the junk we don't need, leaving an arbitrary assortment of junk that we've somehow deduced as necessary" process. I love it when adventure games do this. So cathartic.
So now we head down to a planet we know nothing about, because of alien shit or something. Also we're dying. We're playing a fun space adventure game, guys!
Part 6: Fun With Shapes and Colors
Ominously, we're asked to switch to the heretofore unused Disc 3. This planet clearly means business. Disky business.Bye Lexington. Bye sassy computer. Call me if more UN vessels show up, and see if I give a shit. But because this game is Star Trek in all but name only, we immediately encounter "atmospheric interference" and our systems "malfunction due to tachyon whatevers" and we "plummet to our death while screaming".Actually, I guess we're fine. Good thing I remembered to put the suit on, it seems there's a draft. There's nothing on the planet except for ice made of fart gas and the marker we're looking for. We can't reach it with this giant glacier in the way though.Attacking it with what little fuel I have left in the industrial flame cutter gets us this far. I know what you're all thinking, and yes: I'm definitely going to stick it in there.Which is, of course, to say that explosive I've been carrying around. Protip for those playing along at home: 3 minutes ain't nowhere near enough. Try ten at least.The way is opened with an Earth shattering kaboom and we're... is that more corridors I see?Flashbacks of Halo's Archive level here. Thankfully, this place is a little easier to navigate. Or would be, if someone had bothered to build a bridge across to it.Remembering the probe launcher, we tie the wire cable to it and launch it across to the walkway. The text boxes that pop up while making our way across the cable makes it very clear that the protagonist hates doing this and is terrified of falling. We'll be doing it a lot more, don't worry.Each of the four caverns that split from that central platform you saw earlier leads to identical rooms with indentations in the floor.It took me a while to figure out how to reach the east/west rooms, actually. The central platform only has north/south stairs, so you have to walk around the platform to get east/west instead of over it. Seems entirely minor, but it actually had me confused for a few minutes. I never claimed I was intelligent.But this puzzle I can figure out, at least. I found a blue and yellow rod in one room, and indentations next to blue and yellow objects in other rooms. Whoever these aliens are, they were a condescending bunch.While fitting shapes into pegs, we're momentarily distracted by this brief impediment. Because the torch is one of the few items I bothered to hold onto, I've been trying to burn everything since I got down here. This time it finally worked.We end up with a whole basin full of Nickelodeon Gak. I'm not touching that stuff. I might try to burn it though.We don't have to wait long, because something just activated elsewhere in this structure. Might it be that one item I couldn't pick up earlier? At this point I'm also scanning everything, because I don't trust it. We have no idea what this is, but it seems to be... alive?This ochre block is now freed from its superconductive constraints. I'm not sure what's even happening any more. I feel like I've stumbled into Myst or something.The green slime seems to enjoy ochre blocks though. It eats it right up.Well, isn't this foreboding. Hey little guy!
Next: Nanomachines?
Part 7: Remember When I Said This Game Was Fairly Grounded For Sci-Fi? Well Now There's Space Portals
I managed to get the little guys hopping by throwing in detritus from our lander's failed landing (it had one job!). I really hope we know what we're doing. I seem to recall this going very badly in one arc of Stargate: SG1.The little insect bot decided to dig straight down. We use up what little is left of our air to keep an eye on it. I'm starting to suspect, what with the crashed lander, the lack of oxygen and all those deadly chemicals in my brain, that I might not make it out of this one alive.Fortunately, our spiderbot friend comes back with lots of spiderbot babies. The busy little guys rebuild the entire facility, creating new bridges and unearthing new rooms full of alien technology.But we don't care about that. We're minutes away from meeting the Reaper. Instead, we're going to hope this thing they're building is a save point.Actually, it's a portal to god-knows-where. Since we're dead anyway, might as well jump in. I should've just called this whole chapter "YOLO".Yeah, funny how I brought up Stargate earlier. This purple swirly thing carries us halfway across the galaxy to...Oh great, a garbage world full of dead people and broken buildings.Let's hope this place has oxygen because the protagonist has seriously stopped giving a shit. I guess imminent death does that to you.Hold onto your butts for a "Planet of the Apes" reveal, everyone.Sure, but that's no reason to be pessimistic. At least we got to blow a lot of shit up.Though it kind of seems like someone beat me to the whole "blowing shit up" here. It looks super Skynet out there.Nah, I'm sure all these Earth-like buildings, Earth-like technology and Earth-like human skeletons are just a coincidence.Queen Zeal! You blew it up! Damn you, God damn you and Lavos to hell!So let's go explore! We finally find the one arbitrary piece of twisted wreckage we're allowed to saw off, and jimmy our way into the only building still standing.But... what's this twisted piece of brightly colored metal we found on the ground once we got in there? Could it be? I guess you finally made a monkey out of meeeeeeeeee
It's time we finally get some answers. Well, eventually. More stuff to blow up first.
Part 8: Where I Begin to Lose the Plot
Obviously our guy didn't watch a whole lot of the Twilight Zone. I dunno why he can't believe it, it certainly looks like LA out there.The game's gotten pretty damn serious all of a sudden, so it's probably as good a time as any to take a ride on a cyberfrisbee.Unnamed Supply Officer, you bojo! Cyberfrisbees don't work unless you have power! Oh yeah, we just turned it on. To the Black Omen!Turns out a cyberfrisbee moving hundreds of miles per hour doesn't make for the most relaxing ride. They could've at least installed a hand rail or something. I'm just saying, if the humans of the future put a little more effort into OSHA compliance maybe they wouldn't all be charred skeletons.Somehow I doubt my flame torch is going to work here. What I need is something a little bigger.Nope, just broken tanks and giant spider robots this way. Wait, giant spider robots?This is more like it! This mostly intact "Super Tank" looks like it could do the job. I just need to pop in here and shoot its cannon.Oh jeez, it suddenly became a Pearl Jam music video. "Mostly intact", he says.I think they lost a bit of weight, but no matter. I found the big red switch easily enough. Let's see what this thing can do.Turns out a giant green laser is what this thing can do. When one door closes, a big plasma hole is opened...A giant gooey hole. I'll let you guys add your own joke, I'm on the clock here.So essentially the Black Fortress of Doom is full of these identical corridors with... that's the same robot we made back on Persephone. I didn't get a close-up shot of it, but that's definitely the same little Meccano wonder.Every corridor either leads to an identical looking room, or a dead end. There's no map, so we essentially have an labyrinth on our hands.Though it took a little "following the left wall" nonsense before I figured it out, the true path is wherever the little robots are going. If you keep following the path they take, you eventually get to...This room. I just picked the left one. I don't know what happens if you pick the right.More space portals. It's possible I'm dreaming all this and that my body is still convulsing on Persephone somewhere, out of my wits from Hype.Nope. I can't be dreaming, because I'm standing in front of a wooden door in outer space. Something very Zork about all this...I... what? Bluh?
Part 9: Someone Finally Explains What's Going On. For Like an Hour.
So, fair warning: We're going to be talking to this wibbly blue thing a while. It's going to fill us in on what's happened, where this is and why we're going crazy. It's an exposition dump, in other words. We're in the home stretch, at least.Oh yeah, remember that foreshadowy AI discussion? Yeah.Think unsexy thoughts, think unsexy thoughts, think unsexy thoughts.Right, a Fargate. Goes far, got it. Different from that movie or that syndicated series based on the movie.Sure, I got nothing better to do.So, so tempted to hit that second option. A big blue thing is telling me about his grand plan for saving the universe in some forest somewhere, while I die of crazy brain chemicals. My mental state can't be all that great right now. But nah, let's hear out this floating ball of cybergas.Oh cool, so we won then?They did to us what Germany did to Brazil, then. (Timely!)Yeah, I think I met a few of them on my way in here. Skinny fellows, if I recall.They were nice enough to rebuild our colonies, at least.If you recall from the story recap, the war began because the UN was opposed to technological progress. Mostly they were worried that we'd create a race of AI so powerful they'd destroy the human race and all our weapons of war with their spider robots. Haha, those paranoid idi... oh.Damn humans, always learning.Nah, the real Life Force is some shoot 'em up. It's a lot of fun. This is fun too, except when it's mostly reading. Like now.You maniacs! You- No wait, I already used that line once today. I love that I had to ask whether or not someone invented sentient AI when I'm talking to one of them. What do you think, Unnamed Supply Officer?Is he referring to this war or that whole episode back on Persephone with the weird blocks?Obviously, the UN attacked them with DWARFS (Deadly Weapons Attacking Rogue File Systems).He could've just said "ever seen the Animatrix? It's like that""Or the beginning of Terminator. That was a pretty good movie. We were cheering for Skynet though, obviously""A.I.: Aritifical Intelligence though, that movie had nothing in common with this, despite its name. If I was Haley Joel Osment, I think I would've just killed my human family instead."Here comes the inevitable dick move by the humans.So our plan was to destroy all the Mass Rela... sorry, "Tel-Sato jump points" in all the known systems. We can be sore losers at times.Bummer.Good thing we'll be long dead of our brain poison before that happens. Silver lining and all that.You know, for a superior race they really rub it in. We can ask more things, but I think we've had enough talking for now. It's time to try out this plan of theirs.
It's time we finally get some answers. Well, eventually. More stuff to blow up first.
Part 8: Where I Begin to Lose the Plot
Obviously our guy didn't watch a whole lot of the Twilight Zone. I dunno why he can't believe it, it certainly looks like LA out there.The game's gotten pretty damn serious all of a sudden, so it's probably as good a time as any to take a ride on a cyberfrisbee.Unnamed Supply Officer, you bojo! Cyberfrisbees don't work unless you have power! Oh yeah, we just turned it on. To the Black Omen!Turns out a cyberfrisbee moving hundreds of miles per hour doesn't make for the most relaxing ride. They could've at least installed a hand rail or something. I'm just saying, if the humans of the future put a little more effort into OSHA compliance maybe they wouldn't all be charred skeletons.Somehow I doubt my flame torch is going to work here. What I need is something a little bigger.Nope, just broken tanks and giant spider robots this way. Wait, giant spider robots?This is more like it! This mostly intact "Super Tank" looks like it could do the job. I just need to pop in here and shoot its cannon.Oh jeez, it suddenly became a Pearl Jam music video. "Mostly intact", he says.I think they lost a bit of weight, but no matter. I found the big red switch easily enough. Let's see what this thing can do.Turns out a giant green laser is what this thing can do. When one door closes, a big plasma hole is opened...A giant gooey hole. I'll let you guys add your own joke, I'm on the clock here.So essentially the Black Fortress of Doom is full of these identical corridors with... that's the same robot we made back on Persephone. I didn't get a close-up shot of it, but that's definitely the same little Meccano wonder.Every corridor either leads to an identical looking room, or a dead end. There's no map, so we essentially have an labyrinth on our hands.Though it took a little "following the left wall" nonsense before I figured it out, the true path is wherever the little robots are going. If you keep following the path they take, you eventually get to...This room. I just picked the left one. I don't know what happens if you pick the right.More space portals. It's possible I'm dreaming all this and that my body is still convulsing on Persephone somewhere, out of my wits from Hype.Nope. I can't be dreaming, because I'm standing in front of a wooden door in outer space. Something very Zork about all this...I... what? Bluh?
Part 9: Someone Finally Explains What's Going On. For Like an Hour.
So, fair warning: We're going to be talking to this wibbly blue thing a while. It's going to fill us in on what's happened, where this is and why we're going crazy. It's an exposition dump, in other words. We're in the home stretch, at least.Oh yeah, remember that foreshadowy AI discussion? Yeah.Think unsexy thoughts, think unsexy thoughts, think unsexy thoughts.Right, a Fargate. Goes far, got it. Different from that movie or that syndicated series based on the movie.Sure, I got nothing better to do.So, so tempted to hit that second option. A big blue thing is telling me about his grand plan for saving the universe in some forest somewhere, while I die of crazy brain chemicals. My mental state can't be all that great right now. But nah, let's hear out this floating ball of cybergas.Oh cool, so we won then?They did to us what Germany did to Brazil, then. (Timely!)Yeah, I think I met a few of them on my way in here. Skinny fellows, if I recall.They were nice enough to rebuild our colonies, at least.If you recall from the story recap, the war began because the UN was opposed to technological progress. Mostly they were worried that we'd create a race of AI so powerful they'd destroy the human race and all our weapons of war with their spider robots. Haha, those paranoid idi... oh.Damn humans, always learning.Nah, the real Life Force is some shoot 'em up. It's a lot of fun. This is fun too, except when it's mostly reading. Like now.You maniacs! You- No wait, I already used that line once today. I love that I had to ask whether or not someone invented sentient AI when I'm talking to one of them. What do you think, Unnamed Supply Officer?Is he referring to this war or that whole episode back on Persephone with the weird blocks?Obviously, the UN attacked them with DWARFS (Deadly Weapons Attacking Rogue File Systems).He could've just said "ever seen the Animatrix? It's like that""Or the beginning of Terminator. That was a pretty good movie. We were cheering for Skynet though, obviously""A.I.: Aritifical Intelligence though, that movie had nothing in common with this, despite its name. If I was Haley Joel Osment, I think I would've just killed my human family instead."Here comes the inevitable dick move by the humans.So our plan was to destroy all the Mass Rela... sorry, "Tel-Sato jump points" in all the known systems. We can be sore losers at times.Bummer.Good thing we'll be long dead of our brain poison before that happens. Silver lining and all that.You know, for a superior race they really rub it in. We can ask more things, but I think we've had enough talking for now. It's time to try out this plan of theirs.
@bobafettjm: Man, you're a lifesaver. Also, we're not done explaining things quite yet...
Part 10: I Swear This Thing Will Stop Talking Eventually
Oh what is this.So now we have a little thought puzzle. These are jiffies, little dudes that must've taken entire art teams to conceive. They aren't particularly good conversationalists.However, we can jump forwards and backwards in time in one second intervals to help them find a portal home.If you talk to the jiffies in 00:08, you'll discover that they missed their portal. But because we can go back, we can tell the jiffies at 00:01 to get ready for it.The 00:08 jiffies miss it again, but give us more specific directions.So now all I have to do is head back to 00:01 one last time to give them the skinny.Aw, don't worry about it little guy! (For as simple as this was, it's actually the last puzzle in the game.)Anyway, because apparently the blue ball got tired of explaining things to a stupid human, they set up this little thought experiment to demonstrate the importance of communicating back through time. In the most condescending way possible. I'm super glad I'll be unmaking these supercilious things with my time travel manipulations.Yeah, there were never any aliens. Sorry. Just your average, everyday alternative time line super AIs.I've been getting dicked around by sarcastic AIs since this whole thing started. I think Mass Effect had a point about these things.For as annoying as these guys are, they do have at least have peaceful intentions. Like the electronic lifeforms in the Matrix (or the apes in that new Dawn of the Planet of the Apes movie), they were kind of forced to murder/enslave us all and at least feel kind of crappy about it.It occurs to me that this isn't the first game I've played with an AI at the end that overexplains everything.I'm starting to suspect that sour grapes is a systemic thing for the UN.It doesn't matter though, since the gate was opened at some point in time. I skipped a bit here, but I was listed as KIA. They figured I got incinerated along with the Persephone installation.Of course, the AIs only know most of this because they brain-probed me. Don't think I forgot.Turns out wormholes that can travel through space and time aren't as simple as we thought. They can only send back information, rather than matter, so I'm going to get my consciousness sent back instead because why the heck not.Of course, I still have to kill myself. But hey, at least no-one else has to die.Well, that's a big if. Don't worry about it, I'll probably be dead in the original timeline before ever finding the Persephone portal.I just think I'm being a big baby about all this death and annihilation of the human race stuff.I'm sure they'll be very receptive to me waking up and telling them how they'll all die if they don't give me all the top secret brain chemicals I'm not supposed to know about.So here's another branch for some alternate endings. Do I go back in time and try to save the Lexington's crew and, by extension, the human race? Or do I decide to spend what little time I have left before going insane and dying talking to an uncharmingly garrulous blue ball who thinks I'm an idiot while surrounded by creepy skeletons? I hate it when the game gives me difficult decisions like this...
Part Final: Crazy Yelling Future Guy and The Dharma Initiative
Fuuuuuuck youuuuuuu, BluuuuuuueyOh hey, Tran's alive! And... pointing a gun at us?Her dialogue is all voiced rather than subtitled, but she's clearly agitated by something we did.Oh right, it's because I woke up yelling about the aliens on Persephone, the Hype/Telecon, the UNS Dharma and a dozen other things I'm probably not supposed to know about. Well, way to play things subtle with your night terrors, Unnamed Supply Officer.So way, way, way back when I popped into the medbay during my initial explorations, I found a "panic button" code for the autodoc that stuns anyone standing next to it. As far as I know, there's zero reason to ever visit the medbay in this playthrough. It's insane luck that I remembered this.Unfortunately, Tran's about to find out why 911 is a joke on this starship.Hit with a fine mist of sedatives, she drops like a brick and lets us run amok for a while.I repeat much of the first half of the game, grabbing the multitool so I can recover the Hype/Telecon system from Dahl's safe, via Poole's little binocular eyepiece gizmo.Of course, the Captain understandably wants to know what the hell we're doing as soon as we run onto the bridge with a top secret device under one arm.Naturally reluctant to believe our tall story (good thing he doesn't know about the unconscious Lieutenant Commander just yet), we persuade him to send Drone Foxtrot (aka Drone Deadmeat) over to the opposite side of Persephone to where the UNS Dharma is hiding.He's not buying most of what we're selling, but that poor little probe getting atomized is enough to persuade him to let us at the drone controls.Oh great, another one of these.The Dharma's a tough fight, especially as I start with a drone down, but I have three factors working in my favor: my combat experience, which allows me to plan a winning strategy; my quick wits, which allow me to think on my feet and react to surprises; and my sheer apathy, which forces me to turn the difficulty down to almost nothing so I can just waltz right through this because enough already.In both timelines the Dharma gets blown up, so don't feel too bad for it. Besides, the UN are dicks.To cut a long epilogue short (or shorter, anyway), we make it back down to the surface of Persephone, this time with a science team and an actual pilot for the lander. When no-one's looking, I hop through the time travel portal as soon as the spider bots get it working. The above is the future I encounter, with the memories of the desolated remains transforming before my eyes. Until it becomes this pleasant little lakeside enclosure. Rather than the grim future of the original timeline, this is one where the Alliance won the war, created intelligent electronic lifeforms and decided to peacefully co-exist with them.As a gift, the AIs build us a Dyson Sphere to live on, or rather live inside. Dyson Spheres are kind of neat, go look them up on Wikipedia. Importantly, this gives the human race about three trillion times more geography to colonize. Might as well throw those contraceptives away. The AIs, meanwhile, live on the outside of the sphere and evolve to be so complex and sophisticated that we've long since lost any ability to meaningfully communicate with them. That's... a little foreboding.But we don't have to worry about that. It's the end credits! Thanks for checking out this LP!The "Player" is right. We played all those crewmembers and AIs for chumps. And now look at us, relaxing in a boat next to a pointy future building in a Utopian future. Seems like we got the final laugh. Ha ha! Man, does our head hurt...
And that's Mission Critical. Hope you enjoyed it. I might've found more entertaining screenshots from Callahan's Crosstime Saloon or Superhero League of Hoboken, but because they're the better games I should probably leave them for you all to discover instead. I mean, once Atari gets its finger out and puts the whole Legend library on GOG, at least.
I'll be back with more weirdness next time. Probably not another Brief Jaunt for a while though (not that this was particularly brief...).
@bobafettjm: Man, you're a lifesaver. Also, we're not done explaining things quite yet...
Part 10: I Swear This Thing Will Stop Talking Eventually
Oh what is this.So now we have a little thought puzzle. These are jiffies, little dudes that must've taken entire art teams to conceive. They aren't particularly good conversationalists.However, we can jump forwards and backwards in time in one second intervals to help them find a portal home.If you talk to the jiffies in 00:08, you'll discover that they missed their portal. But because we can go back, we can tell the jiffies at 00:01 to get ready for it.The 00:08 jiffies miss it again, but give us more specific directions.So now all I have to do is head back to 00:01 one last time to give them the skinny.Aw, don't worry about it little guy! (For as simple as this was, it's actually the last puzzle in the game.)Anyway, because apparently the blue ball got tired of explaining things to a stupid human, they set up this little thought experiment to demonstrate the importance of communicating back through time. In the most condescending way possible. I'm super glad I'll be unmaking these supercilious things with my time travel manipulations.Yeah, there were never any aliens. Sorry. Just your average, everyday alternative time line super AIs.I've been getting dicked around by sarcastic AIs since this whole thing started. I think Mass Effect had a point about these things.For as annoying as these guys are, they do have at least have peaceful intentions. Like the electronic lifeforms in the Matrix (or the apes in that new Dawn of the Planet of the Apes movie), they were kind of forced to murder/enslave us all and at least feel kind of crappy about it.It occurs to me that this isn't the first game I've played with an AI at the end that overexplains everything.I'm starting to suspect that sour grapes is a systemic thing for the UN.It doesn't matter though, since the gate was opened at some point in time. I skipped a bit here, but I was listed as KIA. They figured I got incinerated along with the Persephone installation.Of course, the AIs only know most of this because they brain-probed me. Don't think I forgot.Turns out wormholes that can travel through space and time aren't as simple as we thought. They can only send back information, rather than matter, so I'm going to get my consciousness sent back instead because why the heck not.Of course, I still have to kill myself. But hey, at least no-one else has to die.Well, that's a big if. Don't worry about it, I'll probably be dead in the original timeline before ever finding the Persephone portal.I just think I'm being a big baby about all this death and annihilation of the human race stuff.I'm sure they'll be very receptive to me waking up and telling them how they'll all die if they don't give me all the top secret brain chemicals I'm not supposed to know about.So here's another branch for some alternate endings. Do I go back in time and try to save the Lexington's crew and, by extension, the human race? Or do I decide to spend what little time I have left before going insane and dying talking to an uncharmingly garrulous blue ball who thinks I'm an idiot while surrounded by creepy skeletons? I hate it when the game gives me difficult decisions like this...
Part Final: Crazy Yelling Future Guy and The Dharma Initiative
Fuuuuuuck youuuuuuu, BluuuuuuueyOh hey, Tran's alive! And... pointing a gun at us?Her dialogue is all voiced rather than subtitled, but she's clearly agitated by something we did.Oh right, it's because I woke up yelling about the aliens on Persephone, the Hype/Telecon, the UNS Dharma and a dozen other things I'm probably not supposed to know about. Well, way to play things subtle with your night terrors, Unnamed Supply Officer.So way, way, way back when I popped into the medbay during my initial explorations, I found a "panic button" code for the autodoc that stuns anyone standing next to it. As far as I know, there's zero reason to ever visit the medbay in this playthrough. It's insane luck that I remembered this.Unfortunately, Tran's about to find out why 911 is a joke on this starship.Hit with a fine mist of sedatives, she drops like a brick and lets us run amok for a while.I repeat much of the first half of the game, grabbing the multitool so I can recover the Hype/Telecon system from Dahl's safe, via Poole's little binocular eyepiece gizmo.Of course, the Captain understandably wants to know what the hell we're doing as soon as we run onto the bridge with a top secret device under one arm.Naturally reluctant to believe our tall story (good thing he doesn't know about the unconscious Lieutenant Commander just yet), we persuade him to send Drone Foxtrot (aka Drone Deadmeat) over to the opposite side of Persephone to where the UNS Dharma is hiding.He's not buying most of what we're selling, but that poor little probe getting atomized is enough to persuade him to let us at the drone controls.Oh great, another one of these.The Dharma's a tough fight, especially as I start with a drone down, but I have three factors working in my favor: my combat experience, which allows me to plan a winning strategy; my quick wits, which allow me to think on my feet and react to surprises; and my sheer apathy, which forces me to turn the difficulty down to almost nothing so I can just waltz right through this because enough already.In both timelines the Dharma gets blown up, so don't feel too bad for it. Besides, the UN are dicks.To cut a long epilogue short (or shorter, anyway), we make it back down to the surface of Persephone, this time with a science team and an actual pilot for the lander. When no-one's looking, I hop through the time travel portal as soon as the spider bots get it working. The above is the future I encounter, with the memories of the desolated remains transforming before my eyes. Until it becomes this pleasant little lakeside enclosure. Rather than the grim future of the original timeline, this is one where the Alliance won the war, created intelligent electronic lifeforms and decided to peacefully co-exist with them.As a gift, the AIs build us a Dyson Sphere to live on, or rather live inside. Dyson Spheres are kind of neat, go look them up on Wikipedia. Importantly, this gives the human race about three trillion times more geography to colonize. Might as well throw those contraceptives away. The AIs, meanwhile, live on the outside of the sphere and evolve to be so complex and sophisticated that we've long since lost any ability to meaningfully communicate with them. That's... a little foreboding.But we don't have to worry about that. It's the end credits! Thanks for checking out this LP!The "Player" is right. We played all those crewmembers and AIs for chumps. And now look at us, relaxing in a boat next to a pointy future building in a Utopian future. Seems like we got the final laugh. Ha ha! Man, does our head hurt...
And that's Mission Critical. Hope you enjoyed it. I might've found more entertaining screenshots from Callahan's Crosstime Saloon or Superhero League of Hoboken, but because they're the better games I should probably leave them for you all to discover instead. I mean, once Atari gets its finger out and puts the whole Legend library on GOG, at least.
I'll be back with more weirdness next time. Probably not another Brief Jaunt for a while though (not that this was particularly brief...).
7 Comments