It quickly transpires that Blackadder was not kidding about the leap in difficulty. This could be interesting. My screenshot program crapped out a bit here, but you'll see plenty of the fights and enemies in Las Enemas later, no fear.
Fortunately, this comes with boatloads of experience. At the moment, I'm pumping everyone's IQ to make them eligible for energy weapons, which can be trained at the Vegas library.
Also, it turns out that Vegas doesn't have a shop, which is a bit odd. We make the trek back to Needles, and accidentally step in some radiation along the way. And... oh, look at that. We forgot to heal poor Felicia. Poor, poor Felicia.
Ignoring the MAYOR's protests, we unceremoniously dump the body in the wastes. Back in Needles, we pop into that magic shop you might remember.
Following advice, we recruit this charming young woman for now.
The MAYOR is distraught and traumatised by the death of his wife. We feel it would be a kindness to let him go, making sure to strip him of all his valuables beforehand.
Back in Las Vegas, with a newly trimmed and efficient party. Slicerdicers look scary, but are one of the easier enemies here and go down fast.
We move up to them so as not to waste ammo, and let them have it in melee. They're accomanied by some stronger variants such as chopters, but still go down reasonably easily.
Text glitched a bit here, but you can see the impressive experience rewards. Wait until we run into those wardroid things...
Autofire remains king. It appears it can hit not only one group, but all the enemies you're facing; for example, if you're facing two squads of 4 chopters and 2 slicerdicers, it can potentially hit them all. Great for getting someone experience quickly if you don't mind wasting a clip.
Looks like there should be something interesting here, right? Wrong.
Land mines everywhere. They don't seem to damage us through our armor, so we wade cheerfully on.
There are
lots of these. Is it a defense mechanism? Are the robots attacking Vegas instead of being native goons? The plot thickens...
RPG-7s, the best rocket launcher we've encountered so far. The game progression doesn't really reward hoarding; I used a few of our remaining manglers against tougher enemies here and they did no damage whatsoever. It seems that, generally, if you get something powerful, it's only going to be powerful and is meant to be used in that stage of the game. Curse my packrat tendencies!
Good lord. It seems that there are both random and fixed encounters in Lost Vegans; random encounters are more of an inconvenience than anything, and fixed encounters can be... well... problematic.
But not too much... yet.
The Scorpitron. Now, I am playing this game fairly blind, but just skimming information on fluff to post and to find the paragraph book, I've encountered mention of a few noteworthy things. Chief among them... the Scorpitron.
We flee the Scorpitron to the West, still exploring Vegas to find some pointers. It's hard to tell where you're going when every building looks the same, but this would seem to signify an important area.
Surprisingly, "penis" still isn't the word. Sighing, we resolve to come back later.
Oh I say
Sounds like our beefy, bloated host has a warped sense of humour. Who could that remind us of...?
This is more like it. Let's see what we can find.
The pit boss sends a stream of brown saliva from between his front
teeth to the tip of your boots. He slowly sucks on the tobacco pocketed between
his cheek and gum as he continues to eye you. Working a finger into his mouth,
he scoots the chew around and finally breaks the silence. "See Crumb, the
manager," he says with a long drawl.
"Hi. They call me Crumb," he says with a nod of his head. After he
exchanges handshakes with everybody, he tells you "See Faran Brygo. He's my
boss. Be sure to use the password KESTREL." As you leave, he yells, "Tell
him I sent you!"
There we go. Now... just to actually find Faran Brygo. This could be a feat in of itself.
Warroids Mark 3. I didn't expect much going into this encounter. Remember me mentioning them earlier?
Yeah, it went a bit worse than expected. We seem entirely unable to even dent these things, while their deadly cannons knock out or wound whoever they hit in a couple of rounds. Time to load up the heavy explosives.
There's a start.
Oh lordy
We are forced to make a tactical retreat and rest up in the desert. Something tells me they'll still be here when we get back.
For some reason, an assault rifle auto-fire pierces its defences and slays it. One more to go.
And we're done, chipping away at it until it gives in. The XP rewards are ludicrous, over 1000 per enemy. I'm still not too keen on meeting more of these.
um
Though packing a punch, they fall to autofire quickly enough. A sonic key? Best keep a hold of it.
Outside what appears to be another Temple of the Mushroom Cloud, we encounter...
Huh.
A "RadAngel". Seemed impressive, but fell quickly enough.
Oh goddammit stop with the passwords
With a sigh, we are forced to leave again. I guess it's time to explore Vegas' less obvious areas and see if we can find any pointers. Also, more IQ points for chzr.
wat
Now these enemies
hurt. chzr frantically heals the gang while Alex and Christina do what they can to pick them off. This requires a retreat or two, but eventually we triumph.
Yet another sonic key? Guess we'll be collecting a number of them.
More IQ, etc.
Returning to the entrance we came in by the first time, we resign ourselves to exploring every building in a clockwise fashion.
Nothing here. West one building...
Aha!
We give him a tip and ask him about various topics. First of all: Fat Freddy.
There we go. Now, the mysterious Faran Brygo.
All is beginning to come together. The war Ace was sent to collect people to fight must be the defense against these mysterious robots. Now, who is this "Max"?
Charmaine must be the leader of the Mushroom Cloud cult. Interesting... now, robots, for what little we can find out.
That'll do us. Also, yes, I asked about that Covenant person. Nothing going.
IQ again.
Could it be...?
Fat Freddy is a genetic nightmare -- a squamous mass of slimy flesh
shuddering and twitching before you like some animated blob of flesh-colored
Jell-O. He smells like a swamp, a foul, choking miasma of rotting
mastodonian flesh left to putrefy. His presence is overwhelming -- perhaps
he has some mutant ability to control men's minds. While in his presence,
you have to sternly control an urge to salute or kneel. There is no doubt
that he is a leader of men.
When he speaks, his voice sounds like bubbles of carbon dioxide burbling
up out of a morass. It is difficult to understand him, but after the first
few phrases of introduction, you begin to get the hang of it. Fat Freddy is
a man driven by ambition, and he has an offer to make.
"Brygo thinks he controls Vegas," burbles Freddy, "but he isn't half the
man I am. Haw! Haw! Haw! This should be my town, and-
: LOL SORRY BROS FAG TALK HURTS MY BRIAN. LISTEN BROS FARAN BRYGO IS MORE LIKE FAGGOT BRYGAY HE IS PURE POPAMOLE??? I THINK I DESERVE TO RULE VEGAS INSTEAD BROS! LISTEN I HAVE BEEN WATCHING YOUR ADVENTURES SINCE YOU GOT HERE YOU ARE PRETTY BADASS BROS, HOW ABOUT YOU POP THAT FAG'S MOLE AND BRING BACK HIS ONYX RING FOR ME??? TRUST ME BROS A TRUE BRO NEVER GOES BACK ON HIS WORD YOU WILL GET $25,000 AND ANYTHING YOU WANT IN VEGAS BROS HOOKERS AND COKE GALORE
You tell him that you need a few minutes to think things over, and go
into a corner to confer among yourselves. You have a very, strong feeling
that Freddy doesn't want to hear any negatives out of you.
Naturally, as a gang of true BROS, we accept his offer.
: GOOD TO HEAR BROS
HAVE $1000 FROM ME
Still pumping points into IQ.
Skirting around the Scorpitron, we find what appears to be Faran Brygo's place.
Faran Brygo's office is modest, yet clean and pleasant. Two guards,
one tall, blond and stern looking, the other shorter and stockier, flank the
desk. Brygo, a dark, handsome man, smiles at you. "I understand you want to
speak with me, gentlemen?"
Playing our cards safely for now, we humbly ask the kingpin what we can do for him.
Once the introductions have been made, the Big Boss pulls out a box
of cigars and passes them around, explaining that it is his special blend,
grown somewhere further north. When everyone is comfortable, and the bodyguards
have taken up unobtrusive positions behind you, he begins to talk.
"You must be the Rangers sent to help." "What do you mean?" you
cautiously ask.
"One of my men is missing. We don't think he's dead, because he's too
valuable to kill. We think some other group in town has grabbed him. If we
don't get him back, the whole town will probably be overrun by these damn death
machines that have started to appear, because he's the only one in town with
the scientific know-how to fight them. He's the one who thought of the
landmines, and they've destroyed more robots than anything else in town."
Brygo reaches into his desk and brings out a drawing of a rather ordinary
looking man. "This is Max," he explains. "He came to us about a year ago from
the Wasteland to the east. He was the greatest hand-to-hand fighter we'd ever
seen and he also seemed to know a lot about the science from before the War.
He didn't remember where he came from -- at least, that's what he told us. 1
quickly made him my right hand man."
"When we began to hear rumors of death machines coming out of the west, and
especially when the first of them reached the Vegas borders several weeks ago,
Max grew frantic. He began to talk crazy, about how all life was in peril, and
how only he could save us. He said he needed special equipment, and that
someone near Vegas should have it. I should have put a guard on him then, but
instead, I decided to send Ace out to look for help. One night Max disappeared.
We've been looking for him ever since without success. Nov,, I've lost my best
man, and things are getting worse. Newer and stronger robotic death machines
are appearing all the time. If we don't find Max soon, even a fortress like
this may not be able to hold out against the death machines. Go see Charmaine
in the Mushroom Church. Tell her I sent you and she may be able to help."
You nod your head. '"Yeah. We've tangled with some of these death
machines before, and we gotta stop whoever's making them. Any clues?"
"There are two other power groups here in Vegas that we know of. Fat Freddy
runs the criminal element. He'd like to take over my position. There's also the
Servants of the Mushroom Cloud -- religious fanatics who won't be happy until
every person in Vegas has been converted to their own poisonous religion. There
may be others. Vegas is a big town. But those are the ones we suspect most. I
need you to go find Max. What do you say? Will you do it?"
The Desert Rangers huddle for a few minutes. You decide that taking on this
mission could be quite an adventure and decide to go for it. Besides, your
curiosity has been aroused. You are sure that Max knows a lot more than he has
told Brygo. If you want explanations, he's the man you'll need to see.
"All right," you tell the Boss, "we'll find him if he's findable. In the
meantime, you try to hold out here."
The Big Boss stands up, shakes your hands, and wishes you all luck. Then
he shows you the way out.
Plot development! Unfortunately, we are unceremoniously shown the door and not allowed back in. We'll have our chance. Probably. Fleeing from the Scorpitron as we leave, we duck into a nearby house to heal the three serious wounds he inflicted in one round from about ten squares away.
These are in fact just simple bees and things. They don't pose the biggest threat ever.
Curiosity aroused, we clear the rest of the building, and are rewarded for our efforts with...
...the greatest melee weapon in the game.
Time to turn the tides.
TUNE IN NEXT TIME AS: We clear Spade's casino, man up and confront the Scorpitron, and venture into the Temple of the Mushroom Cloud to see what dark secrets they hide!
. Then again, maybe it's for the best -- I was half expecting a really dumb explanation like "we were using the blood to try to refuel the missile!1!"
