KickStarter Mechajammer (formerly Copper Dreams) - cyberpunk RPG from Whalenought Studios

[Sykar]

It really is amazing that a promising game like this turned into a complete pile of shit like that. I hope the developers learned their lesson.

 

[Sykar]

This game seems to be far worse.

 

[gaussgunner]

Is this inspired by Cyberpunk 2077 and all of it's bugs?

No, it's the other way around. Look how old this thread is, then add a few more years of early development.

 

[Dhaze]

It really is amazing that a promising game like this turned into a complete pile of shit like that. I hope the developers learned their lesson.

Which lesson, though? I genuinely and sympathetically wonder what they think happened, and what's their takeaway from all this.

They might think, "Oh we'll never maker another game after such a catastrophy!" Or they might think, "Well, next time we create a game, no more hopping from idea to idea almost until the last minute and no more energy wasted on a monthly visual overhaul; instead we'll settle on a foundation early on, and build from there resolutely."

And on one hand I want them to never make another video game; because it is without any doubt the buggiest game I've ever played, in which almost every single thing will bug out at one point or another. Yet on the other hand I can't help but be curious of what they might achieve, should they avoid the plethora of traps that skewered them during development.

Even the way Mechajammer was/is marketed annoys me and is a dreadful mistake. Though I can't know for sure who's to blame for that, the devs or the publisher or both, I'd wager the publisher is the logical culprit.
If you look at the GoG or Steam page, you'll see being promoted such aspects as 'Open-World Exploration' and 'Companions And Squad Commands' and 'Choices And Consequences', with much emphasis placed on combat. They even say, "In this immersive sim choose your path wisely, as your story options will shift with every choice," which I think is demonstrably false (or based on a very loose and generous definition of story-shifting), since in my playthrough at least I was railroaded hard into a path that clearly seemed to be the only one available.

But as I mentionned a couple times earlier in this thread, at some point while playing I realised that at the core of Mechajammer lies a detective mystery game. Factions and companions and combat—combat arguably most of all—is fluff on the side, almost better ignored.
After a few hours into the game it becomes one clue or puzzle leading into another and everything else sort of fades to the sides. And solving all those puzzles on my own was a genuine moment of deserved satisfaction; when I clued together the 20-digits access code into the elevator at the end of the game and realised it worked, I was so fucking happy! While I was entering the code, I murmured "No way. That's too long". Then I clicked the 'Submit' button on the keypad and repeated "No way..." a bit louder as the screen indicated 'Verifying Access Code'. When the screen flashed 'Code Matched' I gasped, honest to god, then with clenched teeth grunted, "Fuck yeah. Fuck yeah!"

Now, granted, I was happy in part because I suck massively at puzzles, and also because it meant I was extremely close to the end so it felt a bit like a kind soul presenting me with a 60-seconds countdown while telling me, "Don't worry sir, you're almost done being raped into bloody bits."
But really, that part of the game is well done, remarkably so. It's interesting, well conceived, and almost perfectly executed. Yet almost nobody talks about it.

Because the game's marketing fails to mention that essential part of the game. If you watch the launch trailer for example, it's bombastic music and vehicles and guns and machetes and explosions and riots and gallons of blood splattering everywhere. So of course people go into the game expecting that, only to find it shallow, and so full of bugs only an enthomologist might like it. I'd bet good money on the idea that, of the few people who played this game and trudged through all the issues, most simply gave up when they realised it was all about a series of puzzles, and quite involved puzzles at that.

If ever I get access to a time machine with only one trip ever allowed, I think I might cast aside my idea of getting back to 1930 to try and date Virginia Cherrill; instead I'll go back to 2016, to befriend the Whalenought devs and steer them into the right direction anent Mechajammer.

 

[Saduj]

Now, granted, I was happy in part because I suck massively at puzzles, and also because it meant I was extremely close to the end so it felt a bit like a kind soul presenting me with a 60-seconds countdown while telling me, "Don't worry sir, you're almost done being raped into bloody bits."
But really, that part of the game is well done, remarkably so. It's interesting, well conceived, and almost perfectly executed. Yet almost nobody talks about it.

Because the game's marketing fails to mention that essential part of the game. If you watch the launch trailer for example, it's bombastic music and vehicles and guns and machetes and explosions and riots and gallons of blood splattering everywhere. So of course people go into the game expecting that, only to find it shallow, and so full of bugs only an enthomologist might like it. I'd bet good money on the idea that, of the few people who played this game and trudged through all the issues, most simply gave up when they realised it was all about a series of puzzles, and quite involved puzzles at that.

If it wasn't for you posting about it here, I would have never known about 99% of the stuff you're referencing. And I played the game quite a bit. Why? First and foremost, the constant bugs make it hard to play the game having any reasonable expectation of ever finishing it. By the time you figure out that you're not doing anything wrong and the game is actually this fucked, you're ready to quit. Secondly, the text in this game tends to be very terse and cryptic and it is hard to tell fluff and plot critical info apart because of the bad writing. Maybe that isn't the case as you dig deeper into the plot but I wouldn't know. I get that mysteries are supposed to be cryptic and red herrings add to the mystery. But there is a difference between having to solve a mystery given limited info and just having no idea what the fuck you are reading because it is written so poorly. I'm amazed that the game is completable given the bugs. But what most impresses me about your playthrough is that you were able to decipher all the babble the game throws at you.

And lastly, the mechanics of the game actively discourage experimentation. For example: You get a scanner early in the game and are told to use it on some sort of box (I forget what they called it in game) for eavesdropping purposes. But there are many of these boxes around the map and the game doesn't really tell you that nothing happens unless you find the "right" one. And once you install the scanner in one of these boxes, it is gone forever. It turns out that you don't really need the scanner but I only know that from reading your posts. The game presents it in such a way that you'd think it is plot critical. And once you realize that quest items just disappear if you don't use them exactly as intended (with little instruction on what is intended), you don't want to experiment anymore. Of course the joke is on you because even if you just leave the damned thing in your inventory it will eventually disappear anyway.

 

[Dhaze]

If it wasn't for you posting about it here, I would have never known about 99% of the stuff you're referencing. And I played the game quite a bit. Why? First and foremost, the constant bugs make it hard to play the game having any reasonable expectation of ever finishing it. By the time you figure out that you're not doing anything wrong and the game is actually this fucked, you're ready to quit.

I'm lucky, in that during some periods of the year I have vast amounts of free time available, which when combined with an unhealthy tolerance for jank and a certain single-mindedness allowed me to see the game to its end. But someone with kids and long hours at work and serious social commitments that can't be sidelined for a time? I can't imagine someone like that ever finishing Mechajammer; that would be a grievious waste of time for them.

Secondly, the text in this game tends to be very terse and cryptic and it is hard to tell fluff and plot critical info apart because of the bad writing. Maybe that isn't the case as you dig deeper into the plot but I wouldn't know. I get that mysteries are supposed to be cryptic and red herrings add to the mystery. But there is a difference between having to solve a mystery given limited info and just having no idea what the fuck you are reading because it is written so poorly. I'm amazed that the game is completable given the bugs. But what most impresses me about your playthrough is that you were able to decipher all the babble the game throws at you.

That's... actually a very, very good point. You're absolutely right, and though I did wonder multiple times during my playthrough whether or not something was plot-critical, I hadn't exactly examined the problem further.

Retrospectively, I would say that most of the essential stuff becomes clearer as one progresses into the main plot/detective work. But in all honesty I sort of exploited and exhausted all avenues opened to me, thus by doing this I was bound to end up where I was supposed to end up.

So for example, at first I thought one faction or another might be key to reaching the end. Simply because a lot is said in-game about them, something like a quarter or more of the game space is dedicated to them, and they're generally afforded a great deal of importance lore-wise. But it became apparent that every minor faction was basically a repeat of every other. You can befriend a faction, which gives you the ability to call them as backup goons, or eradicate a faction, which gives you access to their treasure room (provided the boss doesn't bug out and forgets to drop his key).
Beyond those extremely basic interactions, there's nothing to do with factions and they could in fact be entirely ignored during a playthrough, so I more or less of understood that in the end they would be inconsequential. Which runs contrary to what the game—and the game's promotion even—implies.

Meanwhile, there was a point very early on in the game—perhaps two or three hours into a playthrough—when Barry told me vehicles bearing the red 'M' logo of the Mayflower Initiative were used to drive high-ranking people around, and how that might be linked to disable the anti-air batteries that would keep us all on Calitana even if we had a ship. And that information, mentionned in passing and never repeated in any way, shape, or form, is absolutely crucial.
If a player forgets that bit of information, I think the only way to get the MFI Key and finish the game is by destroying one of said cars by accident or curiosity; and I think there's only a couple of those cars, in one specific part of the game, and it wouldn't be hard to not notice them.

So yeah, the game doesn't exactly do a great job helping the player understand what's essential and what's added flavor. Which I think would be fine and, dare I say, immersive, if not for the surfeit of bugs that constantly make you question whether something is working as intended or not.

Though I will say the big clues and puzzles, things pertaining to the Temple Of The Faith, the Quarryman, Quinton Industries, Dome Six Island, and the underground Copper Face lab, all those things lead to one another in what, to me, was a logical fashion. I think it's obvious they all aggregate to create something greater than the sum of its parts. But—and that's a problem—it takes being some way into the game before those things really start to coalesce.

The one thing that stupefies me is how my brain conceived to count the number of blue squares displayed on the Dome Six Island's computer screens to create the last piece of the puzzle, the 20-digits number for the underground elevator. There's a piece of paper mentionning four-bit frequencies and oh man I would love to say that I put two and two together consciously, but no, verily my brain did that on his own time.

For example: You get a scanner early in the game and are told to use it on some sort of box (I forget what they called it in game) for eavesdropping purposes. But there are many of these boxes around the map and the game doesn't really tell you that nothing happens unless you find the "right" one.

Oh god, the Jammer you're supposed to use on the Utility Boxes strewn about Calitana; perhaps the best single example of maddening design, and proof that literally everything can and will go wrong.



(please note that when I get the Jammer back from the Utility Box's inventory, for some reason two mod slots have been added to it despite the fact that it's not an item can be equipped; and in fact when I tried to insert weapon or armor mods into the slots later on, that crashed the game)

1) Pelican gave me the Jammer and told me to use it on some Utility Box to intercept communications. But gave no indication as to what should happen when used properly.

2) I made my way to a Utility Box I had previously marked on my map, and... why is the Utility Box now a corpse convulsing on the ground?! Oh I guess it's a bug; hope it's purely visual.

3) I opened my inventory, but was not offered a way to use the Jammer.

4) I interacted with the glitched Utility Box, which emited a "Beep," and this opened my inventory as well as the Utility Box's empty inventory.

5) I dragged the Jammer from my own inventory into the Box's inventory (which felt very 'gaming in 1992'). Upon doing so, the inventories both closed, then the Box emited a "BEEP" in all caps.

6) Nothing more happened. Pelican didn't contact me, and I didn't have the Jammer anymore. So I was left befuddled, proverbial dick in hand, wondering what was going on.

I had taken the "BEEP" in all caps as proof of success—as I suspect most people might have—and went back to the base to talk with Pelican, who unfortunately had nothing to say on the subject. So I decided to trek back and re-interact with the Utility Box. And at this point two things might happen;

7a) The Jammer is still in the Utility Box's inventory. This is the intended state of things.

7b) The Jammer has forever vanished from the Utility Box's inventory. This is a very frequent and widely-reported bug.

The first time I played the game, I suffered step 7b wherein the Jammer disappeared. And I experienced what I call 'The Bethesda Effect', i.e. a state of things in a video game during which you're so deeply confused by an event or non-event that you wonder if things are supposed to be like that, or if it's some sort of massive bug.

Then I played some more hours, grew infuriated with the game which I un-installed, before re-installing it the next day, resolute to see it through. It's only during my second attempted playthrough that, upon reaching the same point, I realised the Jammer was not supposed to vanish.

The worst thing being that, as you rightly point out, the game makes it seems like the Jammer is very much a plot-critical item, when in fact it is not.

But there isn't a 'right' Utility Box. The way I think it all works is that there is one Utility Box near each faction of the game—the Fishmongers, the Cyberfreaks, the Hive, etc—and if you connect the Jammer to, say, the Utility Box near the Hive before first making contact with the Hive, then Pelican will contact you with a brief tidbit of information about that faction when you approach said faction.

So really, the whole thing is completely fucked.

– The Jammer is clearly presented with enough import to be considered plot-critical, despite being utterly inconsequential.
– You have little idea how to use the Jammer.
– When you use it it might disappear, because the interaction with the Utility Box is bugged.
– When you don't use it it might also disappear, at random, because the player inventory in general is bugged.
– When you use it 'wrong', i.e. after having already met the faction associated to that Utility Pole, it does nothing.
– When you use it 'right', i.e. before meeting the faction associated to that Utility Pole, it also does nothing on the moment, only later.

And it's really easy to correct, too.

1) Fix the bugs due to which the Jammer might disappear, whether in your inventory or when interacting with the Utility Boxe.
2) Upon giving you the Jammer, make Pelican say something clear like, "It'll intercept communications in the vicinity, so I'll be able to give you information on the corporation who's using it."
3) When using the Jammer before first encountering a faction, make Pelican contact you right there, right then.
4) When using the Jammer after having already encoutered a faction, also make Pelican contact you immediately, albeit with a slightly different message.
5) When using the Jammer after having already wiped a faction out, also make Pelican contact you immediately, with a "Weird, I'm only getting dead air... what happened?" kind of message.

Man, what a mess. Such good ideas and concepts, pretty much wasted.

 

[grimace]

Thank you for your write up Dhaze.

 

[Lyre Mors]

I feel like Dhaze cares more about this game than Hannah and Joe do at this point. Radio silence from them since it came out. I wonder what they are getting up to these days.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I feel like Dhaze cares more about this game than Hannah and Joe do at this point. Radio silence from them since it came out. I wonder what they are getting up to these days.

anyone got a link to her onlyfans?

 

[manifest]

I feel like Dhaze cares more about this game than Hannah and Joe do at this point. Radio silence from them since it came out. I wonder what they are getting up to these days.

anyone got a link to her onlyfans?

Hoping to join the esteemed ranks of Mr Hands and that kid from Equus?

 

[Dhaze]

Thank you for your write up Dhaze.

I'm glad at least a few people got some enjoyment out of it.

And I know I would have never seen the game's end were it not for this impromptu playthrough. When I wrote my first post here, I had already uninstalled then re-installed the game three times out of sheer frustration mixed equal parts with regret and the fear that, should I not persevere, I might miss some hidden gem.

So it was a way to vent my enormous frustration, and backers/buyers of the game who couldn't reach the end at least got a thorough, vicarious peek at the extended Mechajammer experience. Win-win.

I feel like Dhaze cares more about this game than Hannah and Joe do at this point. Radio silence from them since it came out. I wonder what they are getting up to these days.

That's quite possible. But to be fair to them I don't envy their situation one bit. All that time and effort and money and hope, only to see your game crash and burn spectacularly... yeesh.

For a quick anecdote, when I briefly popped onto their Discord channel after finishing my playthrough I exchanged a bit with other players about various aspects of the game, and linked to a few of my videos to showcase bugs I had encountered. One of said videos was sarcastically titled 'Fantastic, Professional Game Design; 11/10 GOTY', and not wanting to be too much of a dick I apologised for the severity of that title; to which one user answered, "Don't worry, I've said much worse things about the game."

So, yeah, even on their Discord they get less-than-stellar feedback, and a massive list of bugs are reported. Can't be easy for them.

At least I discovered Kevin Balke's excellent soundtrack. Beware Of Trespassing, Calitana's Pulse, Over The Fence, Mayflower's Initiative, Smoke. Great tracks all of them. I hope one day this man gets hired to create music for something like a Shadowrun game. I think he might even do very well with Mass Effect, especially creating ambiance for a place like Omega.

 

[Lyre Mors]

But to be fair to them I don't envy their situation one bit.

Yeah, I take no joy in how all of this turned out and feel quite bad for both of them. Though, I was hoping they would learn from their mistakes and push on, stronger and better for the experience. I fear they may have given up entirely though. Despite my disappointment with the game, I do still wish them the very best.

 

[Dhaze]

Thank you for your write up Dhaze.

I can easily imagine that when Mechajammer released, they were ready to hunker down and patch it thoroughly; after all they didn't abandon it straight away.

But with each bug fixed they introduced new ones, or re-introduced old ones, and in true Owlcat's Pathfinder fashion a number of bugs supposedly fixed are still very much present. In the end there is such an insane amount of problems that the task of fixing it all is daunting.

The weird part being that the March 24 Refracted Update, "[...] finishes our roadmap and aims to bring you the complete Mechajammer experience." And there is absolutely no way they're thinking the game is fine and finished. Most likely they finally decided to cut their losses and move on—which, you know, good for them.

I know that Falksi and Diggfinger have been in direct contact with Whalenought's Joe, and if you guys could tell him that I sincerely loved the unexpected and rather involved series of puzzles but also that I abhor him for making me lose a chunk of my sanity, that would be very appreciated.

As a side note, according to Steam the number of people who completed the game has grown tremendously!

Man, don't I feel all elite and shit being amongst those stubborn few.

The following one on the other hand

will probably forever remain at 0%, since to ally with the Hackers you need to first enter their appartment/headquarters, but can't ever get out because the elevator is bugged.

 

[ShaggyMoose]

This thread has saved me both money and time...

 

[gaussgunner]

But to be fair to them I don't envy their situation one bit.

Yeah, I take no joy in how all of this turned out and feel quite bad for both of them. Though, I was hoping they would learn from their mistakes and push on, stronger and better for the experience. I fear they may have given up entirely though. Despite my disappointment with the game, I do still wish them the very best.

I could care less. I had hoped they learned from their mistakes on Serpent, but they went off the rails like 5 years ago, changing art styles and trying to innovate in ways the top RPG devs don't even try, let alone a couple of tabletop-gamer artists mucking around with Unity. No one was forcing them on this 7 year death march, they could have reined in their ambitions or given up at any time, which they eventually did both last year.

 

[mediocrepoet]

This thread has saved me time. I guess it also saved me money because I would've thrown my PC tower into the wall in rage at some point.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

could care less

[teeth grinding sounds]

 

[Dhaze]

This thread has saved me time. I guess it also saved me money because I would've thrown my PC tower into the wall in rage at some point.

Oh that's right, you backed Copper Dreams, right? Did you at least get a physical edition or something?

 

[axx]

Last update was in march. Fuhgeddaboudit

 

[gaussgunner]

I hope they'll fix all of the bad stuff and make the game shine as it should in the first place!

It's nothing like what they promised in their Kickstarter, and it never will be.

 

[None]

Is there a story summary anywhere in this thread, or would someone care to do one? Seems like the game has a somewhat interesting premise, so it'd be nice to see what came of it.

 

[mediocrepoet]

This thread has saved me time. I guess it also saved me money because I would've thrown my PC tower into the wall in rage at some point.

Oh that's right, you backed Copper Dreams, right? Did you at least get a physical edition or something?

Yeah, I got some knick knacks. All the better to commemorate this legendary game.

Honestly, I'm not even certain I got everything I was supposed to. Between the delays and the quality of the finished project, I kind of forgot about it. I definitely received some of it though, so I'll assume that I got all of it and it's kicking around somewhere. Meh / 10

 

[FriendlyMerchant]

Is this game any good? I have hard-drive space for more torrents.

 

[Dhaze]

Is there a story summary anywhere in this thread, or would someone care to do one? Seems like the game has a somewhat interesting premise, so it'd be nice to see what came of it.

If you've the patience, you can go back to page 148 in which I made my first post, then, starting a bit further, I began an imprompty Let's Play.

If you don't have the time, I'm gonna try for a synopsis, with of course some nuance omitted. Ultra short version: the story is ok and in fact I'd say quite intriguing but too little is done with it, and the ending is a misery of blandness when it could easily have been spectacular.

---

You belong to the Earth Collective, the foremost in-universe syndicate, whose amazing power and ruthless grip holds tight many planets, colonies, and near-worthless lives. During a spaceflight you and your small crew decide to quit the Earth Collective without giving the proper two weeks notice.

When aboard your ship and flying over the jungle-swathed mining colony of Calitana, you are shot down by an anti-air battery. The crew of four is composed of you, who supposedly is better than the others at any on-the-ground stuff; a woman named Pelican, the crew's intelligentia; a nameless medic who really is a cyborg-like cranium in a glass bell attached to a floating spine (cool-looking design, by the way); and Barry, who is so impressively forgetable.

While crawling out of the mangled, burning, beyond-repair ship, your are promptly attacked by less-than-well-intentioned locals—but Pelican, first to extract herself from the wreckage, is ever quick with a gun. All four of you are miraculously unhurt, and take refuge in a nearby building which previously belonged to Wolffz Bay Shipping And Services.

Of course, settling definitively and eeking a living in the damp, sweaty, gritty shithole that is Calitana isn't the rosiest perspective of them all; so, resolute, you decide to find a ship and resume your getting-away-from-all-this-crap endeavor.

But appears the first problem, it being that Calitana is divided in eight islands mostly connected by bridges; and the gang members who attacked you on the ground, being mighty angry anent Pelican's gunshots, raised the two bridges leading to the rest of the city, thus trapping you. While Pelican stays in the old Wolffz Bay headquarters to gather information, the Medic does medic stuff, Barry does Barry stuff, and you're tasked with raising the bridges. This you do by forcefully reclaiming the access key from Three Hand Larry, the mutated local gang leader.

With this, the game opens, and you're out of the glorified tutorial beyond the tight confines of which the vast majority of players—even those who left glowing reviews—never trudged.

Killing Three Hand Larry and housing yourself in the Wolffz Bay headquarters has not remained unnoticed by Calitana's most keen-eyed and -eared, most schemeful denizens, and by way of a courier on foot you are contacted by a certain Sullivan, who claims he might be of help. Still Pelican gathers information through the wire; Medic does medic stuff; Barry goes to skulk about the bars and seedy places of Calitana in search of yet more information; and you go to meet Sullivan.

Said Sullivan is holed up in the Black Market district, some good way south of were you stand. Unfortunately you learn this Black Market can only be reached by ferry, and the ferry system has long been co-opted by gangs to move goods about in undetected manner. Thus the ferry system can only be used by those possessed of a certain cypher—which of course you don't have—but after some meandering through Calitana's labyrinthine alleys find a friendly mutant boatman named Franklin, who will graciously take you to the Black Market. (note that there is in fact a soporifically long way of reaching the Black Market on foot: through an old underground passageway whose bowels disgorge a truly insane number of mindless enemies)

So you land there with Franklin the boatman's help, and make your way up into Sullivan's appartment. Now this man explains to you that he, too, wants to escape Calitana, and has safe means to do so for himself—but he does not want to leave before acquiring an extremely valuable piece of technology.
Because while they've indeed been scheming and conniving against one another for longer than anyone alive can remember, the syndicates seem now more than ever on the brink of all-out war. And word has it the second most powerful syndicate, the Mayflower Initiative (henceforth known as MFI) have developped a weapon—the Copper Face(s)—that, to put it simply, would absolutely wreck shit up all good and proper; it can cause devastating damage possibly of a psionic nature, and is nearly impervious to anything you might throw at it.
And Sullivan wants the head of a Copper Face; and you're the one to get it, because if you do, Sully boy will give you a spaceworthy ship.

He knows there is an MFI-run manufacturing lab somewhere below Calitana, but has so far failed to ascertain the exact location of said lab. He had previously enlisted the help of a woman named Mara, who mingled with the colony's downtrodden in her quest for intel; alas Mara seems to have disappeared.

So Sullivan gives you a cypher wheel of the kind used to control the ferry system (Mara is to be thanked for that object), and sends you on you way. Now the search for clues begins for which you roam about Calitana, not entirely aimless but not knowing exactly where to start. Here and there, you learn tidbits of informations, and connect various elements to one another. This is the meat of the game.

– The anti-air battery that shot you down is located somewhere to the north. In the jungle you discover a huge, vault-like door leading to what you suspect is an MFI base, but of course this massive door won't budge as long as you can't activate the nearby generator. Barry contacts you, and asks you meet him at a certain bar; once there, he reveals recently-acquired information according to which high-ranking MFI executives are being transported in cars bearing the distinctive red 'M' logo of the MFI. You locate one of those cars, destroy it or force it to crash, and forcefully procure the MFI key owned by a now dead executive.
Generator key in hand you make your way north and acquire codes that, at the appropriate time, will allow you to disable the anti-air guns that would otherwise prevent any flight from reaching Calitana's orbit.

– Quinton Industries is one of the biggest and most well-funded syndicates. They manufacture a bit of everything, are very keen on stealing secrets from other syndicates, and are intently scrutinising the various doings of the MFI; surely they must know something of value to you. So you procure a working permit and with it ride the train to Gershwein's Estate where dwell the eponymous MFI executive. There you find informations indeed, anent weird extraction chemicals seeping into Calitana, and the MFI's curious underground operations which supposedly involves them mining some crude psionic matter left there in some Atlantean catacombs over which Calitana was built.
You also learn that the first miners in the colony were a faction called the Quarrymen, who seemed to be "existing in some form of lobotomised mental capacity," and communicated in garbles, mostly using visual color cues. Following some rather abrupt closure of MFI mines long ago, the Quarrymen remained in the mines.
Finally, still in Gershwein's Estate, you acquire a Psionic Detector.

– There exists a disingenuous faction called The Faith, who are not the absolute worst but still prey on the weakest of the weak, and are likely behind a massive number of disappearances as for various reasons they seem in league with syndicates, gangs, and smugglers—basically everyone. Street people flock to the Faith in hopes of spiritual and bodily salvation, and many are sent to various mines and labour camps with promise of bread and pay, but fewer than few ever return.

You locate one particular representative of the Faith, Sora, and procure from her dead body a key that allows you entry into the imposing Temple Of The Faith. Inside this temple you find a lot of poor people, as well as a handful of goons bent on your demise. Theirs come before yours, and after solving a puzzle you gain access to a secret room.

In this room is a head, alive in a jar kep enthroned on a pedestal (enpedestaled?), manifestly a subject of much worship by the Faith. And by reading some papers left about the place you learn that here is nothing less than the head of a Quarryman. On surrounding shelves, you find a number of cartridges each painted in one single color; and by inserting said cartridges into an interface linked to the Quarryman, he garbles some very distinct sounds.

– Last but not least of the major syndicates is Agro-Fax, founded by an ex-MFI Lead Of Research. Calitana having been reduced to a terribly toxic place where the soil itself moans in pain, Agro-Fax provides most of the foodstuff consumed in the colony, but also dabbles in a bit of harmless gene-editing and -splicing. They have for them an entire island, Dome Six. You find the coordinates of this Dome Six Island, ferry yourself there and find a pitiful mess of escaped modified creatures slaughtering everything in sight.

Of utmost import on that island you find an array of computers that, when interacted with, emit sounds exactly like those garbled by the Quarryman's head. And you learn Agro-Fax's geologists had some months ago discovered Atlantean ruins marked by recent MFI activity; ruins in which the geologists discovered a vocal box of the likes used to communicate with the Quarrymen, and they managed to use that box to interact with various ancient doors and computers. The new computers currently in front of you are the fruit of Agro-Fax engineers' labour, who have tried to decode this weird four-bit language of garbled colors.

As well on Dome Six Island, you discover the body of Mara, Sullivan's hire, who it appears worked for him for the same reason you are: she desperately wanted out of Calitana.

Like in a bukkake orgy, it's all starting to come together.

But tragedy most foul befalls you! for dear Barry has been kidnapped by the Arms Guild. In short, you find him on some small island, free him, and for your efforts are recompensed by the acquisition of the Arms Guild Jammer, whose decription mentions the interrupting of nearby psionic waves.

Now that Barry is safely back at the Wolffz Bay base with Pelican and Medic (or, as during my bug-ridden playthrough, simultaneously back at the base and back in his prison cell, indicating he might be some ubiquitous entity), and knowing for certain that MFI's underground work is a reality and involves appreciable quantities of crude psionic matter, you take the Psionic Detector acquired in Gershwein's Estate for a ride. And sure enough it detects something, somewhere in the city.
You fight a bunch of mutants and dogs and mutant dogs, then go down a manhole and promptly find a terribly tantalising elevator shaft leading down, down, into what you're pretty sure is the penultimate object of your quest.

Rubbing your five and a half neurons together as hard as you can until your ears are a-smoking, you put the various clues and pieces of the puzzle together, translating colors into sounds into a set of five times four digits, then excitedly enter that 20-digits suite into the mysterious elevator.

The elevator crashes down; you find yourself in the much-searched-for MFI lab. There you fight two or three extraordinarily resilient Copper Face (it turns out you can use the Arms Guild Jammer to dispatch them, but I never found where to plug it in), and procure the Copper Face head (Copper Face face?) Sullivan wants in exchange for a working ship.

Now here comes perhaps the stupidest part of the game, that is the ending.

You exit the underground lab not by taking the elevator—since it crashed and is destroyed—but by a long, long, oh dear lord super fucking long staircase that brings you back to a small, isolated part of Calitana's surface. And there, Sullivan is waiting for you, with the ship! But oh no, what's this you see? Why is Sullivan accompanied by a couple of the Earth Collective's soldiers?
Well, it seems he has been more or less forced into a deal with the Earth Collective. This kinda reluctant deal would see him hand the Copper Face head you found to the Collective, for verily it is a weapon could dramatically unbalance the impending syndicate war, and see the dominating Collective lose when faced with the MFI's newfound technological might. To sweeten the pot, the Collective offered one million wondoons (the in-universe currency) to Sullivan. More: you and Pelican and Barry and Medic are deserters, and the Earth Collective doesn't take kindly to that.
You fight Sullivan and the two soldiers, and of course you win. Over radio Pelican tries to warn you of Sullivan's betrayal, and while you appreciate the thought, it's a bit late.

You say goodbye to Franklin the boatman; gather your team; use the codes previously acquired to disable the anti-air battery; board Sullivan's ship; and off you go.

Yes, "On to the next adventure!" Because that's what the game's tragically under-utilised story needed: a last line so cheesy you can use it for your next raclette.

Jesus effin' Christ that took forever to write...

 

[luj1]

Can anyone sum up why this game sucks?

Unfinished? Bugs? Not fun?