14.
Ain't No Pleasure Cruise
Fuck this game.
Shipping Terror missions are the third and frankly the worst kind of Terror Mission in any XCOM game. Ever. Essentially, even though we see the aliens destroying a cruise ship in the intro, in the game they board ships and take hostages. When you arrive, the alien will just begin shooting the hostages. Why they don't bother to sink the ship once you get there I have no idea.
The developers uncharacteristically poured an incredible amount of effort into this level. There are two types of ship; a cargo liner and a cruise ship. The mission is two parts, because fuck you; the first part being the top decks of the ship and the second being the lower decks, each with 10-15 civilians present that will most likely die before you get anywhere near them. Each section is incredibly well-realized and highly detailed. Particularly the cruise ship which includes passenger cabins, bars, restaurants, a fucking casino, a goddamn movie theater and a swimming pool on the top deck. The cargo liner is a miserable maze of crates strewn with explosive barrels and overlooked by numerous catwalks the aliens can just massacre your forces from.
The one and only time I actually completed this game I did so by downloading a mod called No Shipping Terror to disable these missions. Despite not using it this time, for some reason the game chose to give me none of these missions until now. Probably because all of their mission slots were taken up once Artifact Sites became a thing. I was starting to get a bit worried that I would be accused of cheating though since these missions are a major part of why this game is so hated and I haven't gotten a single one yet. I suppose I need not worry any longer. God damnit.
Oh goodie. Its at night too. And I forgot to have Johan Schmidt switch weapons to a Sonic Cannon since the DPL doesn't work on land.
There's going to be a lot of dicking around with psionics on this mission because the levels are fucking huge and I want to get this over as quickly as possible. We dispose of two Bio-Drones and a few Lobstermen in the first three turns. Something like five civilians are killed right off; I'm not even going to attempt to rescue any of them.
I'm making this shit look like it went by quick but this took turn after turn of fucking around with psionics and waiting for the Bio-Drones (there are fucking four of them by the way) to expose themselves. Mind controlling a Bio-Drone is not quite beyond our team's abilities, but I need to have one of the psionic users wear the Bio-Drone down first, then have Pocket Dragoon launch one or two attacks as he's the only one with a score high enough to actually succeed.
During this two-turn exchange of stupidity, I had a Lobsterman Technician arm a grenade, then moved the Bio-Drone and his other mind-controlled buddy into melee range. The melee weapon was powerful enough to wipe out his buddy first, but not strong enough to kill the Bio-Drone, so I then had to take over the Bio-Drone, kill the Technician, causing him to drop the grenade which then went off and killed the Bio-Drone. This may sound like fun but its honestly tedious nonsense.
I finally have some room to spread out, so I sent TerribleIdeasTM to go take the bridge and spread out Gimmick Account and The Valeyard to take that restaurant. While they're in transit, a mind-controlled Lobsterman shooting at one of its mind-contrlled buddies "accidentally" hits
@Gimmick Account and kills him instantly.
The Valeyard is given the task of safely disposing of our two mind controlled Lobstermen before moving on to the restaurant. Johan Schmidt takes Polyboros2 with him to deal with the passenger cabins, though I don't expect them to encounter much resistance as all of the aliens so far have been on the first two levels. Meanwhile, The Valeyard disposes of another Lobsterman upon reaching the restaurant.
TerribleIdeasTM finds the last Bio-Drone hanging out in another restaurant. He gets a good clean hit on it but it's not enough to take it down, so the team mind controls it.
That wasn't so bad, right? Yeah, right.
Look at this fucking glory hole. There's a maze of crates, a catewalk overlooking us with three entrances leading into it, a central elevator shaft that can deposit troops either on the same floor as us or above us, two entrances to the same level, and two staircases to lead up into the catwalk.
As if that's not enough,
every route through those fucking crates has an explosive barrel in the middle of it and near where it ends.
There are a total of five. @AmpleApricots is killed by a Bio-Drone because everything in this game has an overpowered reaction score relative to your marines. Bio-Drones of course explode when they are killed, which would mean setting off every explosive barrel in this room, which by the way are convieniently positioned in a way that at least three of them will go off if one goes, if not all of them, and even troops at the very back of the starting area are vulnerable to being caught in the explosion as there's one right the fuck next to us.
Fuck this game.
We mind control the Bio-Drone, because what the fuck else can we do? XCOM spreads out, the entire team nervous as Hell about those explosive barrels.
No less than two Lobstermen shuffle out of the elevator on the catwalk. A third one appears and snips
@Radical Cadre's head clean off and lets his body topple down the stairs.
I mind control the two on the catwalk and have one gun his partner down. The one that got Radical Cadre and escaped like a coward rushes out again. Officer
@Johan Schmidt, deprived of the invincibility the DPL offered him, also has his head snipped off. Why the fuck can't any of these people get reaction fire?
Oh wait, all of our promising rookies died on the last few missions, and Johan has been on the DPL all this time which gives barely any stat gains. I hate this game so much.
I about damn near piss myself when I have Dark Edea take a shot at the Lobsterman that killed two of his comrades, a Lobsterman that I haven't mind controlled that is standing right next to a cluster of three explosive barrels that could fucking kill everyone if Edea scores a hit on them. Fortunately the shot makes its mark and the Lobsterman is disposed of. Meanwhile I'm trying to figure out how to get rid of this stupid Bio-Drone, so I have it vaporize the crates between the troops and the door behind it.
Meanwhile Chocolate Wombat and chaosrevolutions have made it to the second level. They're quickly ambushed on the alien turn. Wombat manages to hold off his Lobsterman with reaction fire, but the second one rushes
@chaosrevolutions from around a blind corner and splits him in half.
Meanwhile on the ground floor I have Dark Edea finally get rid of that stupid MeleeOnlyLobsterman while I order the rest of my troops to hang back for the moment.
At this range... I could try it.
Oh
SHIT
To my utter shock, not only did that explosion not set off the other half of the explosive barrels in the starting room, TerribleIdeasTM has somehow survived that ensuing chain of explosions unscathed, without even being slightly wounded.
Chocolate Wombat might be alone, but he's not without backup. Hiram and Willy mind control his two Lobsterman assailants, giving him plenty of time to pick one off. The Valeyard gets one that stupidly wandered onto the catwalk last turn.
Another Lobsterman armed with a melee weapon drops down the elevator and obliterates
@Chocolate Wombat, doesn't even leave a corpse.
Its The Valeyard's turn to be the eyes for our psionic team. His efforts dispose of Wombat's killer.
We get another one that wandered in to the starting area. Another Bio-Drone drops down the bullshit elevator shaft and kills
@The Valeyard.
Polyboros moves up to be our eyes this time. it takes two turns but the Bio-Drone is killed at a safe distance from the elevator. It takes its Lobsterman killer with it too.
Another alien drops down and kills
@Polyboros2. I didn't even see what the fuck it was. This fucking game.
We have jack shit for troops left. Its literally down to just Dark Edea and TerribleIdeasTM.
A civilian walks in front of the porthole Dark Edea was using to shoot at the Lobsterman. Right in front of it. Right in melee range where the Lobsterman is. Literally everything in this fucking game just exists to make your life Hell. I have Dark Edea just kill him to get to the Lobsterman because I am so fucking done with this shit.
The last enemy on this map, another god damn Bio-Drone, attacks TerribleIdeasTM but he shakes off its wimpy melee weapon. Rather than blow it up I have the troops mind control it.
Thank god its over. We lost almost everyone new. Again. TerribleIdeasTM is also wounded and out of action for ten days.
We finish research on the Leviathan, the ultimate craft, and production starts right away. Not a moment too soon as I'm starting to reach the point where I'd rather fucking hang myself than keep playing this terrible game.
We have the spare funds to fully outfit both bases with PWT defenses so I do that. It'll still be twenty days before the Leviathan completes construction and I'm not sure about launching the final mission right away so the defenses are probably a smart idea in the mean time.
While intercepting a smaller craft the ScubaJace manages to catch up with a Fleet Supply Cruiser and down it.
With the Triton on the way to the site, my latest batch of 20 recruits arrives. I went all out on ordering more of them because at this fucking rate almost all the troops on the Triton are gonna be dead in less than a week.
Newcomers:
@Gezkill,
@Fougaro
Resurrections/Clones:
@Shadfan666xxx000,
@RabidWombat,
@draggs,
@RIPRhongoBongo, @Genichiro,
@ditdatdot,
@McMitch4kf,
@Corn Flakes,
@Precious Bodily Fluids,
@Mooger Meng,
@Peasant,
@Some JERK,
@Friend computer,
@Swiss46,
@Niggermancer,
@JongleJingle,
@Catgirls are Love,
@SailingtheSaltySeas
I suspect this is not the smartest mission to start a bunch of new rookies out on.
I'm gonna make my best attempt to gloss over this mission because its more of the same shit.
The advance up to the USO goes okay. By as
@Honka Honka Burning Love is about to secure the main doors a Lobsterman bursts out and saws him in half.
@StraightShooter2 meets the same fate when I send him in. I pull together a team consisting of myself, Just_Somebody, Thomas Highway and Neo-Holstien to take the main entrance in force. I use some creative positioning of my troops to avoid grenade throws.
Using Just_Somebody to get vision on the interior, I have the Lobstermen slaughter each other.
One of them "accidentally" scores a hit on
@Just_Somebody and kills him. Even when we have the aliens under our complete control they still fucking kill recruits.
Its really quite insane just how long the teamkilling has to go on before we finally run out of Lobstermen.
We finally get the last of them.
We lost a few people but overall this mission ate fewer recruits than I was expecting it to.
At least we have something smaller for the recruits to chew on next.
Watch like ten people die on this one because that would be just my luck.
Nope nevermind.
We knock out this Escort but it sinks in an area that's "too deep" for us to recover it at. Even though we keep diving to the very bottom of the ocean to get to those Artifact Sites and Alien Colonies. Whatever.
I have zero idea why I wasted any time researching this useless device.
An alien Dreadnought appears on another infiltration mission in the Sea of Japan. It evades the slow Triton and we have nothing anywhere near capable of shooting it down so its suffice to say we've lost another country.
Alien Infiltrations don't make a lot of sense in this game. In the first game the aliens were implied to use their psionic powers to subdue the leaders of the country and get them to sign a bunch of humiliating treaties with the aliens. Even though sometimes Mutons and Floaters would conduct Infiltration missions. Whatever. But in this game, the aliens don't have literal psionic powers; they have "molecular control", which in typical grimderp fashion isn't mind control, it instead seizes control over your body while your mind is still aware of it. Apparently. So how the fuck are the aliens able to subtlely take over world leaders this time?
Whatever. Fuck you for thinking about anything, player.
We get some more exposition on the alien backstory, which includes their giant city ship crashing into the planet as the explanation for why the dinosaurs went extinct (naturally).
FUCK
Remember how I kept saying I needed a Lobsterman Navigator for the Transmission Resolver, and then I didn't? Guess what, I wasn't totally wrong, researching the Lobsterman Navigator does have it use. It will unlock the research option for The Ultimate Threat, but the final research option in this chain to research the alien city ship itself is
only unlocked by researching a Lobsterman Commander. Which means by researching the Lobsterman Commander first, I only unlocked The Ultimate Threat, and not the final research option.
Which means I have to fucking invade an Alien Colony all over again to go get another one.
________________________
__________________________
(The House of the Dead 2 - Chapter 2: Muddy)
Let's get this over with.
At this point we know most of the aliens are clustered around the lift to the second part of the level. Two DPL hits obliterate most of them, I can't even make out precisely how many death cries I hear.
A highlight of the battle is the team managing to successfully take over a Tentaculat, which only Pocket Dragoon is capable of doing after someone else is able to whittle it down. The third screenshot shows its custom weapon portrait, made by modders for the OpenXCOM version specifically.
It too much of a liability to keep alive, so we wax it.
We're rocking and rolling straight through the aliens like last time.
One alien tries to return fire on us, to no effect.
We respond in kind, firing blind deep into the base and taking out most of the remaining alien force judging by all the death cries. Whatever's left is disorganized for sure.
I attempt to save Neo-Holstien from being eaten by a Hallucinoid by having Dark Edea torpedo it. This works, from a certain point of view, since
@Neo-Holstien is blown up by the ridiculous explosion radius of the DPL rather than being eaten by a giant jellyfish.
The rookies fan out. This LZ is all but ours, we just have to pick off whatever's left.
@Thomas Highway gets implanted by the Tentaculat that was hiding somewhere or other.
The plan is simple, throw a grenade on to the Tentaculat, then bomb it with a DPL. The DPL will burst open the zombie and the grenade will finish the newly spawned Tentaculat off. Except the recuiters have decided to prank command by hiring a women's baseball team instead of trained soldiers, because
four of my marines are all afflicted with girly throw. Plant Aqua Mammal finally manages to have range on the Tentaculats, but his throw goes nowhere near the intended target.
We bomb it anyway, at least it'll kill the first one.
The last enemy left on the map turns out to be the Tentaculat that burst from Highway's corpse.
Somehow I doubt this is going to go over as easy as it did last time.
This starts off with a bang because our women's baseball team needs to get rid of all of the active grenades in their hands from the end of the first section, because I turned on "Save Pre-Primed Grenades" for some reason.
A Lobsterman rushes me and snips my head off because I'm a shitheel green Ensign with no kills and no reaction score. White Devil has more luck but his target slips away.
The few old timers must split their duties between psionic attacks and stunning the ones we took control of since I can't risk leaving my useless rookies with no reaction fire in this deathtrap.
@White Devil shortly meets the same fate I did.
@Plant Aqua Mammal shortly thereafter.
Running swiftly out of recruits, I switch tactics and start using the mind controlled Lobstermen I can acquire as guards. A room away another Lobsterman nukes the god damn wall and blows a massive hole in the room its in. I hear a Lobsterman die. That had better not be the fucking Commander.
Willy is wounded so I have Dear Leader take a minute to patch him up. We seize control of a Technician that wandered in and I have him ditch his weapon in favor of a Sonic Cannon from one of the fallen marines. Meanwhile the lunatic with the DPL nukes his own room a second time. And then a third. If after all this bullshit the only Commander on the map is fucking dead then I might actually just ragequit this shitfest right here.
LullerDerbyRollin somehow manages to wipe out a Tentaculat, while
@Forever Sunrise gets reaction fire on a Lobsterman but isn't quite as lucky.
This lone Tentaculat, in an infuriating display of tactical genius, manages to take out one of our Lobsterman guards and then impregnate
@Mary the Goldsmith. The Lobsterman it killed was still holding a melee weapon. If it had killed the other one, the melee Lobsterman would have had enough time units to kill the Tentaculat, burst the zombie and kill the spawn but the Tentaculat was somehow smart enough to take it out first.
God damnit I hate this fucking game.
I manage to coordinate Kane Lives and the other remaining guard to kill both Tentaculats. We are really running threadbare on warm bodies at this point though, and can't risk to have any of our psionic team members take up arms because we might need their psionics to seize the Commander if it shows up.
A stun bomb flies out of the nuked room and lands right in the center of the main command squad. Willy, Dark Edea and even the fucking Lobsterman guard go down in one blow.
Dear Leader is on his own now. But didn't the Lobsterman Commander have a stun launcher last time as well?
Fucking finally. Pocket Dragoon seizes control of the enemy Commander and walks him on to cargo pad. Let's get the fuck out of this place.
I panic for a minute because I realize just after I click the OK button that the game isn't recognizing Willy and Dark Edea as being in the retreat zone.
Fortunately the game finally gives me a fucking break for once and does actually recognize them as being present in the mission loot. We lost almost everyone new again.
Research on the Lobsterman Commander starts right away because I've had it with this game and I'm launching the final mission the minute we research it. Command tells the science team to pull out all the stops and hire experts to extract the information as soon as possible. After San Francisco sank beneath the ocean during The Big One of 2023, its status as the degenerate capital of the world was lost. Our new expert anal probers were born and raised in Dallas, Texas.
Next time: The completion of the Leviathan and hopefully the last of the research we need to launch the final mission.
material.
