Recoil - Secret Level - Nude Beach

In the first level of Recoil, there is a secret level called Nude Beach. You can access it by shooting at a pair of pink flashing lights at the bottom of the missile command core. That's the building where the lights from the SAM sites converge. Once you shoot out the two lights, you will get to hear the sound of a door sliding down. Turn around, and go down the basement of the building directly in front of you. You will find a corridor blocked by a rather fragile door. Shoot it down, and you will be on your way to the secret level.

When you arrive at Nude Beach, you will find the place deserted. There is, however, a sign on top of a small hill, which states that the beach is closed. Shoot that sign down, and two naked women appear - one on top of the hill, and the other in the water. So, is that all this area has to offer? 

Hardly!

Get in the water before you leave the area. It holds a secret of its own, in the form of a sizable ammo cache. You will constantly lose armor while you are under water though, so don't take your eyes off that ticking meter. 

Check out a video of the secret level here:

Recoil - Opening Sequence

Recoil, developed by Zipper Interactive, is the first ever PC game I played. I was still in school when I got my hands on this title in 1999. Since then, I have played through this game multiple times, and on all three difficulty settings. 

The paper-thin plot of Recoil can probably be jotted down on the back of a business card. Apparently, the world is ruled by an evil corporation, which uses an enormous biological supercomputer (built by installing electronic circuits inside hundreds of human brains) to spy on everyone at all times. Their plan is to turn every human being on the planet into robots (for whatever reasons). However, resistance forces have designed a highly advanced Battle Force Tank (BFT). As their hero, you are tasked with the responsibility to drive the tank through six different areas, killing adversaries, destroying enemy structures, and finally blasting the supercomputer to oblivion.

Check out the intro sequence of Recoil here:

As for my impression of the game - well, I would say Recoil is a pretty enjoyable shooter. I particularly love the starting point of the game, where the VTOL drops the BFT straight on the pier. Besides, the title also earns major brownie points from me for offering me 18 different ways of laying waste on my adversaries. Yup, that's the number of weapons you can collect in the game, including the rather unique Sonic Burst Cannon, Arc Saber, Laser Saber, Laser Designator, and even tactical nukes! And the fast-paced arcade style gameplay ensures you are never bored. If you haven't played this game yet, I would certainly recommend giving this a try.

Harbinger - Boss Fight - Farade

Farade is the official leader of the Scintilla on board the Harbinger. However, as one of the most significant NPCs in the game puts it, he is more like a figurehead in reality, with little power in his hands. He is the one who locked up Ballastre, as per the Overlord's orders.

Farade does look impressive for a Scintilla. Suited in power armor from shoulder to toe and toting an exceptionally large gunblade, Farade looked all set to rip my hero to shreds, when I first encountered him. He is definitely faster than any other Scintilla (even the armored Scintilla raiders) and was often rushing up to my hero, attempting to engage him in melee.

His power armor seemed to grant him some protection against disruption blasts. However, my gun mods still proved to be too powerful for him. The turning point of the battle was when I sidestepped one of his charge attacks. By the time he recovered, I had enough time to fire a series of 7-8 blasts at him. Once it was over, I suddenly noticed that his extra long health bar had gone down more than one-third. That was the beginning of the end for him!

When you are engaging Farade, be sure to watch your health, especially if he gets up close and starts hacking at your hero with the blade. He misses a lot in melee, but when he does manage to connect, he is capable of causing tremendous damage. Beware of this, and try to sidestep his attacks as much as you can. The rest should not be too difficult. 

Human vs. Farade (Click on pic to enlarge)

Farade can offer moderate challenge to players trying out Harbinger for the first time. However, he is by no means an unbeatable boss. Keep weapon slots filled with disruption mods, and try to install some armor chips to provide protection against melee attacks. That should be enough for you to take him down. 

Harbinger - Boss Fight - Ballastre

Ballastre is a Scintilla prophet, responsible for maintaining an anti-gravity field that keeps Harbinger in orbit. However, ever since he was imprisoned after a fall out with the Overlord, the senile genius has gone more than a little crazy. When you have to fight him, Ballastre has reached the peak of his abilities, and no longer knows how to properly use all that energy.

Problem is - once you destroy him, the ship will enter the atmosphere of the nearest planet (Aegis 9) and get torn apart during the descent towards the planet surface. So, once the prophet is dead, you will have to look for a way to get off the Harbinger, and pronto! Thankfully, you never have to get off the ship on your own. The game takes care of that.

When I faced Ballastre at level 28, he did not seem to be too powerful for my human hero. His entry cinematic was the most impressive I had seen so far, though. Curiously, it looked like the sequence was somewhat inspired by the way Diablo appears in Diablo 2... you know, the lowering of three seals, followed by the ground trembling and the boss appearing out of thin air. Ballastre looks almost exactly like the Scintilla Eyons you face before him, albeit much larger in size.

Ballastre - First Look (Click on pic to enlarge)

However, as far as his powers are concerned - well, let's just say I did not have to use a single health pack in the battle. All I did was to pop a health regeneration injection before engaging the boss. His radial attack was too short in radius to do any damage to my hero, and his energy blasts were slow enough for me to dodge most of those.

My weapon was especially customized for fighting Scintilla (2 disruption mod chips, +4 each).

The Gun That Killed Ballastre

Ballastre took tremendous damage from disruption shots. I expected him to have at least some sort of resistance against the type of damage that Scintillas are vulnerable to. However, the way his health bar was going down, I would say he had little or no resistance against disruption. It was only his extremely long health bar that kept the battle going well over 3 minutes.

Disruption Chips FTW - Take That, Ballastre! 
(Click on pic to enlarge)

Bottom line - in spite of the estimates of his power that can be heard from NPC-s throughout the game, Ballastre should not be considered a threat to any character. Just pack your weapon modification slots full with disruption chips, and avoid engaging him in melee. That should do the trick!

Update: Added a screenshot of the gun I used to fight Ballastre.

Harbinger - Boss Fight - Provost Vantir

Provost Vantir is the first mini boss you face in Harbinger. He is faster on the feet and better armored than any other foe you face up to that point. He is armed with a powerful Provost Gun, which fires red pulses capable of causing considerable damage to you, irrespective of your character class. The gun seems to have faster firing rate than any other gun your foes wield till that point, and can completely counter Culibine's natural regeneration.

Thankfully, the Provost Vantir does not seem to have any additional resistances than what ordinary Vantir troops have. I used plasma ammo and brought him down pretty quickly. The only thing you need to do is dodge the red blasts. Getting hit by a couple of those will not kill you, but take 4-5 in a row, and you will be looking for the Quick Load button. Oh, and don't try to engage him in melee. Even if you are a Gladiator with melee skills close to 40, he will pound you into space dust in no time. 

Human vs. Provost Vantir (Click on pic to enlarge)

Sadly, when I equipped the gun dropped by Provost Vantir (when I was playing as Gladiator), I found that it shoots normal plasma blasts (green, not red). Weird! Oh well, perhaps the Provost had some mod chips installed in it, which were automatically unequipped when he fell! :P

Harbinger - First Impression

Here's a pop quiz - what did Dreamcatcher Interactive do, right before publishing the 2004 hit Painkiller? 

Well, the answer is rather simple - they published Harbinger, of course. So, when I found this title in the bargain bin at a shopping mall a couple years ago, I decided to give it a try. After all, Dreamcatcher wouldn't back a bad game... uh, right? 

Harbinger Game Boxshot

Last week, after pwning Kuril with FemShep in ME2, I decided to give this game a spin, after two whole years! Here's my first impression about the title. 

The first thing I noticed after starting Harbinger for the first time was how eerily it reminded me of Diablo 2. I chose the option for starting a new game, and it presented me with the option of choosing one out of three playable characters, each with a special ability.

Harbinger - Hero Selection Screen (from left - Human, Gladiator, and Culibine)

Here's a quick rundown of the three:

1. Human (Male): Highly agile and the second fastest character, he uses Gears of War style gunblades in combat, and can pack additional punch with a variety of mines. He can use different injections (health regen, melee power booster, etc.) to augment his abilities. He is sort of a mercenary in attitude almost throughout the game, except in the last level (whoops, spoiler!).
2. Culibine (Female): One of the three alien ladies created by Ballastre (a big shot prophet of the Scintilla, a species of energy manipulator aliens), she is the fastest among the three, and self-heals when not taking damage. She can fire moderately powerful energy blasts at enemies, and let out a radial AOE energy blast, severely damaging everyone surrounding her.
3. Gladiator (Male): Well, technically, he is a hulking, armored, badass robot. However, the consciousness of a male Scintilla was somehow infused into its shell. So, I guess the character can be classified as a male. I loved the deep, metallic voice of the character. He is quite slow compared to the others, but packs quite a punch in melee. Besides, the arm-mounted cannon allows him to pummel enemies quite easily, from a distance. He can control different types of mobile turrets rigged with cameras, which provide additional firepower. 

Graphics

The graphics of Harbinger are comparable to those of Diablo 2. However, Harbinger looks sleeker, and shinier. Lighting effects of quite a few levels are impressive, considering this is a Direct 3D title. The hand painted textures in the background are quite nice, too. The view is isometric, and obviously the position of the camera is always locked. 

Sound/Music

Sound effects are quite good, with the gun blasts and explosions sounding pretty impressive. The music is almost forgettable though. Well, except the one that plays during the combat with Ballastre (details coming soon). That track is awesome!

Gameplay

Very easy to get into, Harbinger uses the ever-familiar point-and-click interface. You click the left button and the character moves forward. Left click on an enemy, and the character shoots at it. Tap the right mouse button, and your hero attacks nearest enemy in melee (except Culibine, who uses her radial attack). In order to stay at one place while executing either attack, you simply have to keep Shift pressed before clicking the corresponding mouse button. The special attacks can be used by clicking the corresponding button in the interface. Health packs can be consumed simply by pressing Space, which feels like a blessing during intense combat scenarios.

The level-up system is one of the simplest I have ever seen. Once you gain enough experience to advance a level, a button on the right corner starts flashing. You click on it, and a small menu opens, bearing just 4 stats for each character. I was playing as human, so mine were Melee, Ranged, Rigging (necessary for using high level mines), and Life.

You can upgrade most of your weapons and armors, using special mod chips. These mods add different status effects, different types of damage bonuses.or provide resistances against certain types of attacks.

Here's a short gameplay video of Harbinger, with the human character:

P.S.: Sorry about the abysmal quality. Gregion doesn't support D3D titles, and CamStudio only managed to produce this, with no audio. If anyone knows how to record videos of D3D games properly using some kind of open source software, please let me know in the comments. I'll be grateful.

Update: Added screenshot of character selection screen. Also, uploaded gameplay video of better quality. :)

Mass Effect 2 - Purgatory Showdown - FemShep vs Warden Kuril

On board the prison ship Purgatory, the only law is the word of Warden Kuril. So, when FemShep took on Kuril in the final showdown, I expected a hell of a fight.

Alas, the Warden could not even last 2 minutes against my FemShep. Ah well... not all bosses can put up a tough fight, I guess.

Oh, and yes, the difficulty was still insanity.