me.letsPlay(MetroidOtherM).getPart(2);
Alright, so I'm a bit behind in writing these up - didn't write up the one from yesterday, so I've got two updates today. Let's not waste any time then, and get to...
Let's Play: Metroid Other M, Part 2!
When we last left off, Samus was heading to the Exam Center through the Biosphere Test Area to meet up with the red shirt brigade. En route, we had to kill a couple of quadrupedal tree beasts, and we learned that Samus is too good for ladders.
Shortly after starting back up, we get to the Biosphere Test Area - a wide open holodeck area with a building in the background - which turns out to be the Exam Center. Samus automatically runs across the big open area - meaning we don't get to explore. My guess is that there's going to be a boss here, later. Possibly an end sector big boss.
Inside, the red shirts are nowhere to be seen. So we travel deeper into the building. This involves using a couple of morph ball passages to unlock doors, so I have no idea how anyone could get there ahead of Samus - unless they're locking the doors behind them.
Eventually we get to a control room, where James Pierce is already there, messing with a terminal. Suspicious. Three other red shirts arrive shortly after Samus, leaving Lyle as the one who's late - probably in more ways than one. The computer has self-destructed, but Space Cowboy - er, I mean, Maurice thinks he can recover some of the data. Meanwhile Anthony and Samus stare out the window and realize the place looks like the Galactic Federation Training Grounds.
Once we get to move forward, Samus does a lot of sneaking around and slow walking without any actual firing. No enemies in these small passages, so it's a moot point. The other three red shirts also move forward while Maurice does his stuff. Eventually we get to a wide open round room with several doors. That's not suspicious at all. The two doors on the left hold nothing. Out of the middle door, though, falls a corpse - a cybernetically enhanced Zebesian corpse, hereafter known as a Space Pirate Cyborg. It turns out that the enhancements bear the Galactic Federation logo, meaning they're the ones responsible for this mess.
Going back to the control room, Maurice has managed to recover a record. This facility was designed to develop and create bioweapons for the Galactic Federation - something which is strictly illegal. Samus reveals that Adam is against bioweapons on principle - or, for that matter, using living beings for unnecessary purposes. Samus muses that he is probably against the fact that she saved the baby metroid. They also get the name of the person in charge - Dr. Madeline Bergman.
In any case, Samus goes back into the interior of the building, with the red shirt brigade nearby. The group gets to another circular room like the first, but with one important difference - the Space Pirate Cyborgs in this one are alive. Adam orders everyone else out of the room and leaves Samus to deal with them on her own. They aren't too tough with Overdrive moves, but there are a lot of them.
Eventually Samus finishes them off and goes back to the control panel room, only to see the red shirt brigade fighting off a big thing with a sharp pointed tail and long beak-like mouth. Samus runs out to help them, but when she gets outside, the thing is nowhere to be found. The red shirts gesture for her to dodge, but it's too late - the beast leaps from its perch on the side of the building and tackles Samus to the ground. Boss Fight!
Basically, all you have to do is shoot it in the tail with missiles a lot. This is harder than it sounds, though, since he whips his tail back and forth (whips his tail back and forth, he whips his tail back and fo- ... er, sorry) rather quickly, so it's hard to lock on. I beat it at 1 HP with the assist from Anthony on the Plasma Rifle - which apparently takes forever to charge, hence why it took him so long to help out. The thing crashes into a wall and out a door, neither of which could be seen through the illusion of the holodeck previously.
Meanwhile, the others have discovered Lyle's body. (Called it.) Just a pile of rags, they say. Samus notices some green goo on the ground, and follows it back to a broken down support jeep where she finds the corpse of the fuzzy thing from earlier - an empty shell. Apparently, the thing we just fought came from the little fuzzy thing.
|
v
Someone want to explain the geometry of this one to me?
Adam informs Samus that the thing is heading to Sector 3 now, and that she needs to follow it, so we charge down the slightly wrecked hallway, which is glowing vaguely red, meaning that this is probably the fire level. Sure enough, the next room is the Pyrosphere. Probably means that Sector 2 is Ice Land. In any case, we're in a small glass tube over a giant pool of lava. In the background there's a giant lava whale thing, which we'll probably have to kill lat- ... or it could leap up and take a giant bite out of the passage way right now. Looks like I'm not going back to Sector 1 this way without a grapple beam.
... and shortly thereafter, we have to do a gauntlet through the lava filled room - without the Varia Suit. Great, my second favorite thing to do in a Metroid game. Oh, and we're dodging the giant lava whale. I accidentally take a detour through the lava, but manage to get through in one (very high temperature) piece. In the next room, however...
DeathCount++;
The room is filled with Space Pirate Cyborgs and flaming bees, including a flaming beehive that I can't kill with my current weapons. Adam authorizes the use of the Ice Beam in mid-combat - gee, thanks. I mean, your other soldiers are already using freeze weapons. Why couldn't you authorize it sooner?
Item Attained: Ice Beam
Increases Beam damage and occasionally freezes enemies.
AccelCharges++;
I'm going to start keeping track of all the power-ups I get, but I probably won't be mentioning how I get to them. Don't want to bog down the reading too much.
Climb through a few elevator shafts, noting a Super Missile door at the top of one of them. Then another lava room with giant lava monsters in the most inconvenient places.
DeathCount++;
Get through it the second time, mostly ignoring the lava monsters to get through safely. Then I get to the Floor Observation Room where...
DeathCount++
... I die to a giant metal trilobite that comes out of nowhere. Kill it the second time around and grab a power up in the room.
MissileTanks++;
Then we get another mad dash through a super heated section, this time running to the base of a volcano while dodging volcanic fallout. Then we fight off a few more Space Pirate Cyborgs and drain the lava beneath the glass in the floor.
EnergyPart++;
... and then we get to the most frustrating part of this section. Once you drop down (into another super-heated section, mind you), the lava starts to rise up after you. You have to out run the rising lava while dodging enemies, jumping over various smaller streams of lava, and dodging a giant red tentacle that comes out of the lava a couple of times.
DeathCount++;
DeathCount++;
DeathCount++;
... I really didn't like this part. To add insult to injury, as soon as we get to the top, Adam lets us reactivate Varia Suit, meaning Samus no longer takes damage from super-heated sections. Really? You reactivate that after we get through several super-heated areas? Fuck you, Adam. Fuck. You.
Item Attained: Varia Suit
Prevents damage from super-heated areas, and increases armor.
In any case, the owner of the giant red tentacle - a sort of wingless red dragon - pops out of the lava to grab us, meaning it's boss time. Shoot it with the ice beam until it freezes and then shatter the ice with a missile. Then it'll hit the ground with its tentacles, and eventually one will stay on the ground for a bit, glowing. Shoot it with a charged Ice Beam shot to freeze it, then run up the frozen arm to charge shot the thing in the face a couple of times.
After that the lava drains and we climb back down the rocky section down to the bottom that we couldn't get to before. This leads to the main elevator shaft - but Adam tells us not to go back to the Main Sector, and instead continue onwards, so we continue past it.
The next big room has a Super Missile door, a Power Bomb door, and a Grapple Beam point - but we don't have any of these things yet, so we ignore them for now. Eventually we dead-end in a room with a lava pit and Grapple Beam points above it, so we turn around and head back - at which point Adam tells us to head to Sector 2 to look for survivors. Back to the elevator, where we go up and back down to Sector 2.
... and sure enough, Sector 2 is Ice Land, or rather, the Cryosphere. One of the first things we get attacked by are some strange mix of rams, wolves, and weiner dogs. Fortunately, even though this is the ice section, we can still freeze them to the ground and finish them off with a missile.
MissileTanks++;
We pass a couple of ice walls that require the Speed Booster to get through, which ought to be fun. The Speed Booster is usually pretty enjoyable. But we must pass by for now in order to get to the next room - another water room. Joy. They do sure enjoy putting ice and water sections together. This one has a big serpent thing coiled on the ceiling, sleeping. It's not attacking me, but I can't kill it. Instead I have to go underwater to raise the platforms around it.
MissileTanks++;
Soon after, Samus begins to rush across a bridge which crumbles beneath her feet, dropping us to the bottom of the room where we have to fight a combination walrus-moose. After that is a bunch of frozen wasteland sections including some ice that can only be cleared with the help of a Super Missile - but we can get around it.
MissileTanks++;
MissileTanks++;
The next major thing we come across is a corpse of one of those walrus-moose things that shows signs of metroid predation. This is obviously a problem for two reasons: one, metroids can't survive in cold environments like this, and two, metroids were wiped out by Samus herself. Also nearby is a Seeker Missile Door that we can't get through just yet, and a power-up.
MissileTanks++;
Then we get to the Water Tank. Wonderful, more water. Have I mentioned just how much I love water sections without the Gravity Suit? After clearing out some fish, we blow up a hatch to drain the water here and flood the previous room - but the rush of the water drags us with it, so we have to climb back out of the water in that room and come back to a pair of monsters with electric tentacles - it's not the first time we've seen them, but I thought I'd mention them; they're kind of annoying.
MissileTanks++;
Not long after that we get to a long empty hallway with ice blocking the end. After starting to backtrack a bit, Adam authorizes the use of the Speed Booster to get through the ice. Fuck yeah! Time to make like the Kool-Aid Man.
Item Attained: Speed Booster
With a running start, turns Samus into an unstoppable ramming force.
Item Attained: Shine Spark
Allows Samus to store the energy from the Speed Booster, and convert it into a gigantic leap.
ERecoveryTanks++;
Turns out that the ice wall blocking out path was one of the two from earlier, and there was a power-up behind the other. We're still needed in this sector, so we continue back towards the bridge that crumbled earlier. Unfortunately the big serpent thing from earlier is awake and pissed now - but we still can't kill it. Instead we evade it, and get back to the room with the broken bridge - and Shine Spark right across.
EnergyTanks++;
And that's where this part ends. The next part will be up as soon as I finish writing it up. Join me next time, when we continue searching for survivors in Sector 2!
Status:
Energy Tanks: 3
Energy Parts: 2
Energy Recovery Tanks: 1
Accel Charges: 2
Missile Tanks: 18 (28/28)
Power Ups:
Death Count: 6/7
Play Time: 05:20:26
First | Previous | Part 2 | Next | Last
Let's Play: Metroid Other M, Part 2!
When we last left off, Samus was heading to the Exam Center through the Biosphere Test Area to meet up with the red shirt brigade. En route, we had to kill a couple of quadrupedal tree beasts, and we learned that Samus is too good for ladders.
Shortly after starting back up, we get to the Biosphere Test Area - a wide open holodeck area with a building in the background - which turns out to be the Exam Center. Samus automatically runs across the big open area - meaning we don't get to explore. My guess is that there's going to be a boss here, later. Possibly an end sector big boss.
Inside, the red shirts are nowhere to be seen. So we travel deeper into the building. This involves using a couple of morph ball passages to unlock doors, so I have no idea how anyone could get there ahead of Samus - unless they're locking the doors behind them.
Eventually we get to a control room, where James Pierce is already there, messing with a terminal. Suspicious. Three other red shirts arrive shortly after Samus, leaving Lyle as the one who's late - probably in more ways than one. The computer has self-destructed, but Space Cowboy - er, I mean, Maurice thinks he can recover some of the data. Meanwhile Anthony and Samus stare out the window and realize the place looks like the Galactic Federation Training Grounds.
Once we get to move forward, Samus does a lot of sneaking around and slow walking without any actual firing. No enemies in these small passages, so it's a moot point. The other three red shirts also move forward while Maurice does his stuff. Eventually we get to a wide open round room with several doors. That's not suspicious at all. The two doors on the left hold nothing. Out of the middle door, though, falls a corpse - a cybernetically enhanced Zebesian corpse, hereafter known as a Space Pirate Cyborg. It turns out that the enhancements bear the Galactic Federation logo, meaning they're the ones responsible for this mess.
Going back to the control room, Maurice has managed to recover a record. This facility was designed to develop and create bioweapons for the Galactic Federation - something which is strictly illegal. Samus reveals that Adam is against bioweapons on principle - or, for that matter, using living beings for unnecessary purposes. Samus muses that he is probably against the fact that she saved the baby metroid. They also get the name of the person in charge - Dr. Madeline Bergman.
In any case, Samus goes back into the interior of the building, with the red shirt brigade nearby. The group gets to another circular room like the first, but with one important difference - the Space Pirate Cyborgs in this one are alive. Adam orders everyone else out of the room and leaves Samus to deal with them on her own. They aren't too tough with Overdrive moves, but there are a lot of them.
Eventually Samus finishes them off and goes back to the control panel room, only to see the red shirt brigade fighting off a big thing with a sharp pointed tail and long beak-like mouth. Samus runs out to help them, but when she gets outside, the thing is nowhere to be found. The red shirts gesture for her to dodge, but it's too late - the beast leaps from its perch on the side of the building and tackles Samus to the ground. Boss Fight!
Basically, all you have to do is shoot it in the tail with missiles a lot. This is harder than it sounds, though, since he whips his tail back and forth (whips his tail back and forth, he whips his tail back and fo- ... er, sorry) rather quickly, so it's hard to lock on. I beat it at 1 HP with the assist from Anthony on the Plasma Rifle - which apparently takes forever to charge, hence why it took him so long to help out. The thing crashes into a wall and out a door, neither of which could be seen through the illusion of the holodeck previously.
Meanwhile, the others have discovered Lyle's body. (Called it.) Just a pile of rags, they say. Samus notices some green goo on the ground, and follows it back to a broken down support jeep where she finds the corpse of the fuzzy thing from earlier - an empty shell. Apparently, the thing we just fought came from the little fuzzy thing.
|
v
Someone want to explain the geometry of this one to me?
Adam informs Samus that the thing is heading to Sector 3 now, and that she needs to follow it, so we charge down the slightly wrecked hallway, which is glowing vaguely red, meaning that this is probably the fire level. Sure enough, the next room is the Pyrosphere. Probably means that Sector 2 is Ice Land. In any case, we're in a small glass tube over a giant pool of lava. In the background there's a giant lava whale thing, which we'll probably have to kill lat- ... or it could leap up and take a giant bite out of the passage way right now. Looks like I'm not going back to Sector 1 this way without a grapple beam.
... and shortly thereafter, we have to do a gauntlet through the lava filled room - without the Varia Suit. Great, my second favorite thing to do in a Metroid game. Oh, and we're dodging the giant lava whale. I accidentally take a detour through the lava, but manage to get through in one (very high temperature) piece. In the next room, however...
DeathCount++;
The room is filled with Space Pirate Cyborgs and flaming bees, including a flaming beehive that I can't kill with my current weapons. Adam authorizes the use of the Ice Beam in mid-combat - gee, thanks. I mean, your other soldiers are already using freeze weapons. Why couldn't you authorize it sooner?
Item Attained: Ice Beam
Increases Beam damage and occasionally freezes enemies.
AccelCharges++;
I'm going to start keeping track of all the power-ups I get, but I probably won't be mentioning how I get to them. Don't want to bog down the reading too much.
Climb through a few elevator shafts, noting a Super Missile door at the top of one of them. Then another lava room with giant lava monsters in the most inconvenient places.
DeathCount++;
Get through it the second time, mostly ignoring the lava monsters to get through safely. Then I get to the Floor Observation Room where...
DeathCount++
... I die to a giant metal trilobite that comes out of nowhere. Kill it the second time around and grab a power up in the room.
MissileTanks++;
Then we get another mad dash through a super heated section, this time running to the base of a volcano while dodging volcanic fallout. Then we fight off a few more Space Pirate Cyborgs and drain the lava beneath the glass in the floor.
EnergyPart++;
... and then we get to the most frustrating part of this section. Once you drop down (into another super-heated section, mind you), the lava starts to rise up after you. You have to out run the rising lava while dodging enemies, jumping over various smaller streams of lava, and dodging a giant red tentacle that comes out of the lava a couple of times.
DeathCount++;
DeathCount++;
DeathCount++;
... I really didn't like this part. To add insult to injury, as soon as we get to the top, Adam lets us reactivate Varia Suit, meaning Samus no longer takes damage from super-heated sections. Really? You reactivate that after we get through several super-heated areas? Fuck you, Adam. Fuck. You.
Item Attained: Varia Suit
Prevents damage from super-heated areas, and increases armor.
In any case, the owner of the giant red tentacle - a sort of wingless red dragon - pops out of the lava to grab us, meaning it's boss time. Shoot it with the ice beam until it freezes and then shatter the ice with a missile. Then it'll hit the ground with its tentacles, and eventually one will stay on the ground for a bit, glowing. Shoot it with a charged Ice Beam shot to freeze it, then run up the frozen arm to charge shot the thing in the face a couple of times.
After that the lava drains and we climb back down the rocky section down to the bottom that we couldn't get to before. This leads to the main elevator shaft - but Adam tells us not to go back to the Main Sector, and instead continue onwards, so we continue past it.
The next big room has a Super Missile door, a Power Bomb door, and a Grapple Beam point - but we don't have any of these things yet, so we ignore them for now. Eventually we dead-end in a room with a lava pit and Grapple Beam points above it, so we turn around and head back - at which point Adam tells us to head to Sector 2 to look for survivors. Back to the elevator, where we go up and back down to Sector 2.
... and sure enough, Sector 2 is Ice Land, or rather, the Cryosphere. One of the first things we get attacked by are some strange mix of rams, wolves, and weiner dogs. Fortunately, even though this is the ice section, we can still freeze them to the ground and finish them off with a missile.
MissileTanks++;
We pass a couple of ice walls that require the Speed Booster to get through, which ought to be fun. The Speed Booster is usually pretty enjoyable. But we must pass by for now in order to get to the next room - another water room. Joy. They do sure enjoy putting ice and water sections together. This one has a big serpent thing coiled on the ceiling, sleeping. It's not attacking me, but I can't kill it. Instead I have to go underwater to raise the platforms around it.
MissileTanks++;
Soon after, Samus begins to rush across a bridge which crumbles beneath her feet, dropping us to the bottom of the room where we have to fight a combination walrus-moose. After that is a bunch of frozen wasteland sections including some ice that can only be cleared with the help of a Super Missile - but we can get around it.
MissileTanks++;
MissileTanks++;
The next major thing we come across is a corpse of one of those walrus-moose things that shows signs of metroid predation. This is obviously a problem for two reasons: one, metroids can't survive in cold environments like this, and two, metroids were wiped out by Samus herself. Also nearby is a Seeker Missile Door that we can't get through just yet, and a power-up.
MissileTanks++;
Then we get to the Water Tank. Wonderful, more water. Have I mentioned just how much I love water sections without the Gravity Suit? After clearing out some fish, we blow up a hatch to drain the water here and flood the previous room - but the rush of the water drags us with it, so we have to climb back out of the water in that room and come back to a pair of monsters with electric tentacles - it's not the first time we've seen them, but I thought I'd mention them; they're kind of annoying.
MissileTanks++;
Not long after that we get to a long empty hallway with ice blocking the end. After starting to backtrack a bit, Adam authorizes the use of the Speed Booster to get through the ice. Fuck yeah! Time to make like the Kool-Aid Man.
Item Attained: Speed Booster
With a running start, turns Samus into an unstoppable ramming force.
Item Attained: Shine Spark
Allows Samus to store the energy from the Speed Booster, and convert it into a gigantic leap.
ERecoveryTanks++;
Turns out that the ice wall blocking out path was one of the two from earlier, and there was a power-up behind the other. We're still needed in this sector, so we continue back towards the bridge that crumbled earlier. Unfortunately the big serpent thing from earlier is awake and pissed now - but we still can't kill it. Instead we evade it, and get back to the room with the broken bridge - and Shine Spark right across.
EnergyTanks++;
And that's where this part ends. The next part will be up as soon as I finish writing it up. Join me next time, when we continue searching for survivors in Sector 2!
Status:
Energy Tanks: 3
Energy Parts: 2
Energy Recovery Tanks: 1
Accel Charges: 2
Missile Tanks: 18 (28/28)
Power Ups:
- Diffusion Beam
- Ice Beam
- Varia Suit
- Speed Booster
- Shine Spark
Death Count: 6/7
Play Time: 05:20:26
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