1,000 Games (Collectors Edition) - Disc 2/1000GamesDisc2.iso/solution/text/colony.pt2

Text File | 1995-09-21 | 24.5 KB | 469 lines

 Now, let's save some kids.

 Take the elevator to Level 3 and drive back to Eric in Apartment 33. Move
his cryo chamber to the ship (via TP-1 on Level 4) and set him down --
gently -- in that empty cargo room. Feels good, doesn't it? Get another box,
and TP back to Lab A. Pick up TP-3 -- the one you just got out of -- and
put it on Level 4 next to TP-1 (position them so you'll remember which is
which). Stay in the forklift and elevator up to Level 1.

 It should be pretty quiet here now, which, I'd be willing to bet, is a
welcome change about this time. Roll over to that door to the Security
section (see "Level 1") and save the game. Are you relaxed? Feeling fit?
Okay now, listen up. You're gonna go through this door here like I showed
you back on the cruiser, right? There's a short corridor on the other side
that goes straight and then right, like a backwards 7. Then there's another
door. You're in serious danger from the radiation shield until you hit that
second door. Beyond that is another shield, but smaller: just like the one
you practiced with on the ship. So, through the first door and forward,
then right, then forward to the second door; catch your breath after the
bit-mapped door appears; then heave yourself through _that_ door to the
center of the room, ditch the forklift, and hose out any bugs.

 You may not make it the first time. Load your saved game and try again. If
you get a "something's blocking you" message, get away from here for a
while and do some hunting, and then come back. But stay on this level (see
the stuff about the queens in "Level 5: The 3x3s" below). When you do get
in, check the computer: It'll tell you that the creatures get weaker the
farther they stray from the Prime Queen. The corollary, then, would be that
the closer you get to the Prime Queen, the more...the SOBs are....

 Think about it.

 On the north wall of Security, there are five holding cells. Asher
Alexander is in the one on the far right. Get into the forklift, pick him
up, and save. Then take him back to the ship.

 LEVEL 4: TAMMY AND JES

 You've just left Asher sleeping peacefully next to his buddy. Now, teleport
yourself, with the lift, back to Level 4 and head for Lab 1. Remember that
note of Radmer's about how one of his daughters was in Lab 5? Well, he was
wrong. Remember those diary entries about how the aliens can warp space?
Well, they were abso-foggin'-lutely right on.

 Remember, you're on Level 4 now. And there's some serious sheet goin' down.

 We'll never know what Lab 1 looked like before the infestation, but now
it's a series of eleven consecutive corridors, each with a radiation shield
in the middle. You've got to take the forklift, but in any of these
corridors you may encounter aliens, in which case you've got to ditch the
lift away from the radiation zone, snuff the bug(s), then get back in the
lift and carry on. Make sure you scour the place thoroughly on the way _in_
; if you're forced into combat on the way out, with a cryo chamber in tow,
it's well-nigh impossible.

 Save before you begin.

 Once you've got Tammy safely on board, it's time to go after Jes Lee. The
computer in his father's office said he was in the mazerium. There's just
one problem: You're out of boxes, and boxes are your passport to the TPs.
You know what this means, don't you? That's right, you're back on the
street again. Observing all the precautions outlined earlier, exit through
the airlock with the forklift and drive -- quickly -- to the colony for
that box you left in the reception room. Bring it back -- overland; do _not_
use the TPs -- and drop it off near the airlock console. Drive to the
colony again and bring back another box. Drive to the colony one more time
-- the last, you'll be thrilled to hear -- and elevator down to Level 4.
It's mazerium time.

 (The reason you can't use the teleporters for your return trips will become
obvious, if it isn't already, once you consider the fact that there's no
way to operate the doors to either the cruiser or the colony once you're
outside.)

 In the lobby on Level 4, hug the west wall and move south. Turn right and
go through the door with the arrow. As soon as you cross the threshold,
turn around. The door's gone. I hope you know what you're doing.

 Move south and take the first left. _Save_. The door in front of you leads
to the monolith room, which isn't a cocktail lounge at the MGM Grand but
something far more insidious (if that's possible). Go inside, and you're in
a sitting room. Move around. Notice the entrance has disappeared. Make sure
the polygon fill is on and go into the next room. Approach the monolith.
Nice, huh? Not a bad way to go, as going goes. But while you're here
wallowing in the bliss of eternity, there's a bunch of kids out there whose
fate is in your hands.

 Not to mention the eventual contamination of the entire universe.

 So, load your saved game and continue south; then east; then north, dogleg,
north as far as you can (ignore the right turn). Turn left when you have to,
and left again at the T; then follow the corridor until you reach Jes.
Approach him and check his ID. His cryo chamber is number 6. The three on
the ship were numbered 1, 2, and 3.

 How many kids are there? How will you know when you've got them all?

 Pick Jes up and head back. When you come to the T again -- the way you came
was from the right -- go straight. Follow your nose until you come to a
threshold. Move through it, then immediately hang a U and come back out.
You'll find yourself near the entrance of Lab 2.

 Yes, the aliens can warp space. But sometimes you can work it in your favor.

 Find the teleporters and take the little guy back to the ship.

 (Note: There's one other entrance to the mazerium -- it's through the door
between the first two columns in the lobby -- and _many_ other parts to it:
more monolith rooms, endless corridors, space warp stuff. Explore if you
must. But you got what you came for. The rest only leads to death and
frustration. Not necessarily in that order.)

 LEVEL 5: SEARCH AND DESTROY

 Teleport back to the colony and haul TP-1 down to Level 5. For now, leave
both teleporter and forklift in the lobby and take some time to explore
what you haven't seen of this level. You're looking to do two things here.
First, you want to pump your power levels up as much as possible in
preparation for the Final Battle (twenty-one bars each for weapons, life
force, and armor is as high as I ever got, but eighteen or more can be
enough to do the job). And second, you're looking for a queen.

 From the pictures in that first batch of slides, you should be able to
distinguish the queens from the drones and soldiers. Remember that theory
about how the death of a queen is supposed to reduce all the aliens on her
floor to eggs? Well, it's true. And you've probably even seen it in action,
though you may not have connected the cause with the effect. If Level 1 was
real quiet when you went back for Asher, it's because at some point you
liquidated the queen there. Anyway, the death of a queen on the upper
levels is a convenience; on Level 5 it's almost a necessity. When you find
the room where Teri is hidden, you won't even be able to get in, the place
is so infested.

 Unless all those hovering freaks have been turned into eggs.

 All right. Follow the trail you blazed earlier (in "Level 4: The
Teleporters") south and west to the first two storage rooms, then north and
east to Rooms 3, 4, and 5. Recheck them for eggs, and be sure to eliminate
anything with wings.

 As you continue east, you'll hit Rooms 6 and 7. Ignore for now the corridor
south of Room 7 and continue east. Room 8 is a small dormitory, and 9 a
conference area. Beyond them is a bathroom (next service, forty million
light-years), and the last of the stairwells.

 Check _everything_ for the fifth-level queen.

 Double back, take that corridor off number 7, and move south. Try the first
door on your left. Those things that look like pits? They're pits. They're
bad death. The area beyond them looks enticing, but it's unknowable; you'll
never know it, forget about it (if you don't believe me, read the
"Afterword" at the end of this walkthru). Return to the corridor and
continue south. The first right takes you back to the elevators, but don't
go there yet. Weave around the pillars in front of you and waste bugs. Move
south as far as you can and go through the door you find there. More
pillars. (The reference in the next section to the room with the fat
columns is to this room.) This is Search and Destroy time. When you've gone
all the way south again, hit the doorway in the east wall. Scour this new
area, going up and down the aisles. Follow the corridor in the northeast
corner and you'll end up...in that bathroom off Room 9.

 Only _you_ know whether you got the queen or not. If not, you may want to
prolong the S&D for a while. When you're ready to give the 3x3 rooms a shot,
read on.

 LEVEL 5: THE 3X3 ROOMS

 Go back to the elevators and get the forklift. Pick up TP-1. There are two
entrances to the 3x3 rooms. The first is on the west wall of David Smith's
office (the door you avoided before), and the second is just west of Room 2
on the south wall (the other door you avoided). Think of the 3x3 rooms as a
checkerboard of twenty-five squares that sort of curves in on itself. Each
square is a room, and each room has a doorway in the center of each of its
four walls. If you start in the room in the upper left-hand corner and move
"east," you'll pass through five different rooms, and then hit the first
room again (and you can keep traveling "east" this way for all eternity:
hence the quotation marks). Move horizontally or vertically, through any of
the ranks or files, and the same phenomenon occurs, _except_ in the lowest
("southernmost") rank: When you move east here, you eventually come out in
the room with the fat columns mentioned earlier.

 (Note: This is, in fact, the only way to physically -- or metaphysically --
leave the 3x3 rooms, because as soon as you've entered them, if you turn
and try to exit, you'll find yourself, not back in the corridor or office
you started from, but in the room at the other "end" of that file: The
curving has already occurred.)

 But to exit via the room with the fat columns is as good as admitting
defeat, at least temporarily, because you're going into the 3x3s for Teri,
and you won't be able to get her out that way.

 Because as soon as you find the room that Teri's in, all the doors will
disappear.

 Got that teleporter handy?

 Work your way past Room 2 and position yourself in front of the door on the
south wall. Save the game. When you step through here, you'll be in the
"northernmost," "westernmost" 3x3 room. Teri could be in any of them. Move
"south." It is imperative that you keep an accurate count of the rooms as
you pass through them! When you get to the fifth room, turn left ("east"),
go through the door, and turn left again to head "north," starting your
count again at 1. When you get to the _new_ fifth room, turn right, go
through the door, right again, and count 1. You're now at the beginning of
the third file, with two more to go. Think of that checkerboard, but keep
it flat or your head's gonna start hurting again.

 If the Level 5 queen is still alive, you'll also have to contend with
periodically unloading your baggage to deal with the aliens in your path.

 Continue until you've covered all twenty-five rooms. But you won't, because
one of two things will happen first.

 One: There'll be a room that you're consistently unable to enter, no matter
how many times you approach it and how many directions you approach it from.
The room is so clotted with bugs there's no room for you (let alone you,
the TP, and the forklift). This means the queen is still alive, and you
need to exit the 3x3s (see above) and deal with her. (Note: If you get
hopelessly lost, follow each rank "east" for six to ten rooms until you hit
the one that allows you to exit.)

 Two: You'll pop through a door and see Teri's cryo. That's the ticket.
Proceed.

 Ditch your paraphernalia and approach the chamber to confirm it's Ms.
Radmer. Nail any bees loitering about, and help yourself to some eggs.
Notice there isn't any way out? Doesn't bother you though, does it? Get
Teri and hop into the teleporter, you sly dog.

 LEVEL 5: THE LOWER DEPTHS

 Place Teri in the cargo hold and then teleport back to the colony with that
last box. Drop down to Level 5. Go east, then south, then east again the
first chance you get. These are the pillars you weaved around in the
"Search and Destroy" section. In front of you there's a door. The door to
the reactor.

 Leave the forklift out front for now, and go inside. The pits are in four
groups of three, surrounding a central staircase. Walk the perimeter,
gathering eggs and getting used to maneuvering near the holes. Step between
the pits and walk around the stairwell. Then get the forklift and drive it
straight down the stairs. It's a bumpy ride, but you'll survive.

 Wait! You know the forklift can't be driven back _up_ the stairs, don't
you?! Whaddaya mean you can't hear me?! I said...

 ...oh, never mind.

 The second level of the reactor complex -- we'll call it 5.1 -- is three
times the size of the first. Leave the forklift near the base of the stairs
and work your way east. There's a veritable plethora of creatures. Try to
move in a straight line, although the central columns in the second and
third areas will force you to detour occasionally. In the middle of the
second area, flip on the polygon fill and you'll see the top of the reactor
(it looks like the one on your ship); and in the middle of the third area
there's another set of stairs. Patrol the perimeter of these areas, working
your way back west and gathering as much energy as possible. Get into the
forklift and take it as far west as possible. And head south.

 Follow the long corridor south and east. Since there isn't much action here,
get out of the lift and gather eggs. Then, still on foot, continue east
through the first threshold. Go straight at the crossroads and through the
second threshold, clearing the area as you advance. Turn north at the
second crossroads, through another threshold, and west at the third cross.
One more threshold and you'll see a welcome sight at the end of the
corridor.

 When there's heavy infestation, it's very difficult to maneuver in these
narrow hallways. By torching the area first, you've avoided a lot of stop-
and-start, load-and-unload headaches.

 Go back and get the lift and carry Rachel to the second crossroads (the one
where you turned north). Use the south and west arms of the cross to store
the cryo chamber and the forklift, and then head east and north, clearing
the halls all the way to the tunnel entrance. Go back and get Rachel and
take her on through. You'll find yourself back in Security Lab A (thank God
for that tunnel). You might want to lay your burden down a minute and grab
a snack (what, more eggs?). Then hit the tunnel again and it'll take you to
Lab 2. Go to the lobby and escort your precious cargo to the ship.

 LEVEL 5: THE PRIME QUEEN

 As you stare at the six cryo chambers in your cargo bay, you can't help
feeling warm inside. At least these poor kids aren't over there with
those...things crawling all over them.

 But then the gloom comes down again. How many more children are there? How
do you find them? And what happens to them if you don't?

 Hell, what good's it doing them anyway? The aliens are multiplying so fast
it would take an army to wipe them out. And without a new source of energy,
this ship's about as airworthy as a Ford Pinto.

 You've been stumbling around in a nightmare. For...how long? You know you
haven't slept for days, and your head's about to file for a Mexican divorce.
If you only had some of those pills Doctor Weisman used to give you. Oh,
what you wouldn't give right now for one of his prescriptions for....

 Wait a minute. Prescriptions. Doctor Lee's office. What did that thing say?
Something about...sleeping pills. Half units. Six half-units of sleeping
pills, that was it! A rush of energy. Six! Six kids! You've got 'em! You
got 'em all!

 You've got a chance.

 Steer the forklift into the ship's reactor room and approach the core. When
the core is removed the ship is dead: no doors, no lights -- nothing. But
you've got the kids. And the teleporters are in place.
Let's do it.

 Remove the core. Then, in the darkness, find your way to TP-2. After you've
teleported, toss the core aside (luckily it's one of those Scapem Safe-T-
Cores that disintegrates the minute it's exposed to air). Pick up TP-3 and
take it down to Level 5. Go straight to the reactor complex and shoot down
the stairs. On 5.1, work your way east to the second stairwell. Avoid the
bugs if you can; otherwise, unload and shoot it out. When you reach the
stairs, take 'er down. Save.

 You're on 5.2 now. Work your way west, steering clear of the pits. (You can
"jump" across the smaller ones, but move fast and be careful.) There are
three sections again, but they're not as large as up above.

 Monitor your power levels. If you fall to half on anything, get out of the
lift and hunt.

 At the beginning of the third section is a pit you _have_ to jump across.
Build your momentum in the corridor. Beyond it you'll find the last
remaining stairwell. The mouth faces west. Turn into it and jam down. Save.


 Level 5.3. You're in a tiny, cross-shaped room, and it smells like a bad
dream. Put the TP and the lift as close to the wall as possible and kick
some major bug behind. The Prime Queen could be in the next room, or she
could be here. Don't mess with her: She cannot be killed (if you don't
believe me, read the "Afterword"). Work on the Eye Spies, the Pyramids, and
the rest of those freaks. But don't fire at them if they're standing over
eggs: You'll waste precious ammunition. Wait until they move away.

 What you're aiming to do here is get to the next (east) room with both the
forklift and the TP. The corridor connecting the two areas is one solid
radiation shield, so don't even think about it if there's anything there,
you'll die. Bide your time, and stay away from the Queen. When you finally
crack the east room, save. You'll see the reactor core and console. Drop
the TP, get out of the lift, and clear a path. Grab some eggs if you're
getting weak. Approach the console and feed it the access code from
Radmer's decoder. Make sure you're entering the right numbers. Get back in
the lift while the core's descending and then fight your way over to it.
Once you have the core, there's no turning back: You can't set it down or
it'll disintegrate. Ready? All right, bag the core. You lose the lights and
the Queen goes berserk. Hit the teleporter and slam the door behind you.
God love ya, you're back on....

 It's dark. You stumble around a few seconds, completely disoriented. But
then you recognize the corridor. Yes, _yes_...it's the ship! Install the
new core, claw your way out of the forklift, and close the reactor with the
code from your desk. Now stagger upstairs and approach the control console.
Check the readout and the power indicator: excellent. Slam that throttle
lever up and kiss 5-Delta-5 goodbye.

 You're headed for Cygnus 7 to revive the kids.

 EPILOGUE: PSAMDD

 But she's still down there, isn't she?

 Breeding.

 And over and over, a phrase repeating in your head, like a nursery rhyme.
"The eventual contamination of the entire universe; the eventual
contamination of the entire uni...."

 Grab that briefing manual. Where's the list of equipment for this crate?!
Here. "Meta-Plastoid Hull." No. "Linear Output Enclosed Reactor." No, damn
it! "150*i Giga HP...."

 You stop. And smile. There it is, four lines down.

 Like a love song.

 "Planet Smasher Anti-Matter Detonation Device."

 Approach the console again.

 Hit that right button.

 Now get some sleep.

 AFTERWORD

 Okay, I lied about two little things. On Level 5, you _can_ get across the
pits in that room just north of the reactor room. And the Prime Queen _can_
be killed.

 There isn't much to be gained by making it across those pits, but you can
have fun trying. Go into the room and put your back against the west wall,
standing just north of the door. Position yourself so you're looking
straight down that line that runs between the left two pits and the right
two; I'm talking _absolutely_ straight down. Save. Now race across. (Space
marshalls with some tightrope-walking experience have a decided advantage
here.) Those cool doors you couldn't wait to explore are one-way jobs that
lead to the corridor (on the north side) and the reactor room (on the
south). Either location can be accessed a lot more easily simply by walking
there.

 As for the Prime Queen, the fact that she can be done in is academic,
really, because: 1) You have to be very powered-up (and somewhat lucky) in
order to pull it off; 2) you don't _need_ to kill her (just avoid her until
you've grabbed the reactor core and teleported back to the ship); and 3)
you still have to blow up the planet, whether she's dead or not. In other
words, there are no Brownie points for x'ing the P.Q.

 But...suspecting there may be one or two vindictive types like myself out
there who are just _up to here_ with Her Highness, I pass along the
following:

 I got into this because, after completing the game the first time, I
started wondering if it were possible to achieve full, maxxed-out power
levels on the spacesuit; and if so, how it would affect the encounter with
the Prime Queen. So, with all the kids safely on board ship, and TP-3 and
the forklift ready to go in the Level 5 lobby, I wandered around the colony
-- wandered around longer than a grown man should be willing to admit, I
might add -- gathering eggs and bumping up my little power bars. I spent
most of my time where the action was: on Levels 5.1, 5.2, and 5.3, and in
the Security Lab. As mentioned earlier, I got up to twenty-one bars each
for weapons, armor, and life force, but it was mighty slow going, and I
finally got bored and headed for the reactor. I was standing in the
southwest corner of the core room (the _lower_ corner), picking off Eye
Spies, when I noticed the Prime Queen next to me with her head in the _
upper_ southwest corner of the room and her behind sticking in my face. In
other words, she couldn't see to zap me, but I had a clear shot at her and
her big bee-hind.

 I started blasting for all I was worth, and a curious thing happened. We
stood/hovered there together in a kind of timeless space where I just kept
plugging away and she didn't -- or couldn't -- move; but my weapons level
didn't drop like it always had when I'd tried to off her before. This went
on for some time, until I started thinking part of the game was locked up
or something and I wasn't accomplishing anything, so I moved over to the
center of the room and turned and faced her. She immediately whipped around
and charged, and I started slamming her again, using both the mouse button _
and_ the space bar to get some rapid fire going. She froze and just sort of
hung there, staring at me like she was dazed (maybe she'd lost the will to
live). After about a minute of this, all of a sudden there was that
familiar screeching sound like a cat stuck in a Cuisinart, and she
vaporized. And true to form, all the other creatures on that level -- and
on Levels 5.1, 5.2, and in the Security Lab -- instantly egg-ified. I
finally had the colony to myself!

 (In the course of a third game, I went back to 5.3 with my power levels at
eighteen and managed to vanquish the Queen in a head-on battle: no hiding
behind corners. But it was pretty hairy.)

 Now one can argue, I suppose, that having wiped the P.Q., you could go
around scooping up every egg in the place and thus make 5-Delta-5 a swell
place to raise the kids again. But I don't think it's really possible.
There always seems to be an egg or two left floating in the center of one
of those corner pits, and there just ain't no way you can get to them. And
even if you could, what about Level 2? Did you really check all the stalls
in the bathrooms? What about those endless corridors on 5.1? What about the
mazerium? You get the point. As long as there's even _one_ egg on 5-D-5,
the possibility of recontamination continues to exist. You still gotta take
the reactor back to the ship, get airborne, and nuke the joint.

 But we're glad she is dead, aren't we?

 THE COLONY is published and distributed by Mindscape.