The one where I ran away. A long, long way away.
I accidentally ventured into the next region without really knowing it. On an ambush camp mission (or another such type – they are all blending in together these days), through a little pass and…. *Bing* new region – Highway 97. Seems nice over here, nothing to worry about it seems. Then a bear appeared. And then a Screamer. And a cougar and a buncha newts started scrabbling around! Think I’m going to like it here
The mission that I’d ridden all this way for was a rescue mission (it’s all coming back to me now!). Except this one is in a mine. Mines = dark and claustrophobic. And freakers. And not just any freakers. Hordes of freakers. Naturally, I’m pretty apprehensive about venturing into this place.
Turns out that the actual mission wasn’t so bad. Bad guys were ever so spread out and easy to take down one at a time. The problem here was that as I neared my rescueeeee (not sure how many of those are needed here), my spider-sense was tingling. And by spider sense I mean survival vision (makes me sound like a superhero!). And by tingling I mean that the entire floor above me was covered in the yellow outlines of a gathering to freakers.
Knowing that the moment I initiate the rescue, these guys are going to be on the move, I prepared myself. And lo and behold, there they went, screaming and rushing after me. Now, I’ve got no idea where they were coming from or which direction I should have gone in, but I managed to find my way back out of the mine (mines also = convoluted mazes!) and into the blessed fresh air again. Phew! No doubt I’ll be back here again to clean up what I didn’t have the balls to do this time. But I’m still alive so…..
Just to keep things super interesting and on point, your old buddy O’Brien from Uncle NERO had another mission for you in, you guessed it, a cave! Although this one is more convoluted and deeper than the one I’ve just been in. Lots of build up to another new type of freaker. This time the Reacher (ound?). He apparently wiped out an entire NERO crew of researchers all by himself. Turns out he didn’t like the Superior Mace in his face though. Blammo!! Down he went. HA! I’m the best, no one can outdo me! Wait. What’s that sound? Oh, it’s waves, upon waves of freakers coming to get me after I took down their king. Shit! Again, constrained by the location, it involved a lot of running around in circles and when that didn’t work any more I managed to find a sneaky solution involving squeezing through a gap that they couldn’t get through, recharging/reloading then re-entering the arena, taking down a few more, then retreating when I became overwhelmed again. What? Scared? No, not me. Smart!
Fresh from this clever success, I went straight on to attempting the NERO Checkpoint at Chemult College Football stadium Goooooo Chemult Corndogs (or whatever they are called). It seemed to be all so nice and easy, especially after my last visit there (clearing the horde and Napalm testing). I passed one freaker just wandering around on my way in. The sun was shining, life felt pretty good. In hindsight, I should have known then that something was wrong! Just as I was putting fuel into the generator, I heard a noise and turned around to see a pretty massive horde bearing down on me and only a few feet away! Like, outta nowhere they came! And they were quite persistent, as they kept following me as I ran away until I got off campus. Gonna go back there when I can, take things on my terms, but that was a bit of a scare!
Heart rate restored to normal levels I returned to Diamond Lake camp to cash in some bounties and meats (all for the cold hard creds y’all). It’s working pretty well as it’s allowed me to upgrade my bike to the best engine. Nice! Trust levels are getting up to near level 3 for both Diamond Lake and Wizard Island, which is cool. Although there aren’t any new weapons that I’m after in Wizard Island, but the expanded magazines would be great. Speaking of expanded magazines, another few hordes killed gained me a bigger mag for the SMP9, the little sidearm that could. Coming to like this weapon more and more. Decent stopping power with excellent rate of fire. Bike parts on the other hand, are things that I want and need. But they are all from Diamond Lake, the place where it’s hardest to get funds and trust. Ain’t that always the way?
A few more hostage missions/camp clearances came up and went without incident. They are getting a bit samey now: Scope from distance then apply suppressor, take down as many as possible before getting noticed then all out carnage until they’re all gone. My sneaky shooting is getting better still. Sniped headshots are awesome and if you get them in the right order then you really can thin out the crowd quite well.
I followed these up with a snowbound bounty bike chase mission that was exciting (Molotovs being thrown at me whilst chasing) and testing on the old bike handling. That new engine surely came in handy keeping up with this dude. Also a supply mission for Sar.. oops Lt Whittaker to get some poison plants (ssshhh and a plan to get the hell outta dodge before the Colonel tries to kill us all in some biblical hellfire). Then a last little hurrah to get to the NERO site that is on a little island next to the Wizard one. It’s one of those boost-jump ones. Getting there was fine but it took me a little while to figure out how to get back off again! Deacon isn’t the best swimmer…..
Just checked the amount of time I’ve spent playing this game, as the Days Gone count doesn’t really tally with real time. 67 hours so far. Hardly feels like it at all. I feel like I’m getting towards the end of the game, story-wise, but there will still be plenty to do afterwards to rid the world of this freaker menace…..
Film N Stuff 