Saturday, September 25, 2010

The Gameplay

Written from the player's perspective



I've just gotten done taking a look at the GPS on my phone and I can see that there's a mission marker just up this road. The note in the phone reminds me that I heard about this building from one of the old guys picking through rubbish down by the bridge. It's one of three potential locations Johnny may have stashed a shipment of food that his thugs hijacked. The old man said that if Johnny has the food, he'll just gouge people for it at the market. However, if I can get the food away from Johnny, he said he'd tell me where I could find a bunch of old junked computers, which will make dad happy because with those parts he'll be able to either fix that old adding machine, or maybe that camera.

So I walk up to where the marker was on my phone's map to get a good look around the building. The first thing I notice is the thug by the gate in the fence. I'm careful to give him a wide berth because the last time I got too close to one of those creeps, he cracked me in the head with the butt of his pistol. I move around to the back of the building and unfortunately the fence goes all the way around, and there aren't any gaps I could squeeze through. After I get all the way around to the front, the only interesting thing I've noticed is that there's an open window on the second floor of this place. I can't sneak by the guard, and even if I could, I can see from here that the door's got a big, fat lock on it. Clearly, I'm going to need some help.

I hit B and pull out my cell-phone again. It's worth mentioning that I found a better calling card than the one dad gave me at the start of this whole mess, so now I can call two people to come and help me at once instead of just one.

First I call Lakshmi. Lakshmi's about eighteen, really pretty, and one of the most notorious thieves in the area. She gave me her contact info after I did her a solid by creating a little "distraction" with Johnny's car to get the jerk to leave her alone. Since I got dad to make her a new set of lockpicks out of an old hacksaw blade, she really owes me. Lakshmi could open the lock on that door for me, but not while that guard is there. Fortunately, since she's a pretty girl, she can also chat the guard up and distract him for a minute or two.

Next I call Faris. Faris is old, like -really- old. He made a living out in the country patching roofs with his old ladder and a little elbow grease, but when he got to the city a few months back Johnny started charging him "dues" for his "Neighborhood-Wide Generalized Labor Union," so now most of what he makes goes towards keeping Johnny's "Union Liasons" from breaking his elbows. It would be harder to get Faris to not help me steal things from Johnny. Faris can make himself useful in a number of different ways, but now I'm primarily interested in that ladder he carries around with him.

When I summon my two friends, they'll follow me around until I use one of the shoulder-buttons to switch control over to that character. First I switch control to Lakshmi and walk her over towards the guard. Now he'll club most people who come close to him, but Lakshmi is -hot-, and he's not going to take a swing at her as long as she doesn't do something dumb like go for the door. I walk her over to him and hit the A button to start a conversation with him, making sure that this results in him turning away from the gate in the fence. When I start Lakshmi's conversation with the thug, a little bar with her picture by it pops up in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. Over the course of about 30 seconds that bar shrinks until it's all gone. That represents how long she can keep him distracted before he goes back to guarding the gate like he's supposed to. She used to only be able to keep a guard busy for 20 seconds, but I traded a few of Dad's old batteries to one of the merchants in the bazaar for a little bottle of perfume and gave it to Lakshmi. Now she's able to hold a thug's attention a little longer.

I hit the shoulder button again to switch to Faris and I make for the section of the wall right below that open window. I'm very careful to not walk Faris in front of the guard since he'll see an intruder if they walk in front of him even while Lakshmi is talking to him. Once I get to where I want to set Faris' ladder, I hit A, and he leans it up against the wall.

Finally, I hit the shoulder button one last time and I switch back to Sahir. There should be just enough time left for me to run past the guard, up the ladder, and into the warehouse. I don't know what I'm going to find in here, but odds are there'll be at least something of use.

Now I'm on my own in here unless I can somehow open an unguarded route inside.

Hey, is that a bunch of keys on that desk over there?

No comments:

Post a Comment