After a cinematic opener, you'll find yourself in the middle of an active battlefield. Head forward as the game acquaints you with the control scheme and one of your fellow troops asks if you're alright. You can crouch by the remnants of a wall there for cover, a technique that will serve you well throughout the game's remainder. From there, you'll see a second wall that you can utilize. It's narrower and as you approach, your men will head deeper into the war zone. Follow them and don't bother to search for cover here, since you'll just leave yourself open to gunfire from your left flank.
 Get used to taking cover; you'll be doing so often. |
 Now things are getting more serious. |
When you reach safety, you'll be instructed to continue following as the perspective briefly changes. Now you continue through the building, climbing some stairs to the right and following the soldiers onward where they'll meet with more soldiers. Your new goal is the hotel. You now must make your way through another volatile area, but there's cover here that you can utilize (a rusted out car toward the left).
Keep with your men as they slowly advance through the area, along the path and then up a slope to the left. Along the way, you can check the ground to find a glowing weapon pickup, if you want it. Once you reach the top of the slope, the men will warn that there are wasps incoming. These are airborne enemies that will fire at you from a distance. You can seek cover if you like, then pop up to fire blasts that should have little trouble taking out the nuisance. Now you can press onward, by way of a staircase that descends to the left.
This should allow you to catch up with any of your troops who may have rushed ahead of you. The game chooses this moment to teach you about switching between weapons, which may be a good idea if you spent most or all of your ammo taking down the wasps. Continue forward once you've selected your method of offense, at which point you should reach an explosive cutscene.
 An explosion is imminent. |
 Peters has some bad news for you, unfortunately. |
As a wall becomes blocked by a blast behind you, your comrades yell that you have to "Move, move!" They're not lying. In the chamber ahead of you is your first real opposition, a walking machine that will follow you around any cover you seek, peppering you with bullets that your fragile frame isn't equipped to withstand. Your mostly useless allies will succumb to the same offensive if you linger too long, so the trick is to not wait at all! Just keep running forward and veer slightly to the right where, if you're on track, you'll continue down a hallway and trigger another cutscene without ever even seeing the machine.
The cutscene notes that some more allies have been slain by the machines. Your comrades suggest that you should move quickly before "that thing reboots." Again, this is good advice. Continue forward and you'll soon trigger yet another cutscene. The gist of this one is that you're going to have to take a truck ride to safety. Before you can do that, though, the machine you were hoping to avoid (called an 'HK'
will come cruising into sight. It's huge and the only way past it is to take it down. Fortunately, you've reached a new checkpoint and can make as many attempts as it takes you to do so.
For your first encounter with the Hunter-Killer, the game will coach you on the technique that should lead to victory. You need to use RPGs to overpower your opponent with explosive blasts. These are found lying around the area, conveniently. You just need to look for the green outlines if your supply runs short. Then you can pick them up and be ready to unleash hell once more.
Making the fight more difficult is an assortment of wasps that will descend as you maneuver throughout the area. You need to be ready for these, though your teammates will generally take care of them if you seek shelter long enough. That leaves you free to seek out your primary target.
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As this stage begins, you'll appear at the start of a dreary tunnel. There's a dead end shortly ahead of you, but you can head uphill to the left and to the surface level. There, cross a street as your leader instructs everyone to stick close together. You'll arrive at the shell of another bombed out building. Grab the machine gun that's lying on the ground just ahead of that, then follow the troops forward. Stick close to the other soldiers as you were ordered.
With your comrades, you should pass quickly through another structure before coming to rubble strewn along a narrow corridor. Ahead, wasps will descend from above. Duck behind cover here and use your machine gun to take out any wasps. Don't waste your remaining RPG rounds, which have difficulty hitting the swift targets. Once the wasps are gone, continue forward to a rusty car and crouch behind it with your comrade. It's important that you don't rush ahead here, since doing so will affect how the machines attack you. Instead, duck behind the rusty car for cover and stay there. As you hang back with the bulk of your team, someone will scout ahead to check for hazards. This will draw a roaming turret machine (called a 'spider' in-game) from a recess in the wall to the left. Your new objective is to flank the spider and tend to it before it makes mincemeat out of the team. Roll between cover points to reach the left side of the area, where there's a staircase that you can climb to find an ammo refill. From that vantage point, look down to the area below and you should find yourself behind the turret. The spider is vulnerable from behind, where it doesn't have the protective plating. A direct burst of gunfire or two will put it out of commission. Now a few more of the roaming turrets will enter the vicinity. You may be able to take care of one of them from above, as well as a wasp that arrives on the scene, but you'll likely have to descend and roll around between various cover points to get the drop on the other spider. Just be patient and you should have little trouble clearing the area, which leaves you free to cross another street. There's a wasp in the building ahead of you, so seek shelter when you can and you should see it floating in the air. A few shots from your machine gun should take it down, leaving you free to proceed once more. You'll soon face a second of the wasps, which should go down every bit as easily as his predecessor did. There's a grenade pickup at the center of this area, so grab that weapon if you want it.
Now as you head into the next open space, your arrival will cause a group of spiders and wasps to arrive. What you need to do here is seek out cover to the left. Though there's some shelter to the right, it doesn't really give you a good angle on taking out any of the spiders. Meanwhile, the wasps are buzzing around the area. It's probably best to take care of them first, so that you only have to worry about avoiding fire from the spiders. Once the wasps are gone, you should be able to safely confront the spiders one at a time. Stick close to your team members, since they will follow a decent course through the rubble. Stay along the perimeter when you can and take care of the spiders with careful bursts of fire (remember not to fire on an unsuspecting spider until you're sure you can keep a burst going long enough to take it out of commission). Grenades may work for you, as well, if you're good at tossing them and hitting the intended target. Two or three direct hits will blow apart even the armor-covered spiders. You should soon be able to get rid of the spiders, which will leave you free to run down an alley. Keep moving along and you'll trigger a cutscene. This also marks the stage's first checkpoint, and a welcome one it is! Following the cutscene, it's back to the action.
Your new goal, having reached the evacuation point, is to clear the enemy threat that materialized as everyone was griping and complaining. You'll head out into a more open area with several concrete girders for protection. Here, wasps will come at you in small groups. Take care of them quickly, one group at a time, but stay on your toes; they'll come at you from both ahead and behind. The easiest way to avoid trouble is to look at where your friends are firing. Then get in position nearby and do the same thing. It's pretty easy to take a lot of damage here if you're not reacting quickly to the waves of wasps, so make sure that you bring your 'A' game. When you've blasted the wasps out of the sky, there will be another cutscene. Following that cutscene, you'll find yourself at the base of a staircase. There's some ammo and some grenades in a pile here, so be sure to grab the goodies before you proceed. Climb up the stairs and onto the roof, where you'll find a gun turret positioned along a short wall to the right. It looks out on a plaza where several machines will soon appear. Some of them are wasps, others spiders. Take them out with the turret gun as your comrades provide support fire.
When you hear that your comrades have found shelter, then it's time to worry about doing the same yourself. Abandon the turret gun quickly and turn around, where you should be able to quickly find some shelter as spider machines arrive. Fortunately, there's a break between them. You can take care of one with the grenades you found at the base of the stairs, then clean up any wasps and be free to focus solely on the second spider as it lumbers into view. Take care of it the old-fashioned way, then there will be another cutscene. Following the cutscene, you'll be locked in the middle of another fierce battle. For this one, you have precious little support. Worst, your adversary is a machine known as a Harvester, capable of taking down vehicles and groups of soldiers like it's nothing (as you've seen). To survive the fight, you need to head toward the machine, taking cover from the sparse remains of the bombed out building through which you're progressing. The Harvest will fire powerful white blasts your way every few seconds, so you need to dash for your next destination between those shots. Partway along the alley, you'll need to exit out through a hole in the wall to the right, then continue finding cover from there so that you can keep ahead of your opponent.
You'll no doubt be pleased to find that you're now at the end of the stage. There's just a final dash down a steeply descending path into the entrance of a sewer of some sort and then the Harvester you were worried about can't possibly follow. Chapter complete! |
