Freeway Warrior Book 2: Slaughter Mountain Run
Back to the Apocalypse! It's another long writeup I'm afraid because these books pack in a lot. Split into 2 parts, because of length, and work.
With two down I've got the hang of these books now. The combat can be quite swingy, but generally isn't a huge threat: what is is the barrage of skill checks you encounter as you play through. Often failing one will deal you a chunk of damage, but sometimes they can be outright deaths. There's also a lot of randomised rolls that can do the same, and on these, rolling low isn't always a bad thing. This is a composite playthrough though, because I still died a couple of times going through it.
If you've finished the previous book you get extra skill points at the start. Stealth is by FAR the most important and most tested skill. In the last game I quickly learned to keep my stealth at 5, here I boosted it to 6 meaning I could pick up more items, take a stealth penalty, and still have stealth 5. FWIW I went into this with Stealth 6, Driving 5 and Shooting, Perception and Field Craft 4. For my starting items I chose the pistol, binoculars (very useful in book 1), a flare (as I needed to make a rendezvous) and 2 meals.
The last book ended with me (Cal Phoenix) successfully escorting the colony to Big Spring but ended on a cliffhanger as the Mavericks abducted my ally / love interest Kate. This book begins by confirming that the leaders of the Mavericks and the Detroit Lions, Amex Gold and Mad Dog Michigan, were old terrorist buddies and the two gangs have joined forces to attack Big Spring. The attack has been successfully repulsed between books with the gangs taking heavy losses, but Amex Gold has given Kate back to Mad Dog as a show of loyalty. Mad Dog has reached out to bring two more clans into the alliance, the New Orleans Saints and the Angelinos. With such overwhelming force the leaders at Big Spring decide the only hope is to break out and convoy over to Tucson.
I was a bit disappointed to see this setting up the same plot as last game, but thankfully I immediately state my intention to withdraw as scout for the colony and pass responsibilities over to Rickenbacker (the pilot guy) whilst I head off to San Angelo to find Kate. First though we have to break out and this is where the book begins. With the Lions off at San Angelo we armour up a bunch of trucks and blast out, ramming through the Mavericks barricades and scattering their men. I dodge through some hazards and once we're clear split off from the convoy, agreeing to rendezvous at Kent on Interstate 20 in seven days.
I follow the Highways for a while: on Highway 158 the book notes I'm able to increase speed to 30mph! It's baking hot and I pull over into a ramshackle ruin for shade and rifle through an abandoned hardware store: in the heat this saps my endurance, but I pick up a couple of odds and ends: a toolkit and some plastic tubing. Pushing on past several Texas landmarks, I ambush and brutally kill two Clansman, lootting them for extra water and ammo and medical supplies and also taking some rope and a leather face mask. At Sterling City all I find is feral cats but approaching Broome I'm forced to duck into a used car lot to avoid a large group of Lions bikers. Here I also scavenge some engine oil.
Reaching San Angelo after a full day's drive, only the city centre is still standing and heavily reinforced with roadblocks and barricades, firmly under the control of the Angelinos clan who, I note, are heavily tooled up but a lot of their equipment seems rusted and in poor repair. I steer the car quietly through the ruined suburbs, eventually parking it in the Sears Megamart underground garage and getting a quick two hours sleep before attempting to infiltrate the city on foot at first light when the heat is more bearable. My plan is to break in through an office block on the perimeter wall.
I'm able to gain entrance by busting through some warped timber barricade and get into the lobby of Lone Star Oil & Gas. As is my habit I keep left, eventually going downstairs into what would have been the office restaurant and kitchens. There's an Angelino in the kitchen: I foolishly give him a chance to surrender and after he shoots me up a bit I put him down and loot him for bullets, med supplies and a blanket as well as looting food from the kitchen and a cleaver, which is a better weapon than my knife. From there it's into San Angelo itself. The bulk of the clansman are congregated at the Reagan Memorial Stadium where it seems some kind of motorcycle rally / race will be happening whilst Mad Dog signs a pact with a guy called Mekong Mike, the Angelino leader. For some reason I'm convinced Kate will also be there (I'm right, but not sure how I arrived at that) so I resolve to break into the stadium , which is full of hostile lunatics. Given the choice of stowing in one of the service trucks containing bike parts of getting in over the wall I choose the latter as the first seems suicidal. My strong stealth score sees me through: inside the race is being prepped (there's some Ben Hur comparisons) but my eyes are for the media box, where I spot four clansman and none other than Kate herself!
With all eyes on the track, I gain entrance to the observation tower. There are guards from each of the two clan factions, but I sling my flare into the corridor and move in to silence them quickly (and no doubt messily) with my cleaver before busting into the media room, flattening one enemy immediately and gunning down a second. I now face the two clan leaders: Mekong Mike is described as mustachioed and brightly dressed with a steer skull tattooed on his forehead, whilst Mad Dog wears black and has receding long hair going to grey. I'm quickly into a knife fight with the former: he's as skilled as me, and although my cleaver gives me the advantage I drop him in six rounds (its a timed fight) but am left on just 5 health. Mad Dog has meanwhile been on the radio alerting the gang: he has a gun trained on me, but before he can fire Kate wallops him with a chair and down he goes.
At this point, insanely, I am not given the choice to finish off Mad Dog Michigan. Given he has a blood debt against me, and has kidnapped Kate twice and done goodness knows what, and is a former member of HAVOC and leader of a huge gang intent on taking over the Southern United States, it seems remiss to leave him unconscious in a pile of chair splinters. So of course I totally do that and instead satisfy myself with stealing his special map (and using a load of medkits) before we do a runner. There's a full hue and cry in effect as we descend into the body of the stadium itself and Kate is smart enough to spot a service hatch to take us into an electrical duct and from there into some kind of service tunnel beneath the stadium. I don't have a torch or indeed any source of light having not learned my lesson from last time so we blunder around here for a bit (one of my deaths occurred here when I opened a hatch right into a massive group of vengeful Angelinos), eventually using the cables to feel our way along in the darkness before light from glass bricks set into the ceiling brings us to a hatch at the stadium entrance. It takes us an hour to reach the perimeter wall, but our way is blocked by four clansman who arrive in a jeep. I don't fancy making a run for it so I wait till they're spread out and we try to steal their jeep: there's no keys but I nab some antiseptic dressings and after deliberating, a shotgun and two shells before we make a dash for a fire station. We're spotted and under fire: I take a chance to grab a fire extinguisher (not having one cost me last game) and switch my cleaver for a fire axe which has the same stats but is a lot cooler. It's a full in chase into Sears - a clansman grabs Kate, crushing her throat but a blast from my pistol sends him descriptively flying like a leaf in the wind - and back to the car where we can high-tail it out of San Angelo with both gangs on our tail. Oh, and Mad Dog has taken over the Angelinos now, smart move leaving him alive. It's not like I haven't killed dozens of other bad guys...
End of part 1.
As you can tell I'm still enjoying this a lot. Same issues as before - fiddly inventory / encumbrance management and random numbers often causing mishap - and I only had one fight in this first part (The Angelino boss) with all the others being quick kills with my gun or knife. The writing is still evocative and full of detail though, the use of real places & a map based off real Texas gives a real sense of travel, and the heat is used to good effect - I really don't want to be out in the middle of the day! Now we're linked up again, Kate is resourceful and cool unlike the Mungos of the FF world who either drag you down or die instantly (although the sparse dialogue between you and her is pretty weak - but we're not reading this for good dialogue really) and there's a feeling of a real world existing beyond just the things you immediately encounter yourself. And the bad guys names are excellent.
Part 2 to follow!
Back to the Apocalypse! It's another long writeup I'm afraid because these books pack in a lot. Split into 2 parts, because of length, and work.
With two down I've got the hang of these books now. The combat can be quite swingy, but generally isn't a huge threat: what is is the barrage of skill checks you encounter as you play through. Often failing one will deal you a chunk of damage, but sometimes they can be outright deaths. There's also a lot of randomised rolls that can do the same, and on these, rolling low isn't always a bad thing. This is a composite playthrough though, because I still died a couple of times going through it.
If you've finished the previous book you get extra skill points at the start. Stealth is by FAR the most important and most tested skill. In the last game I quickly learned to keep my stealth at 5, here I boosted it to 6 meaning I could pick up more items, take a stealth penalty, and still have stealth 5. FWIW I went into this with Stealth 6, Driving 5 and Shooting, Perception and Field Craft 4. For my starting items I chose the pistol, binoculars (very useful in book 1), a flare (as I needed to make a rendezvous) and 2 meals.
The last book ended with me (Cal Phoenix) successfully escorting the colony to Big Spring but ended on a cliffhanger as the Mavericks abducted my ally / love interest Kate. This book begins by confirming that the leaders of the Mavericks and the Detroit Lions, Amex Gold and Mad Dog Michigan, were old terrorist buddies and the two gangs have joined forces to attack Big Spring. The attack has been successfully repulsed between books with the gangs taking heavy losses, but Amex Gold has given Kate back to Mad Dog as a show of loyalty. Mad Dog has reached out to bring two more clans into the alliance, the New Orleans Saints and the Angelinos. With such overwhelming force the leaders at Big Spring decide the only hope is to break out and convoy over to Tucson.
I was a bit disappointed to see this setting up the same plot as last game, but thankfully I immediately state my intention to withdraw as scout for the colony and pass responsibilities over to Rickenbacker (the pilot guy) whilst I head off to San Angelo to find Kate. First though we have to break out and this is where the book begins. With the Lions off at San Angelo we armour up a bunch of trucks and blast out, ramming through the Mavericks barricades and scattering their men. I dodge through some hazards and once we're clear split off from the convoy, agreeing to rendezvous at Kent on Interstate 20 in seven days.
I follow the Highways for a while: on Highway 158 the book notes I'm able to increase speed to 30mph! It's baking hot and I pull over into a ramshackle ruin for shade and rifle through an abandoned hardware store: in the heat this saps my endurance, but I pick up a couple of odds and ends: a toolkit and some plastic tubing. Pushing on past several Texas landmarks, I ambush and brutally kill two Clansman, lootting them for extra water and ammo and medical supplies and also taking some rope and a leather face mask. At Sterling City all I find is feral cats but approaching Broome I'm forced to duck into a used car lot to avoid a large group of Lions bikers. Here I also scavenge some engine oil.
Reaching San Angelo after a full day's drive, only the city centre is still standing and heavily reinforced with roadblocks and barricades, firmly under the control of the Angelinos clan who, I note, are heavily tooled up but a lot of their equipment seems rusted and in poor repair. I steer the car quietly through the ruined suburbs, eventually parking it in the Sears Megamart underground garage and getting a quick two hours sleep before attempting to infiltrate the city on foot at first light when the heat is more bearable. My plan is to break in through an office block on the perimeter wall.
I'm able to gain entrance by busting through some warped timber barricade and get into the lobby of Lone Star Oil & Gas. As is my habit I keep left, eventually going downstairs into what would have been the office restaurant and kitchens. There's an Angelino in the kitchen: I foolishly give him a chance to surrender and after he shoots me up a bit I put him down and loot him for bullets, med supplies and a blanket as well as looting food from the kitchen and a cleaver, which is a better weapon than my knife. From there it's into San Angelo itself. The bulk of the clansman are congregated at the Reagan Memorial Stadium where it seems some kind of motorcycle rally / race will be happening whilst Mad Dog signs a pact with a guy called Mekong Mike, the Angelino leader. For some reason I'm convinced Kate will also be there (I'm right, but not sure how I arrived at that) so I resolve to break into the stadium , which is full of hostile lunatics. Given the choice of stowing in one of the service trucks containing bike parts of getting in over the wall I choose the latter as the first seems suicidal. My strong stealth score sees me through: inside the race is being prepped (there's some Ben Hur comparisons) but my eyes are for the media box, where I spot four clansman and none other than Kate herself!
With all eyes on the track, I gain entrance to the observation tower. There are guards from each of the two clan factions, but I sling my flare into the corridor and move in to silence them quickly (and no doubt messily) with my cleaver before busting into the media room, flattening one enemy immediately and gunning down a second. I now face the two clan leaders: Mekong Mike is described as mustachioed and brightly dressed with a steer skull tattooed on his forehead, whilst Mad Dog wears black and has receding long hair going to grey. I'm quickly into a knife fight with the former: he's as skilled as me, and although my cleaver gives me the advantage I drop him in six rounds (its a timed fight) but am left on just 5 health. Mad Dog has meanwhile been on the radio alerting the gang: he has a gun trained on me, but before he can fire Kate wallops him with a chair and down he goes.
At this point, insanely, I am not given the choice to finish off Mad Dog Michigan. Given he has a blood debt against me, and has kidnapped Kate twice and done goodness knows what, and is a former member of HAVOC and leader of a huge gang intent on taking over the Southern United States, it seems remiss to leave him unconscious in a pile of chair splinters. So of course I totally do that and instead satisfy myself with stealing his special map (and using a load of medkits) before we do a runner. There's a full hue and cry in effect as we descend into the body of the stadium itself and Kate is smart enough to spot a service hatch to take us into an electrical duct and from there into some kind of service tunnel beneath the stadium. I don't have a torch or indeed any source of light having not learned my lesson from last time so we blunder around here for a bit (one of my deaths occurred here when I opened a hatch right into a massive group of vengeful Angelinos), eventually using the cables to feel our way along in the darkness before light from glass bricks set into the ceiling brings us to a hatch at the stadium entrance. It takes us an hour to reach the perimeter wall, but our way is blocked by four clansman who arrive in a jeep. I don't fancy making a run for it so I wait till they're spread out and we try to steal their jeep: there's no keys but I nab some antiseptic dressings and after deliberating, a shotgun and two shells before we make a dash for a fire station. We're spotted and under fire: I take a chance to grab a fire extinguisher (not having one cost me last game) and switch my cleaver for a fire axe which has the same stats but is a lot cooler. It's a full in chase into Sears - a clansman grabs Kate, crushing her throat but a blast from my pistol sends him descriptively flying like a leaf in the wind - and back to the car where we can high-tail it out of San Angelo with both gangs on our tail. Oh, and Mad Dog has taken over the Angelinos now, smart move leaving him alive. It's not like I haven't killed dozens of other bad guys...
End of part 1.
As you can tell I'm still enjoying this a lot. Same issues as before - fiddly inventory / encumbrance management and random numbers often causing mishap - and I only had one fight in this first part (The Angelino boss) with all the others being quick kills with my gun or knife. The writing is still evocative and full of detail though, the use of real places & a map based off real Texas gives a real sense of travel, and the heat is used to good effect - I really don't want to be out in the middle of the day! Now we're linked up again, Kate is resourceful and cool unlike the Mungos of the FF world who either drag you down or die instantly (although the sparse dialogue between you and her is pretty weak - but we're not reading this for good dialogue really) and there's a feeling of a real world existing beyond just the things you immediately encounter yourself. And the bad guys names are excellent.
Part 2 to follow!