Prototype events thoughts and experiences

[MACH_SPIKEZ593]

So I saw no thread for this topic and thought it would be interesting to share my own experiences/thoughts with the events I'm working on right now, and hear others as well. You can also leave tips here for others, this is also my first thread so I hope you guys like it!

 

I'm working on getting the platinum score for my events right now and to be honest, it has been going good so far. I think I can say that for most, if not all us who have worked on these can say that movement challenges are the worst. Some of them are lenient with the time and leave room for some error, but others require you to be very good handling Alex Mercer and require you to finish it in a very short time where one screw up could ruin your time by 1 second or less of the score needed.

 

The glide events are from my opinion the easiest and you get the hang of them pretty quickly and won't take you long to get the platinum on them. The only one I remember having a problem with was one called "wrong side of the tracks" I think, and it was due to me hitting that bridge too many times but still doable.

 

The war events for me were easy and didn't take much time to get these done as well, the only tip I can think of is to know what devastator and power to use. You can also see online videos to see what types strategies there are for these. The only ones I can recall that were a bit rough were the grenade launcher ones and the "stairway" (due to the 2 leader hunters). Tendrils devastator work wonders for leader hunters and for the grenade launcher events, you should try to kill the hunters first and then civilians (spamming square and switching lock on targets will definitely help). One person told me that "close contact" is pretty rough but I got fortunate enough to get platinum on my gold run by .02 seconds.

 

The kill events were ok in the terms of difficulty, I got more than half of them platinum on my gold run so I didn't have to do much of them but the one that I think was the worst to do is the "knuckle-dragger". I spent at least 4 hours trying this one until I got it and never want to think about it anymore as it caused me to honestly copy this emoticon (  ) in my inner thoughts. One tip if you honestly want it done fast without struggle is hijack and set up tanks near the event and you should be good with this one. (Never resorted to it but worth it if you don't want frustration or time wasted)

 

I am currently finishing up my events on movement and have half of them done but taking my time with them. I am definitely not a pro with handling Mercer and I am doing ok but the most vile events for me are "point to point",  "center of power" and "corners". These I just keep screwing up in either the middle or ending and just see make me want to scream at the top of my lungs! but I just go and do other things to relax and then come back to it. This is my last section of events to finish for the Pt trophy, then hard mode here I come!

 

 

 

 

[NiKoKevor]

This game is trully a pain in the ass but I ended up liking it, I have never tried to get gold or platinum medals in the events because some of them are pretty hard but not as hard as the hard mode lol. I am now going for the Web of knowledge trophy and I think its the last trophy I will try to get in this game

[black__bunny]

I enjoyed playing the game and have almost all trophies except for hard mode and events. I started the events and ended up putting the game aside because I got so frustrated with some of them. I haven't touched it since 2011

[TIGERMARK89]

currently working my way through the events and its killing me

[hore]

Really not sure how people had so much trouble with the platinum medals. A few of them took some practice (or RNG), but I never spent >1 hour on a single event.

 

Even the "hardest" events which apparently take dozens of attempts, I was able to do them within ~5 attempts. The movement events in particular, which are said to be the toughest, were the easiest IMO. I did everything on normal difficulty.

 

No event really stands out as being overly difficult. Knuckledragger was annoying as hell as it's purely RNG based, but it can be exploited by "fixing" tanks into place.

[SnowxSakura]

You can just watch videos on youtube as well for the routing of the movement events. The only one in particular I remember taking more than 2 attempts was the tank one with the rhino power, but that is more luck based than anything.

[ChristIllusion12]

Hated Totalshite from start to finish, 2nd one was a lot better though

[Dragn_Whytefyre]

The Movement events (Point-to-Point, Skyscraping, Center of Power, etc.). Hated all of them. The other events were fine. But the Movement ones? Made me wanna quit.

[T0WERST0NE-W0LF]

It is interesting this topic was already here, because I intended to open one, to share some lessons I never found in internet, given the fact the game is very old. It's worthy of mention that I found this game the most difficult after WipeoutHD and MaxPayne3. After 24 failed attempts, I finally killed CAPT Cross in the HARD final boss fight and got the Platinum Trophy. Considering the additional difficulty I had in the Platinum events and the required level to master some of them, I would classify this game with 9/10 in difficulty instead of 8/10, and would double its completion time to around 100h for the average player. Regardless this opinion of mine, I m here to share what I learnt from the last HARD boss fight. Most of it will not be news, but not everything. I hope you like it, whether you test it or not.

POWERS

Forget about CLAWS or HAMMERFIST powers. CLAWS do little damage and its GROUNDSPIKE ability is very slow and frustrating. It never hits the monster in time and you can never jump away from his retaliation (your hand is stuck on the ground for more than 2 seconds). Regarding HAMMERFIST, even the ELBOW SLAM ability is harmless. The useful powers are:

WHIPFIST: For grabbing and consuming soldiers, in order to have your health bar always fulfilled to the max critical mass. This is a mandatory rule in the HARD fight, and may well be the task you spend more time with. It can also be used to grab things to throw at the monster, providing you switch the power to MUSCLEMASS before throwing. Fighting the monster with WHIPFIST is a safe way to do it but its damage per blow does not provide the required damage rate to stun him in HARD mode, so don't waste your time trying it. Don't forget what stuns the monster. It's the damage rate he suffers rather than the stacked damage. Even if you succeed with a big blow over his health, you won't stun him if you don't do it more times in the shortest period of time.

MUSCLEMASS: For throwing things at the monster with the maximum strength. Choose runway debris from USS Reagan aircraft carrier and explosive ordnance, when you throw from the ground. They may do less damage, but they hardly miss. If you throw helicopters or aircrafts at the monster, you have to do it from air after jumping (keeping the aim with L2). Throwing these huge objects from the ground usually results in their disintegration before hitting him, due to other objects in the way, either on the ground or in the air (flying aircrafts/helicopters).

BLADE: Although this is the best power of the game for single combat, its best ability cannot be used in this fight (BLADE AIR SLICE). It doesn't make sense imo, but that is how the game was made. Like HAMMERFIST ELBOW SLAM, the BLADE AIR SLICE ability is simply harmless to this monster. So, when and how BLADE will be effective here? BLADE can only be used in short opportunities basis, but these must be created by you. These opportunities result from monster mistakes, but it is you who has to drive him to make them. How? It sounds simpler when explained, but it can be mastered, believe me. You have to predict where the monster will land whenever he jumps to your vicinity. Your immediate move must be done before he lands, in such way that you land right behind him before he finds you again, but not too close so his landing shockwave doesn't ruin your final blade attack. You will notice the monster isn't quick enough to turn while looking for you upon realizing you are not where you were, and this vulnerability is the sole weakness of the monster worthy of exploiting with the BLADE in hit-and-run close combat. If your landing succeeds, don't think. Run over his back without hesitation with a BLADE SPRINT FRENZY (L+R2+Triangle). After running through him, jump the hell out of there before you check the yellow damage reduction you inflicted. Coming back for a second blow will not succeed without a huge damage against you. Repeat this attack only in a different spot after the next jump from the monster (I attempted BLADE FRENZY twice with no sprint in the same spot, but I was hit every time). During my successful fight, I was able to stun the monster with 3 different BLADE SPRINT FRENZY consecutive attacks, before the nuke timer started counting down. It was awesome. Was I helped by the military fire? Of course I was, but you have to try it and see the yellow damage reduction of the monster health bar with your own eyes, when using this cat and mouse close combat strategy. There are 2 more opportunities for using this power.

1. If you stun the monster, this is the power which does more damage with SQUARE on his back, after pressing CIRCLE to grab his neck.

2. I still don't understand why, but whenever my blade wasn't on, the devastator attacks (see below) were very difficult to summon, whereas the blade almost worked like a password to succeed. Go figure...

DEVASTATOR: The only useful and vital devastator against this monster is the CRITICAL PAIN DEVASTATOR (CPD), because this is the only attack that concentrates all your power in the same direction with no loss (the only power fading results from the distance between you and your target), capable of inflicting the huge amount of damage required to kill him faster. However, the way you use it to be effective must be also mastered. If there is a luck factor here, you are able to minimize it and improve the odds of success against 2 problems. 

1. It's very difficult to find a suitable moment to summon CPD in a safe way, without undergoing damage from the monster, because CPD attack takes about 4 seconds to start after summoning, and the monster is constantly chasing you or throwing things at you with no mercy.

2. Sometimes, the CPD attack does zero damage to the monster, even when correctly summoned in the right space and time to avoid damage from him. I have seen many gamers complaining of this, something I have to agree with, after my experience.

However, don’t despair. This can be overcome. During my 25th attempt (1st success), I was just training old lessons and testing new possible conclusions, for fun, and didn't expect to win this fight just yet. However, what I tried, worked very well like a perfect classroom demonstration. When the critical mass is fully ready for CPD attacks, the right moment to summon it (1st problem), is when the monster stops throwing things at you, AND he jumps somewhere else other than your vicinity, well away from close combat. It doesn’t matter if he keeps the distance or lands on a closer location. You just have to predict he will land well away from close combat, safe from a surprised TENDRIL BARRAGE DEVASTATOR. Don’t worry, because it will happen, and don’t waste time trying otherwise (CAUTION: The monster is vulnerable himself when using TENDRIL BARRAGE DEVASTATOR, but if you use this opportunity at an effective CPD range, one of his tendrils will always catch you). The right moment is when he is flying, not when he lands. While he is in the air, aim with L2, hold it pressed, and summon CPD before he lands, (don’t forget you need to have the blade before triggering CPD). L2 must remain pressed to the end. During the summoning time delay, the monster will then try a second jump, now to a close combat proximity, because you didn’t move. However, it will be too late for him. Your next move is the most important of the sequence. If you want to avoid his fast retaliation, you must jump well away from him in the exact moment you see the yellow damage of your CPD attack in his health bar. Don’t wait for more because there will be no more, the damage you made won’t be undone, and his successful blow will ruin your critical mass for the next CPD attacks you need. To make sure all the CPD attacks effectively damage his health with no margin of error (2nd problem), the solution is very simple. The CPD attack will be effective only if the monster 2nd jump lands in front of you, remaining within your sight, so the target is still attainable by your L2 aiming (if the monster lands out of the screen, Alex won’t be able turn his attack to a nonexistent direction within the sight already frozen by the CPD triggering, even with L2 pressed from the beginning). To make sure the required condition won’t be lost after the 2nd jump from the monster, you need to use the predicted landing position of the the 1st jump to make a small shift of your position and direction, before triggering CPD (the 2nd jump isn’t even started yet, but the monster is already planning it because he sees you not reacting to his 1st jump). The prediction doesn’t need to be accurate, just as fast as your intuition allows. Now, before aiming the monster with L2 and triggering CPD during his 1st jump, just turn your sight to where the 1st jump ends and walk backwards from it (just walking is enough). When you train it, you can do it intuitively within a second during the 1st jump. Just to have an idea, this trick allowed me to fully succeed for the first time, not in 2, but in 3 consecutive CPD attacks with no more soldiers to consume. I had no critical mass left, but the rest of the fight was much easier.

 

BEST STRATEGY I FOLLOWED:

APPLICABLE TO THE ENTIRE FIGHT

 

1. Don’t go into this HARD fight without having all powers, survivability perks, movement abilities, combat skills, etc, purchased to the maximum upgrades, even weapons. To make it simpler, just get the UNNATURAL SELECTION trophy “again”, before starting the TWO TICKETS mission.

    

2. The most useful hint I found from previous gamers was this: know always where the monster is and what he is doing, by keeping him under your sight. Indeed, whatever you do, the next move you decide must depend always on WHERE the monster is, as well as WHAT and HOW he is doing it. Why? Since you are his sole enemy (he doesn't fight the soldiers), seeks only you, can kill you in no time, and doesn’t give you any rest before catching you in the open with no way out to recover, the hint is much more than a recommendation. The game itself provides us with this advice, but I find it a paramount strategy, or else … GAME OVER. Try to overlook this strategy, and see what happens. Your play will be insanely excruciating, as you will be just fighting to survive like a disoriented duck. Winning this combat requires you to do much more than that. There would be no fun if the fight wasn’t unfair, but this one exceeded all challenges I played before. Jerry would be capable of guessing Tom’s deeds, David knew Goliath weakness, but this monster is too fast, too strong, too unpredictable for your attacks, with no evident weaknesses to exploit effectively in a very short time-limited combat. Before anything else, just experience the bad side of the coin. When you take your sight away from the monster, the game AI immediately exploits this mistake to give you a harder time. Like a sudden magical move, the monster is immediately found right behind your ass inflicting you an unexpected blow to recover from. It’s almost hilarious. This sounds insane, but after getting used to the good side of the coin, you will see that everything you need to do to win this combat in a more comfortable way, is easier and almost intuitive if you keep the monster in your sight. All his constant approaches and attacks will become more predictable and avoidable in due time during your defensive moves; the offensive moves are the difficult cornerstones stones of this combat, but, again, without tracking what the monster is doing, you cannot predict the right monster moves to master BLADE and CPD attacks, like I said above.

    

3. What I don’t agree with, is the way many gamers recommend this policy. You will find L2 aiming is highly suggested by many, but this is very cumbersome, because it slows down the fight and the target tracked by the aiming is always jumping between different enemies when your sight moves with the R joystick (camera control). You cannot avoid using R control by natural intuition, so I don’t advise constant L2 aiming. Just keep the monster in your sight with the R joystick, assisted by the red skull icon on the screen. Use L2 control for aiming during offensive moves only.

    

4. For defensive purposes, choose SHIELD for your protection instead of ARMOUR. Speed is vital for every defensive and offensive move in this fight, and the armor limits your moves in many ways. If you follow the strategy of keeping the monster within your sight, your safety is already fully assured. You can react in due time to the monster moves if you keep a stand-off position from him, and the military will rarely shoot at you. Although they are your enemies, their AI is priority-based, and the monster is their main target. Military will shoot at you only when the monster is not under their firing range yet AND you are exactly on their way to him (in the same sight they keep over the monster). Try to stay behind soldiers when they are still approaching the monster before reaching the firing range. They don’t turn against you even when you are closer than the monster.

    

BEFORE THE START OF NUKE TIMER COUNTDOWN (Priority: ALEX HEALTH WITH CRITICAL MASS MAXIMIXED)

 

1. The AI condition that triggers the countdown (next and last part of the fight) is the monster health percentage. The countdown will be triggered when his health is around 1/3. Before that, there is no rush. Since the military are fighting the monster, you don't even have to fight him. This is why I call this part the DEFENSIVE HALF of the combat. If you are patient, just be defensive and stay well away from the monster, allowing the soldiers, helicopters and aircrafts to do the job of shrinking his health bit by bit. The only thing you must do is to consume soldiers from time to time, just to make sure your health is 100% when the next part starts.

    

2. Beginners will immediately find the consumption of soldiers a very dangerous move, like I did. Why? Because it’s very difficult to follow the strategy of keeping the monster in your sight when chasing and grabbing soldiers to consume them. However, the solution is simple. After your sight is moved away from the monster, use your high speed abilities from sprints, jumps, glides and air-dashes to keep every move you do to approach and grab soldiers, as fast as possible with no looking back. Just make sure a soldier is always the closest enemy from you before pressing CIRCLE (with the WHIPFIST power), otherwise your extended arm will grab the wrong object (if you grab a helicopter by mistake, don’t use it and quickly double tap CIRCLE to abandon it, because it’s a pure waste of time). Then, keep fast moving with the grabbed soldiers (without consuming them) until you regain the monster back in your sight and you know he is well away from you. Only then the consumption is safe, because it must be done on the ground (never in the air). Many gamers climb the rooftop of the bridge and flight control tower to consume soldiers safely, simply because the monster never goes there, but this is not the best solution for 2 reasons.

    

1. He never climbs the rooftop, but he can hit you with thrown objects which you hardly avoid, simply because you don’t see what he is doing. His position is revealed by the red skull icon, but we never know when he throws stuff against Alex.

    

2. During the way up to the rooftop and the way down back to the runway deck, you may be shot by 2 of the 4 Close-In Weapon Systems located at the rooftop wings. These Gatling-based automatic machine-guns, better known as Vulcan-Phalanx, can damage you very hard and fast, even when you are protected by ARMOUR, thus nullifying the health gained in the last consumption.

    

1. Instead of the rooftop, there is a better and funnier solution. On the starboard side of the tower there is a narrow walking passage on the same level of the runway deck. After grabbing a soldier, and before consuming him, go always to this passage with your non-stop high speed moves. This will lure the monster to the passage. Since the passage chokes his big jumps, it will slow him down. By turning back your sight after crossing the entire passage, you can check how quickly the monster follows you before deciding you can slow down and consume the prey in your hands. If you see the red skull icon still behind the tower, the monster didn’t make his way to you fast enough, so the consumption is already safe. If you see the monster making his way right behind you through the passage, don’t stop your high speed and surround the tower back to the port side until you see his red skull icon stopped behind the tower. Then stop, and consume your prey. This is the funny moment, because the monster becomes always trapped in that passage with this move, allowing for a break to rest without pressing START, with plenty of time to consume as many soldiers as you need with no rush (providing you don’t get seen by the monster). When your health is fully recovered, then you can reveal your position to the monster, by appearing back to his sight, from a safe distance. Only then, the monster struggles and manages to leave the passage, restarting all the heat.

    

2. If you choose to speed up the combat, you may help the military in their fight against the monster. However, if you do it, the damage rate your health will suffer by the monster, soldiers, aircrafts, and collateral explosions within the all the heat surrounding the combat, will increase. This will require extra opportunities to consume more soldiers. Therefore you need always to evaluate the risk of reaching the next part without 100% health, when the monster health is approaching 1/3, because you may have no time left to consume all soldiers you need.

    

3. Well before the monster health approaches 1/3, I recommend you stop fighting, recover your total health, stay well away of the monster, grab a good ammunition, and keep it safe in your hands from all the heat, ready to be thrown and inflict the first damage to the monster in the early seconds of the next part.

    

AFTER THE START OF NUKE TIMER COUNTDOWN (Priority: MONSTER HEALTH TO ZERO IN 150 SECONDS)

 

1. This is the OFFENSIVE HALF, so when this starts, become immediately offensive, effective and fast. No need for further explanations, as damaging his 33% health in 2m30s is an incredible difficult task in HARD mode.

    

2. Military deployment against the monster is ceased, and those left behind in the aircraft carrier are the few ones you can consume to recover any possible loss of critical mass. However this change may become an advantage. I noticed the behavior of the monster changes a little bit, especially when military presence is completely gone. In some occasions, he appears to be less confident, which makes sense. He is weaker and not annoyed by military attacks anymore, allowing him to stay away and keep a certain distance, as long as he finds stuff to throw.

    

3. At the same time you damage his health bit by bit with thrown stuff as a secondary attack from a stand-off distance (according to MUSCLEMASS power above mentioned), study his moves from long distance, and wait for a jump that is neither to attack you face to face nor to become within the range of a TENDRIL BARRAGE DEVASTATOR. Any move like this is the right moment to stay still and quickly trigger a CPD attack before he lands, as your primary attack (according to the DEVASTATOR above mentioned). Repeat it whenever he allows it again. As long as you succeed in all of them, you are in the correct path to victory, and the monster will be eventually stunned after 2 quick CPD attacks, one after the other. If he gets stunned, don’t forget to use BLADE on his back (grab him with CIRCLE, and attack him with as many SQUARES as you can). If you don’t kill him after exhausting your critical mass and completing your blows-while-stunned, go back to MUSCLEMASS and throw everything you find from air via long jumps (the sky is now clear from military flights), in case you still have plenty of time. If you don’t have much time left, go suicidal, using the hit and run BLADE combat (on his back only, in between short jumps). If you lose all your health with this, maybe the Adrenaline Surge will give you a new chance for a last CPD attack. Good luck.

[DePablo007]

26 minutes ago, T0WERST0NE-W0LF said:

It is interesting this topic was already here, because I intended to open one, to share some lessons I never found in internet, given the fact the game is very old. It's worthy of mention that I found this game the most difficult after WipeoutHD and MaxPayne3. After 24 failed attempts, I finally killed CAPT Cross in the HARD final boss fight and got the Platinum Trophy. Considering the additional difficulty I had in the Platinum events and the required level to master some of them, I would classify this game with 9/10 in difficulty instead of 8/10, and would double its completion time to around 100h for the average player. Regardless this opinion of mine, I m here to share what I learnt from the last HARD boss fight. Most of it will not be news, but not everything. I hope you like it, whether you test it or not.

POWERS

Forget about CLAWS or HAMMERFIST powers. CLAWS do little damage and its GROUNDSPIKE ability is very slow and frustrating. It never hits the monster in time and you can never jump away from his retaliation (your hand is stuck on the ground for more than 2 seconds). Regarding HAMMERFIST, even the ELBOW SLAM ability is harmless. The useful powers are:

WHIPFIST: For grabbing and consuming soldiers, in order to have your health bar always fulfilled to the max critical mass. This is a mandatory rule in the HARD fight, and may well be the task you spend more time with. It can also be used to grab things to throw at the monster, providing you switch the power to MUSCLEMASS before throwing. Fighting the monster with WHIPFIST is a safe way to do it but its damage per blow does not provide the required damage rate to stun him in HARD mode, so don't waste your time trying it. Don't forget what stuns the monster. It's the damage rate he suffers rather than the stacked damage. Even if you succeed with a big blow over his health, you won't stun him if you don't do it more times in the shortest period of time.

MUSCLEMASS: For throwing things at the monster with the maximum strength. Choose runway debris from USS Reagan aircraft carrier and explosive ordnance, when you throw from the ground. They may do less damage, but they hardly miss. If you throw helicopters or aircrafts at the monster, you have to do it from air after jumping (keeping the aim with L2). Throwing these huge objects from the ground usually results in their disintegration before hitting him, due to other objects in the way, either on the ground or in the air (flying aircrafts/helicopters).

BLADE: Although this is the best power of the game for single combat, its best ability cannot be used in this fight (BLADE AIR SLICE). It doesn't make sense imo, but that is how the game was made. Like HAMMERFIST ELBOW SLAM, the BLADE AIR SLICE ability is simply harmless to this monster. So, when and how BLADE will be effective here? BLADE can only be used in short opportunities basis, but these must be created by you. These opportunities result from monster mistakes, but it is you who has to drive him to make them. How? It sounds simpler when explained, but it can be mastered, believe me. You have to predict where the monster will land whenever he jumps to your vicinity. Your immediate move must be done before he lands, in such way that you land right behind him before he finds you again, but not too close so his landing shockwave doesn't ruin your final blade attack. You will notice the monster isn't quick enough to turn while looking for you upon realizing you are not where you were, and this vulnerability is the sole weakness of the monster worthy of exploiting with the BLADE in hit-and-run close combat. If your landing succeeds, don't think. Run over his back without hesitation with a BLADE SPRINT FRENZY (L+R2+Triangle). After running through him, jump the hell out of there before you check the yellow damage reduction you inflicted. Coming back for a second blow will not succeed without a huge damage against you. Repeat this attack only in a different spot after the next jump from the monster (I attempted BLADE FRENZY twice with no sprint in the same spot, but I was hit every time). During my successful fight, I was able to stun the monster with 3 different BLADE SPRINT FRENZY consecutive attacks, before the nuke timer started counting down. It was awesome. Was I helped by the military fire? Of course I was, but you have to try it and see the yellow damage reduction of the monster health bar with your own eyes, when using this cat and mouse close combat strategy. There are 2 more opportunities for using this power.

1. If you stun the monster, this is the power which does more damage with SQUARE on his back, after pressing CIRCLE to grab his neck.

2. I still don't understand why, but whenever my blade wasn't on, the devastator attacks (see below) were very difficult to summon, whereas the blade almost worked like a password to succeed. Go figure...

DEVASTATOR: The only useful and vital devastator against this monster is the CRITICAL PAIN DEVASTATOR (CPD), because this is the only attack that concentrates all your power in the same direction with no loss (the only power fading results from the distance between you and your target), capable of inflicting the huge amount of damage required to kill him faster. However, the way you use it to be effective must be also mastered. If there is a luck factor here, you are able to minimize it and improve the odds of success against 2 problems. 

1. It's very difficult to find a suitable moment to summon CPD in a safe way, without undergoing damage from the monster, because CPD attack takes about 4 seconds to start after summoning, and the monster is constantly chasing you or throwing things at you with no mercy.

2. Sometimes, the CPD attack does zero damage to the monster, even when correctly summoned in the right space and time to avoid damage from him. I have seen many gamers complaining of this, something I have to agree with, after my experience.

However, don’t despair. This can be overcome. During my 25th attempt (1st success), I was just training old lessons and testing new possible conclusions, for fun, and didn't expect to win this fight just yet. However, what I tried, worked very well like a perfect classroom demonstration. When the critical mass is fully ready for CPD attacks, the right moment to summon it (1st problem), is when the monster stops throwing things at you, AND he jumps somewhere else other than your vicinity, well away from close combat. It doesn’t matter if he keeps the distance or lands on a closer location. You just have to predict he will land well away from close combat, safe from a surprised TENDRIL BARRAGE DEVASTATOR. Don’t worry, because it will happen, and don’t waste time trying otherwise (CAUTION: The monster is vulnerable himself when using TENDRIL BARRAGE DEVASTATOR, but if you use this opportunity at an effective CPD range, one of his tendrils will always catch you). The right moment is when he is flying, not when he lands. While he is in the air, aim with L2, hold it pressed, and summon CPD before he lands, (don’t forget you need to have the blade before triggering CPD). L2 must remain pressed to the end. During the summoning time delay, the monster will then try a second jump, now to a close combat proximity, because you didn’t move. However, it will be too late for him. Your next move is the most important of the sequence. If you want to avoid his fast retaliation, you must jump well away from him in the exact moment you see the yellow damage of your CPD attack in his health bar. Don’t wait for more because there will be no more, the damage you made won’t be undone, and his successful blow will ruin your critical mass for the next CPD attacks you need. To make sure all the CPD attacks effectively damage his health with no margin of error (2nd problem), the solution is very simple. The CPD attack will be effective only if the monster 2nd jump lands in front of you, remaining within your sight, so the target is still attainable by your L2 aiming (if the monster lands out of the screen, Alex won’t be able turn his attack to a nonexistent direction within the sight already frozen by the CPD triggering, even with L2 pressed from the beginning). To make sure the required condition won’t be lost after the 2nd jump from the monster, you need to use the predicted landing position of the the 1st jump to make a small shift of your position and direction, before triggering CPD (the 2nd jump isn’t even started yet, but the monster is already planning it because he sees you not reacting to his 1st jump). The prediction doesn’t need to be accurate, just as fast as your intuition allows. Now, before aiming the monster with L2 and triggering CPD during his 1st jump, just turn your sight to where the 1st jump ends and walk backwards from it (just walking is enough). When you train it, you can do it intuitively within a second during the 1st jump. Just to have an idea, this trick allowed me to fully succeed for the first time, not in 2, but in 3 consecutive CPD attacks with no more soldiers to consume. I had no critical mass left, but the rest of the fight was much easier.

 

BEST STRATEGY I FOLLOWED:

APPLICABLE TO THE ENTIRE FIGHT

 

1. Don’t go into this HARD fight without having all powers, survivability perks, movement abilities, combat skills, etc, purchased to the maximum upgrades, even weapons. To make it simpler, just get the UNNATURAL SELECTION trophy “again”, before starting the TWO TICKETS mission.

    

2. The most useful hint I found from previous gamers was this: know always where the monster is and what he is doing, by keeping him under your sight. Indeed, whatever you do, the next move you decide must depend always on WHERE the monster is, as well as WHAT and HOW he is doing it. Why? Since you are his sole enemy (he doesn't fight the soldiers), seeks only you, can kill you in no time, and doesn’t give you any rest before catching you in the open with no way out to recover, the hint is much more than a recommendation. The game itself provides us with this advice, but I find it a paramount strategy, or else … GAME OVER. Try to overlook this strategy, and see what happens. Your play will be insanely excruciating, as you will be just fighting to survive like a disoriented duck. Winning this combat requires you to do much more than that. There would be no fun if the fight wasn’t unfair, but this one exceeded all challenges I played before. Jerry would be capable of guessing Tom’s deeds, David knew Goliath weakness, but this monster is too fast, too strong, too unpredictable for your attacks, with no evident weaknesses to exploit effectively in a very short time-limited combat. Before anything else, just experience the bad side of the coin. When you take your sight away from the monster, the game AI immediately exploits this mistake to give you a harder time. Like a sudden magical move, the monster is immediately found right behind your ass inflicting you an unexpected blow to recover from. It’s almost hilarious. This sounds insane, but after getting used to the good side of the coin, you will see that everything you need to do to win this combat in a more comfortable way, is easier and almost intuitive if you keep the monster in your sight. All his constant approaches and attacks will become more predictable and avoidable in due time during your defensive moves; the offensive moves are the difficult cornerstones stones of this combat, but, again, without tracking what the monster is doing, you cannot predict the right monster moves to master BLADE and CPD attacks, like I said above.

    

3. What I don’t agree with, is the way many gamers recommend this policy. You will find L2 aiming is highly suggested by many, but this is very cumbersome, because it slows down the fight and the target tracked by the aiming is always jumping between different enemies when your sight moves with the R joystick (camera control). You cannot avoid using R control by natural intuition, so I don’t advise constant L2 aiming. Just keep the monster in your sight with the R joystick, assisted by the red skull icon on the screen. Use L2 control for aiming during offensive moves only.

    

4. For defensive purposes, choose SHIELD for your protection instead of ARMOUR. Speed is vital for every defensive and offensive move in this fight, and the armor limits your moves in many ways. If you follow the strategy of keeping the monster within your sight, your safety is already fully assured. You can react in due time to the monster moves if you keep a stand-off position from him, and the military will rarely shoot at you. Although they are your enemies, their AI is priority-based, and the monster is their main target. Military will shoot at you only when the monster is not under their firing range yet AND you are exactly on their way to him (in the same sight they keep over the monster). Try to stay behind soldiers when they are still approaching the monster before reaching the firing range. They don’t turn against you even when you are closer than the monster.

    

BEFORE THE START OF NUKE TIMER COUNTDOWN (Priority: ALEX HEALTH WITH CRITICAL MASS MAXIMIXED)

 

1. The AI condition that triggers the countdown (next and last part of the fight) is the monster health percentage. The countdown will be triggered when his health is around 1/3. Before that, there is no rush. Since the military are fighting the monster, you don't even have to fight him. This is why I call this part the DEFENSIVE HALF of the combat. If you are patient, just be defensive and stay well away from the monster, allowing the soldiers, helicopters and aircrafts to do the job of shrinking his health bit by bit. The only thing you must do is to consume soldiers from time to time, just to make sure your health is 100% when the next part starts.

    

2. Beginners will immediately find the consumption of soldiers a very dangerous move, like I did. Why? Because it’s very difficult to follow the strategy of keeping the monster in your sight when chasing and grabbing soldiers to consume them. However, the solution is simple. After your sight is moved away from the monster, use your high speed abilities from sprints, jumps, glides and air-dashes to keep every move you do to approach and grab soldiers, as fast as possible with no looking back. Just make sure a soldier is always the closest enemy from you before pressing CIRCLE (with the WHIPFIST power), otherwise your extended arm will grab the wrong object (if you grab a helicopter by mistake, don’t use it and quickly double tap CIRCLE to abandon it, because it’s a pure waste of time). Then, keep fast moving with the grabbed soldiers (without consuming them) until you regain the monster back in your sight and you know he is well away from you. Only then the consumption is safe, because it must be done on the ground (never in the air). Many gamers climb the rooftop of the bridge and flight control tower to consume soldiers safely, simply because the monster never goes there, but this is not the best solution for 2 reasons.

    

1. He never climbs the rooftop, but he can hit you with thrown objects which you hardly avoid, simply because you don’t see what he is doing. His position is revealed by the red skull icon, but we never know when he throws stuff against Alex.

    

2. During the way up to the rooftop and the way down back to the runway deck, you may be shot by 2 of the 4 Close-In Weapon Systems located at the rooftop wings. These Gatling-based automatic machine-guns, better known as Vulcan-Phalanx, can damage you very hard and fast, even when you are protected by ARMOUR, thus nullifying the health gained in the last consumption.

    

1. Instead of the rooftop, there is a better and funnier solution. On the starboard side of the tower there is a narrow walking passage on the same level of the runway deck. After grabbing a soldier, and before consuming him, go always to this passage with your non-stop high speed moves. This will lure the monster to the passage. Since the passage chokes his big jumps, it will slow him down. By turning back your sight after crossing the entire passage, you can check how quickly the monster follows you before deciding you can slow down and consume the prey in your hands. If you see the red skull icon still behind the tower, the monster didn’t make his way to you fast enough, so the consumption is already safe. If you see the monster making his way right behind you through the passage, don’t stop your high speed and surround the tower back to the port side until you see his red skull icon stopped behind the tower. Then stop, and consume your prey. This is the funny moment, because the monster becomes always trapped in that passage with this move, allowing for a break to rest without pressing START, with plenty of time to consume as many soldiers as you need with no rush (providing you don’t get seen by the monster). When your health is fully recovered, then you can reveal your position to the monster, by appearing back to his sight, from a safe distance. Only then, the monster struggles and manages to leave the passage, restarting all the heat.

    

2. If you choose to speed up the combat, you may help the military in their fight against the monster. However, if you do it, the damage rate your health will suffer by the monster, soldiers, aircrafts, and collateral explosions within the all the heat surrounding the combat, will increase. This will require extra opportunities to consume more soldiers. Therefore you need always to evaluate the risk of reaching the next part without 100% health, when the monster health is approaching 1/3, because you may have no time left to consume all soldiers you need.

    

3. Well before the monster health approaches 1/3, I recommend you stop fighting, recover your total health, stay well away of the monster, grab a good ammunition, and keep it safe in your hands from all the heat, ready to be thrown and inflict the first damage to the monster in the early seconds of the next part.

    

AFTER THE START OF NUKE TIMER COUNTDOWN (Priority: MONSTER HEALTH TO ZERO IN 150 SECONDS)

 

1. This is the OFFENSIVE HALF, so when this starts, become immediately offensive, effective and fast. No need for further explanations, as damaging his 33% health in 2m30s is an incredible difficult task in HARD mode.

    

2. Military deployment against the monster is ceased, and those left behind in the aircraft carrier are the few ones you can consume to recover any possible loss of critical mass. However this change may become an advantage. I noticed the behavior of the monster changes a little bit, especially when military presence is completely gone. In some occasions, he appears to be less confident, which makes sense. He is weaker and not annoyed by military attacks anymore, allowing him to stay away and keep a certain distance, as long as he finds stuff to throw.

    

3. At the same time you damage his health bit by bit with thrown stuff as a secondary attack from a stand-off distance (according to MUSCLEMASS power above mentioned), study his moves from long distance, and wait for a jump that is neither to attack you face to face nor to become within the range of a TENDRIL BARRAGE DEVASTATOR. Any move like this is the right moment to stay still and quickly trigger a CPD attack before he lands, as your primary attack (according to the DEVASTATOR above mentioned). Repeat it whenever he allows it again. As long as you succeed in all of them, you are in the correct path to victory, and the monster will be eventually stunned after 2 quick CPD attacks, one after the other. If he gets stunned, don’t forget to use BLADE on his back (grab him with CIRCLE, and attack him with as many SQUARES as you can). If you don’t kill him after exhausting your critical mass and completing your blows-while-stunned, go back to MUSCLEMASS and throw everything you find from air via long jumps (the sky is now clear from military flights), in case you still have plenty of time. If you don’t have much time left, go suicidal, using the hit and run BLADE combat (on his back only, in between short jumps). If you lose all your health with this, maybe the Adrenaline Surge will give you a new chance for a last CPD attack. Good luck.

Or you could just use the infinity health glitch. 

[T0WERST0NE-W0LF]

Infinite health glitch doesn't work anymore after last patch. Even when worked, the glitch was reset after the unavoidable checkpoint.

[TheYuriG]

On 01/10/2018 at 3:24 PM, T0WERST0NE-W0LF said:

Infinite health glitch doesn't work anymore after last patch. Even when worked, the glitch was reset after the unavoidable checkpoint.

It works and the checkpoint is irrelevant if you never fail and trigger it.