-------------------------
PROTOTYPE HARD MODE GUIDE
-------------------------
By Uberschveinen
Version 1.0
Contact at uberschveinen@hotmail.com
------------------
INTRODUCTION-(INT)
------------------
Welcome to my guide to Prototype’s Hard Mode. This is,
obviously, a guide intended specifically for Hard Mode and the
inherently much greater difficulty there. The events in the game don’t
change, and it will work just fine for Normal or Easy, but these are
much more cautious strategies and are probably wasting your time.
Needless to ay if you’re playing on Hard you’ve already beaten
the game once, and should know the very basics of it, and have some
grasp of the effective strategies against the tougher opponents. Good,
because you’ll need that from the get-go. Basically, in Hard, every
enemy is bumped up one tier in threat. Civilian Infected go from
irrelevant to nuisance, Military and Evolved Infected go from nuisance
to minor consideration, Military with good weapons and APCs go from
minor consideration to slight threat, Hunters and Tanks go from slight
threat to moderate threat, and Leader Hunters and Helicopters go from
moderate threat to genuine danger. The bosses all become much harder to
kill.
All in all, Hard is exactly that. It’s going to take a few more
deaths and a lot more strategizing to win, but it’s going to be worth
it.
--------------
CONTENTS-(CON)
--------------
+ INTRODUCTION–------(INT)
+ CONTENTS–----------(CON)
+ HARD MODE GUIDE–---(HAR)
+ ACHIEVEMENT GUIDE–-(ACH)
+ EVENT GUIDE–-------(EVE)
+ FAQ–---------------(FAQ)
+ CREDITS–-----------(CRE)
+ LEGAL--------------(LEG)
---------------------
HARD MODE GUIDE-(HAR)
---------------------
This is where things get serious. You’ve played through Normal.
Where Normal left off is about where Hard begins, and it only gets
harder. I hope you were paying attention in the tough battles.
This guide is going to address each individual mission in a row.
I won’t talk about events until the events section, but I can’t
recommend enough you do them the moment they become plausible, because
you really do need all the EP and upgrades you can afford to win. I’ll
mention when events and upgrades become available, and tell you which
upgrades are mandatory to success. I also recommend you go Landmark and
Hint hunting as soon as you have the powers to get them all, because
that’s basically free EP, but if you start grabbing orbs outside of a
single coordinated attempt you’ll make getting the Streetwise and
Polymath achievements a nightmare.
--------------
GUIDE CONTENTS
--------------
+ Tutorial mission--------------- (M00)
+ Escape the Gentek Facility----- (M01)
+ Look for Clues About Your Past- (MO2)
+ Behind the Glass--------------- (MO3)
+ Escape the Hunters------------- (MO3)
+ The Wheels of Chance----------- (MO4)
+ A New Order-------------------- (MO5)
+ Open Conspiracy---------------- (MO6)
+ In the Web--------------------- (MO7)
+ The Altered World-------------- (MO8)
+ Errand Boy--------------------- (MO9)
+ Confessions-------------------- (M10)
+ Under the Knife---------------- (M11)
+ The Stolen Body---------------- (M12)
+ Biological Imperative---------- (M13)
+ The Door in the Wall----------- (M14)
+ First and Last Things---------- (M15)
+ The First Monster-------------- (M16)
+ Making the Future-------------- (M17)
+ Defeat the Supreme Hunter------ (M18)
+ Men like Gods------------------ (M19)
+ A Dream of Armageddon---------- (M20)
+ The World Set Free------------- (M21)
+ Things to Come----------------- (M22)
+ Defeat Elizabeth Greene-------- (M23)
+ Shock and Awe------------------ (M24)
+ The Last Man------------------- (M25)
+ Two Tickets-------------------- (M26)
+ Defeat the Supreme Hunter------ (M27)
----------------------
TUTORIAL MISSION-(M00)
----------------------
Although not technically a mission, I’ve included this for the sake of
completionism.
After your little cutscene, you show up in Times Square again, with
your full suite of powers, with a platoon or so of Blackwatch shooting
at you. But what’s this? They’re actually doing damage!
You’ll soon find this is the story of Hard. Kill them quickly before
they hurt you too much, which shouldn’t pose a challenge. Then move
forward to the objective.
Now there’s more to kill, but you’ve got your claws. Diveroll and
slash, just like you did all the way through Normal, and they’re done.
Move forward again, and trigger the Tank spawn.
Now you’re up against about four tanks. Don’t stand still, because they
actually do fierce damage if they hit you with the 120mm cannon. Jump
above them, and charge up Y targeted on the tanks for a fully-charged
Hammerfist drop. You’ll notice that it does much less damage, and
that’s important. Jump, charge, drop, and repeat until they all go
down. As long as you keep moving you’ll be fine. If you got cut up,
consume some Infected Civilians for health, otherwise, move forward
again.
Hunters. Surely not a threat against the blade? Unfortunately, no they
are. In fact, they will remain a threat throughout the game so long as
you try to take them head-on. So, don’t. Jump up, and use the Air
Slash; target a Hunter and hold Y. Fully charged, it won’t kill them,
just to give you an indication of how tough they are now. It’ll just do
a bit more than half damage, so keep jumping and slashing and you’ll be
fine. Then, move forward.
Now, the Commander is in sight. Forget everything else, just sprint
forward, grab him, and consume. Try not to accidentally jump kick him;
that’s about the only way to fail unless you try and kill everything.
You kill everything anyway, and the scene ends. Enjoy your cutscene
even more in retrospect. Everything in the story fits much better when
you actually know the story.
--------------------------------
ESCAPE THE GENTEK FACILITY-(M01)
--------------------------------
Mercer’s escape is done, and you gain control in a back alley. You’re
powerless now, and because this is Hard, extremely vulnerable. Don’t go
picking fights unless you can do so with utter surprise.
Jump the fence, and see the helicopter. Throw crap at it, preferably
before everyone gets off, and notice how little damage it does. You’ll
need much more crap to throw, and that will probably mean the
Blackwatch. Make sure you charge your throws or you’ll have to go
looking for stuff.
Now you’ve got to run up a building and get to another. Easy. Then
suddenly, Helicopters. Luckily these ones don’t seem to actually want
to shoot you, because if they did they’d take you apart. Grab the
aircon units, and fully charge throws at the Helicopters. If you do it
right you’ll kill them, if not, you’ll have to relocate, find more
stuff, and throw that. These first missions are pretty good at showing
you just how much harder everything is to kill.
Now a cutscene, after which you can consume the officer. Do so, and
swap into that disguise. Run over to the objective, make sure you’re in
disguise, and head into the house for a cutscene.
------------------------------------
LOOK FOR CLUES ABOUT YOUR PAST-(M02)
------------------------------------
Now to look for clues. Head over to the objective and roll on in, only
to get blown up. Luckily, you take little damage from a massive
explosion and a fifteen-storey fall. Unluckily, you land in the middle
of a fight when the officer nearby calls in a strike team. Kill him and
run. You can evade the Strike Team or blow it up, either will do. One
way or another change into your military disguise, and go to the
objective. Walk straight through the cordon in disguise, radio the all-
clear, and consume the guy when he walks out. You now have to escape or
kill the military. Killing them all might be some practise, but running
is safer and much faster. Run, hide, change, and the mission’s over.
----------------------
BEHIND THE GLASS-(M03)
----------------------
And finally, time for some well-deserved upgrades. Get as many of the
movement powers as you can afford, because once you’ve got all of them
you can access a whole mess of EP from events. Buy Diveroll. BUY
DIVEROLL. This is perhaps the single most important power for Hard mode
in the entire game, and it costs 100 EP. That’s basically for free.
Make sure you also buy the first Critical Mass power because that’s
going to be vital, and Adrenaline Surge, because the number of time it
will save you in Hard is ridiculous. Maybe shield, if you like that
sort of thing, but I never used it.
You get your first event unlocks too, but you don’t have the speed for
the movement. Speaking of health, go get some. Make sure you’re full
before you start missions, because you may not always have the chance
once it starts. Once you’ve done what you want, go to the gold marker
and start the mission.
Now cruise over to Gentek and find the soldier on the rooftop. Consume
him, evade the alert you’ve set off before the Helicopter smacks you
down, change disguise, and come back. Now make sure you watch those
viral detectors, because they work about twice as fast on Hard, but as
long as you wait for the base commander to leave their area of
detection you should be able to consume him fine. Enter the base, watch
the cutscene, and brace yourself for the sheer rage of fighting Hunters
of Hard.
Run. Just run. Even if you could kill these Hunters you’d die long
before, since you have to real powers and hardly any health. In fact,
until you pick up the Hunter Dirtnap power and later the Blade, they
will be incredibly hard to kill. Get to the base where you can start to
fight them.
Now this is where it gets tricky. You’re in an enclosed space and these
Hunters can kill you in a single barrage attack if you didn’t buy
Adrenaline Surge, so you need to be all movement, all the time. Consume
your way to health, since the military is smart enough to recognise the
Hunters as the real threat and go for them. There’s only one at first
and it’s easy to avoid if you keep jumping and airdashing, so try and
create a big enough gap that you can grab a Missile Launcher to take it
out. It’ll take at least two full loads of missiles to kill it, and
just as you do, more show up, two this time. Oh goody. But you have
claws now! A pity they’re useless against them  Do the same, but this
time keep moving faster and try to grab the Missile Launchers from the
military on the rooftops since you have a few seconds more to do it.
Focus fire on one to kill it and it’ll make it much easier to finish
the job.
Now when you do, there’ll be EVEN MORE Hunters, fie this time. It’s
about now you’ll realise why the call it Hard mode, because if you stop
jumping and hiking across the room like a housefly on speed you’ll get
the crap beaten out of you. Eventually you’ll make enough space to grab
another Missile Launcher, and try to aim for the one the constantly-
respawning military hurt the most. Kill one, and you’ll get prompted to
hit the Fuel Tanks, because EVEN MORE HUNTERS are running in. This is
insane. You won’t see this many Hunters in one place again until the
Bloodtox Pumper fight. Keep running, keep grabbing Missile Launchers
whenever you can, and hope there were plenty because the military stops
respawning. The tanks aren’t any harder to kill, as long as you only
fire in the air when you don’t anchor yourself, because with this many
hunters anchoring means death. Hopefully you won’t run out of missiles,
but if you do jump kick the tanks. Once they all explode the Hunters
die and you’re FINALLY done. That was a real challenge, took forever,
and it was one of the easiest set-piece battles you’ll fight in the
entire game. Like I said, when they called it Hard they weren’t
kidding.
--------------------------
THE WHEELS OF CHANCE-(M04)
--------------------------
Stealth consume. Finally. This is not an optional power, literally, but
you’d take it if it wasn’t because more than a few times in the game
you will badly need health and not be able to survive an alert, plus
even when you normal consume Civilian Infected it sometimes sets off
alerts. Sprinting grab is similarly not optional because if you need
health in a fight you can’t afford to stop.
Cruise over to Dana’s safehouse, start the mission, and head over to
Karen Parker’s place, with a scenic overlook of a Hive. Watch those
Hunters, they hurt as much outside the story as in. Once you’re done
you’ll be needing to consume a soldier, so move before the Hunters get
to him. Consume, preferably stealth, and head to the base it indicates.
You should know plenty about base infiltrations by now, but basically
sneak in, stealth consume commander, enter base, stealth consume
targets, and try not to do anything stupid like a Tendril Barrage
Devastator, because being trapped inside with a whole mess of military
is not conducive to your continued survival. Drive the APC through the
gate and over to the Hive, and watch in awe as you realise just how
idiotically tough the things are. Watch out for Hunters since they can
munch your armour, but there shouldn’t be more than one as it’s usually
occupied. Get on the marker to let Karen in and drive off, trying NOT
to hit the military, as they get alerted a whole lot faster on Hard,
and they have more than enough firepower to take you apart and cost you
the mission. Get there, and done. Too easy.
------------------
A NEW ORDER-(M05)
-----------------
More upgrades. Sprint and Jump are not optional, since you need all the
speed you can possibly get for survival. You can now get all but two of
the Landmarks and all of the Hints, so go get all of them if you want
the achievement, or even if you don’t. The extra few million EP will be
necessary to buy the upgrades you’ll need. For reference, the Landmarks
you can’t get are the one under the Brooklyn Bridge, and the one in
Times Square on the tallest lightning rod. Do the events you care to
do, and start the mission.
And Karen wants genetic material, which means we’re hunting the
hunters. Lovely. Go to the marker then towards the indicated tower, but
the giant flying circle of crows should make it pretty obvious anyway.
Engage these FROM A DISTANCE. For now, you almost don’t have the damage
to kill them up close before they hatch, so grab rooftop junk and hurl
it. If you’re lucky enough to find someone with a Missile Launcher
stealth consume him and borrow it. When it goes down run over and
collect the yellow orbs. Four towers later and you’re done.
Now to get it from a hive. Unfortunately, for some reason it’s not good
enough to let it explode and collect the small shower of genetic
material that rains out, no. We have to protect the damned thing. It
isn’t tougher than on Normal, because its extra durability is negated
by the military’s extra damage. Hijack APCs (in disguise so you raise
no alert) and get out, because when they explode they respawn soon, and
focus on collecting the material that comes out. If you stay disguised
this is a cakewalk. If you lose it, it gets a whole lot harder,
especially if you didn’t eliminate the two APCs, who can smack you down
something fierce since on Hard they have no qualms whatsoever about
using their high-damage missiles. Helicopters are even more damaging
but they don’t use their rockets or missiles on the Hive, and have a
tendency to kill themselves, so they’re no concern until you are
detected, a which point they are a very considerable concern indeed. If
you’re caught run like hell and change before coming back. Eventually,
you’ll be done, and you can leave.
---------------------
OPEN CONSPIRACY-(M06)
---------------------
Go do some events, get some EP, upgrade what you like. You’ll need it,
because you’re about to start seeing UAVs, so named for the
inarticulate sounds of rage you’ll make when they come from nowhere to
raise an alert while you’re in the midst of a horde in military and get
you killed.
Hit the marker, talk to Dana, leave, and go to the base. You’ll need to
sneak inside, so standard drill. In, stealth consume, out. You now need
to take down a whole mess of patrols, so do whatever you can to hijack
an APC. The missiles make it much easier, although you’ll still have to
change it frequently. Get behind them and blast away, so you get an
extra second of firing while they traverse turrets. Apparently if you
take too long a timer appears for losing, but I’ve never even seen it.
There’s really no reason this should take long, even on Hard. Finish
all the patrols and you’re done. Just don’t try to sneak up on the
patrols because those damned UAVs will ALWAYS spot you first. You can
kill them from a distance with thrown crap to make it easy to run and
change, if you really want to avoid confrontation. Interestingly, you
don’t actually have to kill the UAVs to defeat a patrol.
----------------
IN THE WEB-(M07)
----------------
Events and upgrades, as always. Buy nice things.
Hit the mission marker, and try not to smirk at what Mercer thinks. He
hasn’t played this game before. You’ve got to smash a viral detector.
Hammerfist elbow drop followed up by some smashing works. You can kill
the Blackwatch guarding them, but you don’t have to, and usually you
won’t want to because you’ll be running before they call in a Strike
Team.
Go smash the next one they mark in the same way, and then smash all of
them. Unfortunately you don’t know how to sabotage them yet, so no
sneaky routes available. Once they all go down and you successfully
flee, cutscene.
-----------------------
THE ALTERED WORLD-(MO8)
-----------------------
Once you’ve done what you need, start the mission. Run over to the
Hive, and consume the Commander, preferably by stealth. Now, go
sabotage the Detectors, something you know how to do by now. McMullen
shows just in time for the Hive to begin raining gribblies, and he
elects to run, but not before telling everyone who you are. Fight, or
run (PROTIP: RUN), to end the mission.
----------------
ERRAND BOY-(M09)
----------------
Buy the Whipfist and the Y attack. DO IT. Even if you need to do events
or get landmarks or even kills Hives for it. You NEED it. Also,
anything else you think can help you survive, because you’ll damned
well need them. Try to grab an Assault Rifle on the way
Once that’s out of the way, roll over, and start the mission. Cruise
off to the Hive, and hit the marker to jump inside. You’ll spend a
minute or so gathering genetic material, in fact, exactly enough to get
you to full health, and not by coincidence, because Cross drops in for
a visit at that exact moment.
This is where things get hard. Cross was irksome on Normal, on Hard,
he’s a beast. He takes very little damage from anything and his every
attack hurts something fierce. Instead of having his shockrod out some
of the time, he now has it out pretty much every single second he isn’t
actually shooting, and speaking of shooting, now does so with more
accuracy, more frequency, and a hell of a lot more damage. Getting hit
by even one grenade hurts pretty bad, and if you take the whole set
watch your health bar disappear.
This is where the Hard boss strategy comes in. Run. Jump. Don’t stop
running and jumping until he starts shooting, and even then, only as
long as it takes to let off a Whipfist Y attack. If you see him start
the attack it’s okay to charge it, otherwise, don’t, because he has
that shockrod out pretty much the instant he stops shooting and if you
Whipfist him then you get zapped for a fat chunk of health. Take him
down slowly with the Whipfist, and at all costs don’t take damage,
because until you get him weakened, you have no way to regain health.
Above all never go next to him or he’ll have that shockrod out and
beating you down before you can even diveroll away, and it does massive
damage. Once you’ve got him down to 75% health he pulls out, just as a
wave of infected come in. If you were smart enough to pick up a Rifle
you can shoot him for a little damage even with the spark on him, but
one hit and you drop it. You can try throwing stuff at him, but there’s
not nearly enough to throw, and he actually diverolls away from it
FINALLY. Consume to heal and as fast as you can, because he only waits
about ten-fifteen seconds before dropping back down. Then ignore them
because in the time it takes to consume one he’ll do the damage of
four. He’ll kill them in the crossfire and you can grab their health
for a little gain. Continue with the Whipfisting until he gets down to
about 25-30% health, at which point he calls in an entire Blackwatch
squad. You need to kill these guys FAST because if you don’t they will
eat away at your health unsustainably fast to the point you cannot
physically beat Cross before you die. If you were smart you saved
yourself enough health for a Devastator to take them all at once. If
not, Whipfist them while moving. TAKE THE MISSILE LAUNCHER BLACKWATCH
OUT FIRST. They can hit you while moving for big damage, and while you
recover, Cross will hit you with all three shots for a whole lot more.
When they’re all down, get back to hitting Cross. What I wouldn’t have
given for Aerial Critical Pain in this fight. Same strategy, run, jump,
and Whipfist as he shoots. Don’t bother picking up the Missile
Launchers off the ground, because it takes so long he’ll hit you, do a
heap of damage, and you’ll drop the damned thing. The exception is if
one ends up in that one corner out of his LoS. Eventually you’ll knock
him down to about 10% health and the fight’s FINALLY over. Watch the
cutscene, and prepare for the nightmare of Hard mode without powers.
If you used this strategy the fight took an age but only took a reset
or two at most. If you tried to beat him by fighting him, you’ve
probably had a rage-induced aneurysm and are reading this in hospital.
Now run. Don’t fight, you’ll get hammered. Get away, and you end the
mission.
-----------------
CONFESSIONS-(M10)
-----------------
An extremely easy mission to make up for the Cross fight. Show up at
Dana’s once you’ve bought what you want for a chat and for a mission
that literally completes itself. What a waste of a heading.
---------------------
UNDER THE KNIFE-(M11)
---------------------
It’s cancer. Or at least what cancer wants to be when it grows up. I’m
pretty sure a doctor would be somewhat concerned that your cancer was
glowing red and moving, but they’d probably be concerned about your
ability to punch a hole through a man’s chest and absorb his dying body
too. Time to go see the good doctor.
After the cutscene go to the marker, hijack a tank IN DISGUISE. You
REALLY don’t want to set off unnecessary alerts here, because you have
no powers and those tanks are incredibly dangerous. They will also
shoot you off of other tanks you try to hijack. They’ll direct you to
Captain Lim’s command, where you’ll have a hell of a fight. It would be
damned hard had you not just come down from an even harder fight.
Hijack a tank in disguise, take out the Helicopter first since it only
takes one shot to kill, then go for the tanks. You’ll keep getting
blown out of tanks, so keep moving and hope to hell you hijack
successfully. You’d better be mashing Y like the index finger of the
North Star. Always keep driving in circles so the tanks can’t hit you,
and kill the Helicopters, which can. WATCH THOSE DAMNED HUNTERS. Not
only do they rip through your tank, but they knock it about so you
can’t get a fix on anything that isn’t directly above you. Eventually
you destroy so much heavy armour that Lim decides the only way to save
the day is in his tinpot APC, so jump out and hijack it to consume him
before the Hunters blow it up, and watch your cutscene.
---------------------
THE STOLEN BODY-(M12)
---------------------
First, buy Hunter Dirtnap. It’s useful for the entire game, but
imperative now. Roll over to Ragland, who for some reason doesn’t want
to walk around outside with paranoid Marines, psychotic Blackwatch, and
murderous Infected everywhere. Baby. Get into a military disguise AFTER
you’re away from the military at the door, and grab a tank. Problem is,
every one of the stupid things has another tank nearby and a UAV on
overwatch, and you can’t get in the tank without setting off an alert.
Ignore the UAV, drop into the tank, take it over, and blow up the one
in front of you. Drive over to Ragland QUICKLY before the Strike Team
takes your tank out, because getting him in automatically evades the
alert.
Now trundle on over to the indicated base, smushing anything in your
way beneath your tracks. You may kill some civilians, but I think of it
this way. If it’s not smart enough to hear an eighty-tonne steel
behemoth charging down the road and decide HEY I’D BETTER GET OUT OF
THE WAY OF THE GRINDING DEATH MACHINE it’s Infected. Try not to hit
military or you’ll set off an alert. Get to the abandoned base and
Ragland gets out.
Brace yourself for a pretty tricky time keeping the Infected away.
Before they come, grab two or three Missile Launchers and drop them in
front of the glass wall for easy access later. The guns, unupgraded as
they are, kill too slowly, so don’t bother. It turns out the fastest
way to kill the Infected is to consume them, as it’s a one-hit kill and
also sometimes and AoE knockdown. It also keeps your health nice. Soon
a hunter comes, so grad a Missile Launcher, and jump around while
firing. That keeps its attention, which is critical because they do
silly amounts of damage to the glass, and kills any Evolved Infected
near it. Ignore the Evolved Infected until the Hunter dies, then run
quickly over and resume consuming them before they do too much damage
to the wall. Then, two Hunters. Grab the other Missile Launcher you
stashed and fire away while jumping. Try to hit both on the first shot,
because that gets and holds both their attention, and if you let one
attack the wall while you kill the other it’ll usually break it. Take
out one, grab another Missile Launcher, and finish the other. When you
run out, go to the standby. Use Hunter Dirtnap, B to grab and B to
throw, hit it three times on the ground, then Diveroll away before it
hits you with the recovery attack.
When it dies you hopefully haven’t already lost, so finish consuming
the Evolved Infected and finish off the last handful that come out. You
only need to hold out for four minutes so you could technically not
have to kill the Hunters but it’s much safer to kill them as they don’t
actually respawn, just the Evolved Infected. You may have to hit the
checkpoint a few times on this one until you get decent at crowd
control. Pity you lost the Whipfist. When time’s up finish the
stragglers and leave.
OH GOOD, Hydras. Wonderful. Drive past them without stopping or even
slowing. Their throw attack is slow, but up close they slam you damned
hard and usually one-shot your tank. Keep moving, ignore them, and get
Ragland back to the morgue.
---------------------------
BIOLOGICAL IMPERATIVE-(M13)
---------------------------
Do the events and grab some upgrades if you want, or just start the
mission right off.
You’ve got to find a hunter and inject it with cancer, which is
obviously the best cure for cancer. This, naturally, requires a
helicopter. Get in your military disguise, and consume the nearby
pilot. Now you can pilot Helicopters, so you can get the last two
Landmarks, especially that stupid one under the Brooklyn Bridge.
Go find a suitable Tower by flying in a straight line until you get the
peak response, then going left or right, whichever increases its
strength, and you’ll find it. Then target, scan, and blow the Hunter
away with the rockets when it comes out. Hop out and grab it to apply
the injector, then it runs. Follow it, and when you can kill it, use
the standard grapple throw, hit three times, diveroll, repeat strategy
to beat it then consume it.
You somehow not just cure your glowing cancer but turn it into the
mediocre Armour and the godlike Blade. YES. The armour’s no use since
you can’t diveroll in it and it doesn’t prevent as much damage as being
fast, but the Blade is the best weapon you get.
--------------------------
THE DOOR IN THE WALL-(M14)
--------------------------
Buy the Longshot Grab this is singlehandedly the most utilitarian power
you have because it turns skyjacking Helicopters from nightmarish to
easy. Unfortunately Helicopters are now frail against military since
they die in one missile hit, but they’re still unstoppable killing
machines until they go down. Also, get Palm Slam so you can buy Air
Critical Pain, which is a brilliant move. Don’t buy ground Critical
Pain since Air is less than half the price and you use it against
bosses where you can only use it in the air anyway. Anything else is up
to you.
Now cruise over to Dana’s place and start the mission.
OH NO HE LE DIDN’T. YOU MAY BE A PSEUDOVIRAL AGGLOMERATION OF MUTAGENIC
BIOMASS WITH DELUSIONS OF HUMANITY BUT YOU DAMN WELL KNOW THEY CAN’T
PULL THAT WITH YOUR SISTER.
Chase the Leader Hunter down, but don’t bother attacking since it just
alerts the military and makes this harder. Eventually you catch up, but
it calls in five Hunter buddies. Here you can see that even in Hard
Blade still rocks the house. Dirtnap them, then hit them three times
with the Blade, and Airhike off to avoid the recovery attack.
Now fight the Leader Hunter, but don’t go too hard. Soon you get hit
and it gets away. You get a cutscene, with what could well be the
creepiest smirk in gaming.
---------------------------
FIRST AND LAST THINGS-(M15)
---------------------------
Kill some chumps for catharsis, then go to the marker to talk to
Ragland. He sends you after another Leader Hunter, so follow the
marker. Easiest if you stay in military disguise and hijack a tank, but
NOT a Helicopter because that always triggers an alert and it’s easier
to beat the Leader Hunter if the military shoots him and not you. Pound
him in the tank while moving so it can’t kill your tank. Get him to
consumption point and do it, but fail, and get a damned creepy line.
This game just loves to remind you that Mercer is a psychotic
sociopathic monster every so often.
You’ve got to chase the Leader Hunter, so try to do it in military
disguise. Catch up with him at the end, and he spawns a whole heap of
Hunters on you. Whip out the Blade or get in a tank and get to work.
When they’re done you’ve got to draw the Leader Hunter’s attention,
which is easiest in a tank. Drive at full speed towards the objective
and shoot it every so often to maintain its attention. If you don’t
have a tank do the same with the Whipfist Y shot or even an Assault
Rifle. Eventually you get to the right spot and go inside.
Now that you’re in the base you finally get to beat the snot out of
this Leader Hunter. Proceed to do so, using liberal applications of
Critical Pain, which causes exactly what it says on the box, and is
just about the only attack in the game that does real damage to bosses.
Eventually you knock him around enough, he falls over, and you leave to
get Ragland.
-----------------------
THE FIRST MONSTER-(M16)
-----------------------
More events, and get some upgrades with them. Musclemass in particular
is handy soon. When you’re done, roll over to Ragland’s to start the
mission.
Luckily, you end up at the base right off the bat, so roll in, hit the
Leader Hunter who’s on nearly no health, consume, and watch a pretty
accurate simulation of watching a horror movie while on a bad LSD trip.
You’ve now got Infected Vision of a limited sort, so roll over to the
military base in a military disguise and stealth consume the glowy
ones. There are four outside so you only need one other, so no need to
break your disguise. Just don’t take too long or the counter goes back
down.
Now you know where the Leader Hunter who so desperately deserves a
beating is hiding. “Too bad for him” indeed. Roll over there and beat
him like the other one but angrier, then consume the jerk. Let this be
a warning: screw with Mercer and he’ll beat the crap out of you then
eat you.
-----------------------
MAKING THE FUTURE-(M17)
-----------------------
Do what you need, then roll over to the ludicrously potent Thermobaric
tank is a military disguise, and take over one of the escort tanks.
Cruise in convoy with it. You’ll need to kill a heap of Hunters on the
way, so do so, but try not to hit it or you’ll damage it. Be slightly
in front of it and you can hit the Hunters to draw their attention, but
make sure you keep moving so they don’t blow up your tank. It’s
somewhat important you have one since it makes this much easier. You’ll
get to a Hive, they’ll want you to clear out the hostiles, and it’ll
fall to the tanks instead of the betreaded explosion factory. Stay
ahead a ways of the Thermobaric tank to keep the Hunters’ attention on
yourself, and keep moving to stay alive, but if the Thermobaric tank
gets attacked by a few Hunters what works is to drive in a tight circle
around it to ram them away so it stays safe and you can hit them.
Eventually it’s done, and you see the insane power of the thing.
Checkpoint, and do whatever you can to be inside a tank when it comes.
This is because if you were in the one tank you’ll be on low health and
nearly out of ammo for the main gun, but if you restore the checkpoint
both are restored to full, which is very handy. It’s possible to win
without the main gun because I did that, but it was pretty stupid.
Also, DON’T KILL THE MILITARY. You do NOT want an alert on this stage.
You need all of them alive and shooting at the enemy instead of killing
your tank, because this is hard enough as it is.
Escort the Thermobaric tank to the next target in the same way, busting
Hunters and saving it, and it blows that one up too when you’re clear.
One last Hive in the same way, remembering to be in a tank at the
checkpoint for reload and repair. If you got the hang of it it’s not
hard by now, but you shouldn’t be surprised to have to hit checkpoints
more than a few times on the way.  Once this Hive’s clear the
Thermobaric tank rolls up, and... gets taken out. Why didn’t that
happen earlier?
Get in the Thermobaric tank, ignore that the name sounds like a medical
device, and enjoy your reward for a frustrating mission: godlike power
at your fingertips. The thing fires faster than the tank’s main gun and
kills EVERYTHING like it wasn’t even there. At this stage the only risk
is that you go utterly mad with power and run around outside yelling
BOOM at everything and wondering why an entire city block isn’t
instantly leveled. A good guideline for using the Thermobaric tank is
that if you can see through the smoke haze created by your apocalyptic
rampage it is NOT GOOD ENOUGH. Make your way to the main Hive, blowing
hell out of everything you see, and then shoot it, blowing it open in
one shot.
-------------------------------
DEFEAT THE SUPREME HUNTER-(M18)
-------------------------------
Watch the cutscene, and realise that Ragland is not a very good doctor.
Normally when a doctor says something will cure a disease it does not
cause that disease to vomit out gigantic hulking killing machines. How
the hell Greene fitted that thing in her is beyond me. She’s got a
clown car stomach or something. Perhaps you should have questioned his
qualifications when he suggested you kill a virus with cancer.
Brace yourself for a hard fight. Except you can’t brace yourself,
you’re right into it. Good thing you bought Critical Pain. Drop as much
of that as you have Critical Mass on him, stun him, jump on his back
with grapple, and give his head some friendly punching. It looks
particularly savage with the Blade on.
He’ll throw you off and the real fight begins. Infected from
everywhere, including Hydras and Hunters. The only real way to fight
him on Hard Mode is to run all the time, as you’re used to, because his
attacks deal preposterously huge damage. Stay in the air as often as
possible because Airhike is the only way that seems to work to actually
evade his massive-damage thrown objects. You can use the Whipfist
method, which is ridiculously slow and dangerous given his damage
potential over time, Musclemass throws which is a little faster, or the
fastest method of Critical Pain spam, insofar as attacking once a
minute or so can be deemed attack spam.
My method of Critical Pain spam is simple. Run around on the floor and
sprinting grab at anything you see, Infected or Blackwatch. Don’t worry
about alerts, the military realises killing the giant killing machine
is more important than the small killing machine. When you’ve got one,
jump right up into the wall until you land on some, because that’s the
best way to avoid the Supreme Hunter’s attacks while you consume them.
Once you’ve gotten Critical Mass, jump into the air and use Air
Critical Pain on the Supreme Hunter. It works.
After you get it to about 66% health the military shows up with tanks
and Blackwatch. Be grateful to see them because they really do help
here, by doing a little damage and drawing a little attention, and you
want all the help you can possibly get. If you can get into a military
disguise without risking getting hit, which should be possible every so
often, get into a tank if one’s available, and drive in circles while
shooting the Supreme Hunter. It does a little damage and dies soon, but
it’s a little faster than Critical Pain spam. The tanks respawn every
so often, so don’t worry about them. You could pick up Missile
Launchers from the dead Blackwatch, but that’s usually not worth the
risk for how little damage it does.
This fight is incredibly hard. It just takes so much to kill the guy,
and you have to be constantly on your toes to survive. It is, in fact,
the second hardest fight in the game. The harder fight is, of course,
this exact same fight with event less support and a stupid timer.
Eventually, likely after a reset or two even with this extremely safe
method, the Supreme Hunter will FINALLY DIE. TAKE THAT STUMPY NOHANDS.
You find Dana, who somehow managed to survive that insane fight without
even a scratch and is thus obviously even harder to kill than you, and
get her to Ragland, who despite his previous shenanigans, is the only
doctor you know who won’t turn her in. End mission.
-------------------
MEN LIKE GODS-(M19)
-------------------
AND NOW WE GET AIR SLICE. FFFFFFFFFFF.
Buy it anyway, and all the other delicious upgrades you can that just
became available. Do some events for the EP. Make sure you get the Air
Slice power because it is critical to just about everything you do from
now on at some point. When you’re done roll over to the phone booth for
a call.
So you’re infiltrating the Blackwatch. Easy. Get into a military
disguise, scale the building, eat someone, and GET TO DA CHOPPA. Take
off, and get ready for an interesting mission of helping the military
for once. Go blow up a hive, easy enough, then kill the targets, even
easier. Land the Blackhawk and drop off some Blackwatch, then cruise
over to the next objective and land before WOAH. Take off before the
Hydras one-shot you with their slam attack, and shoot them. They go
underground when you damage them enough to be a nuisance, but pose no
threat as long as you stay high blow up the things they throw at you.
Yes, you can, if you target them. When they’re all dead pick up the
Blackwatch unit and move out.
You come to a new waypoint and blow up some more hydras before picking
up more Blackwatch. Grab them, get a special briefing request, and roll
on over to the waypoint to stop them sending angry messages at you. You
have to get in without compromising your disguise, which is pretty easy
given the only way to do that is ram a tank or something stupid like
that. Go inside, get poisoned, and get ready for a fight. Deploy your
Blade right off, jump, and fully charged Air Slice the Bloodtox sprayer
to kill it quick. Then, consume the Blackwatch to recover health, and
wait for a Supersoldier. These guys are very tough, fast, work like
UAVs, and do huge damage if you let them get close to you. They’re
basically Hunters but better.  Drop a Tendril Barrage Devastator first
off to clear out the horde of Blackwatch with powerful weapons, then
charged Air Slice the guy while staying out of his attack range and he
goes down easy. Don’t go toe-to-toe with them or you’ll get beaten
pretty fast. Nothing happens until you finish the Blackwatch regulars,
so consume them for health. More come in, four I think, so keep Air
Slicing and they all fall down. You appear outside, so run from the
several hundred military to end the mission. A nice easy one after the
hell of the last one.
---------------------------
A DREAM OF ARMAGEDDON-(M20)
---------------------------
Grab upgrades and do missions, because soon you’ll have a very tricky
one. You will absolutely need Air Groundspike Graveyard for it. Once
you’re done, go to the Contact’s booth and pick up the phone.
You’ll have to break a whole bunch of Bloodtox sprayers. You can do
that on the ground if you’re utterly mad. The possibility exists you’ll
survive the Bloodtox and the Supersoldiers long enough to live. If
you’re sane, the slow method is to use a Helicopter, since every time
you get one you’ll be blown out of the sky by Blackwatch with missile
Launchers. Faster is to use the Air Slice from a height, fully charged,
which oneshots the sprayers just fine, then run from the Blackwatch and
Supersoldiers. Repeat until they all go down. Too easy.
------------------------
THE WORLD SET FREE-(M21)
------------------------
Grab all the upgrades you can, since you’ll want them all. Talk to the
Contact, who sends you to the Bloodtox factory, where you have to
consume a commander. The easiest way is to get in a military disguise,
and avoid the countless Supersoldiers and Bloodtox sprayers on all the
walls by avoiding the walls altogether. Drop on the other side of the
pump from the commander, go around, and stealth consume him. Move to
the waypoint at get the show on the road. MAKE SURE YOU GET IN A TANK.
The Helicopter cannot physically protect the Bloodtox pump and poses
too much of a risk to its survival.
Now enjoy the fun of escorting the Bloodtox pump to Times Square. It’s
usually easy since the Hydras that pop up while it moves can’t even hit
it. In Central Park the thing stops and gets attacked by Hydras, so
blow them up, and protect the pump by physically moving your tank
between them and it to take the cars. As long as your tank survives it
will be restored to full if you restart from a checkpoint, but the pump
will never regain more than half health. Once they die keep moving and
get ambushed just up ahead by four of them in clear sight. Again, block
the cars with your tank, and take out the Hydras fast as you can,
because the can throw some cars over your tank. Unless you did a bad
job earlier, it should have more than enough health to take the hits.
Then, it rolls into Times Square by itself, and you’re done, with the
briefest taste of what the next bit’s going to be like.
--------------------
THINGS TO COME-(M22)
--------------------
Do all the events and get all the upgrades you can, ESPECIALLY armour
control. This next mission is very hard and the one just after is
nearly as bad. START ON FULL HEALTH OR YOU WILL REGRET IT.
When you’re ready, get in the marker and get the Bloodtox pump rolling.
IMMEDIATELY get into the nearby tank. That is the key to the effective
strategy. The tank has the firepower and ramming speed to win you this
with ease if you use it right. You’ve got like two minutes to get in it
and drive it back into the place which his more than necessary. Try not
to raise an alert yet or this mission will be nightmare mode.
SUDDENLY, HUNTERS. DOZENS OF THEM.
Okay, not dozens. About five at once, jumping the wall. Hit them as
they come over, and start driving away. You need to keep your tank
alive almost as much as the pump. Most will chase you, so drive
backwards in wide circles around the pump. Don’t get stuck on a wall or
the tank is lost and this gets a hell of a lot harder. Shoot any Hunter
that attacks the pump if you have a clear shot to get its attention,
but don’t be like the special people who try to shoot THROUGH the
Bloodtox pump and wonder WHY IS KEEP LUSING GAIS?
They go down, five more come in. Still not hard if you’re a decent
driver. Keep shooting, keep moving. If there’s too many hitting them
pump physically ram them away, but be careful not to get stuck on them
or they’ll break you. Kill this lot for a checkpoint, and if you kept
the tank alive, you’re doing good. Hit the checkpoint to get full
health and ammo if you need to, but you probably shouldn’t. If you
aren’t handy with the tank you’ll be hitting the checkpoint just fine
by yourself.
If you lost the tank, DON’T get in a Helicopter, since not only does
jacking it raise an auto alert, but a Helicopter doesn’t have the
attention-drawing ability of the tank and so might as well not be
there. If you go down, fully charged Air Slices and hope to hell you
don’t hit the pump accidentally. Needless to say you need to keep
moving or you get smacked down by so many Hunters. KEEP THE PUMPS’
HEALTH AS HIGH AS YOU CAN. IT DOES NOT GET RESTORED AT A CHECKPOINT
LIKE BEFORE.
Now, more come. Four Hunters, easy to deal with in the same way, then
two Hunters and a Leader Hunter. FOCUS ON THE LEADER IT DOES MORE
DAMAGE THAN THE OTHER TWO COMBINED. Drive backwards in circles fast as
you can, and it won’t be able to hit you, you’ll hold its attention,
and be able to kill it pretty fast and keep the tank. Then, kill the
Hunters. Try to hit the normal Hunters so that you keep their
attention, and if they wail away at the pump you won’t lose, but it’s
not good. The next wave is another four Hunters, and then another
Leader Hunter with two Hunter buddies. Take them down the exact same
way. No checkpoint here. Jerks. If you’re any good with the tank you
kept it alive and on decent health until now. If not, well...
Now, the hard bit. Two Leader Hunters, and two Hydras. Go for the
Leader Hunters, keep both their attention, as they do much more damage
to the pump than the Hydras. Let the Blackwatch distract the Hydras,
but don’t expect them to help much. The pump will get hit for at least
10-20% of its health if you’re good, so make sure you keep it at least
that healthy Do the same backdriving gunnery that killed the last
Leader Hunters again, and take them out. During this process the tank
will die. There is nothing you can do about it. Remember only that it
did its work with supreme valour and self-sacrifice, and bow your head
to honour your fallen brother-in-arms, before getting out the Blade and
laying down a horrible vengeance on the heads of those who claimed its
life. Air Slice, fully charged, shall serve as you tool of bloody
retribution.
Now, go for the Hydras. If you have Critical Mass still (PROTIP: YOU
WON’T), use Critical Pain on the weakest and finish it off. Otherwise,
you can take the risky course of Air Slice and hope you can evade the
counter, or the safer but slower method of finding Missile Launchers
and hoping the one you aren’t killing doesn’t kill the pump before you
engage it. Once it falls, you’re done. FINALLY. If that only took you a
checkpoint or two you did good work. If you didn’t keep the tank alive
until the end it probably took five or six. Don’t relax, though. Things
just got worse.
-----------------------------
DEFEAT ELIZABETH GREENE-(M23)
-----------------------------
Oh, GOODY. Ragland obviously got his qualifications from a novelty fun
shop, because not only did his cure make Greene throw up a massive
killing machine, it turned her into... something. A city-block-sized
something with an insane amount of health and ludicrously powerful
attacks.
There are lots of ways to beat her on Normal. Most of these are too
dangerous to work on Hard. Tanks do not work, they die comically quick.
Helicopters do not work, they die even faster. I didn’t try artillery
strikes on Normal but they do no damage on Hard anyway. Direct attacks
work. They will also get you killed before you can do anything about
it. Greene is, quite simply, too dangerous to engage head-on. The rock
vomit attack will knock off half your health and interrupts every
attack you have, even Devastators. The green orbs interrupt you and do
a little damage, but hit you so many times in sequence you get hurt
something fierce. Finally, the big explosion so powerful it SLOWS TIME