PixlBit

                               

Today was going to be a short round of EDF 2025 and then into Gears of War Judgment, but it ended up as an all day EDF 2025 fest. I had me a cheesesteak, fried mushrooms, and some beer too. All and all, a good day chasin' chievos and blastin' bugs.

                                

                                         Cheesestaek, fried mushrooms and da beer.

I started with my Air Raider again and got my armor up to 1000 for an achievement. I played up to level 59. At that point it was 7pm and I realized I wouldn't have time to finish all 85 levels before the night would end, so I started a Fencer class character. 

            

                      Too weak to actually fence, I had to sit back and let the rockets fly.

The Fencer class can use four weapons, using two at a time, one for each hand. You then switch back and forth between each weapon pair with the "Y" button. The Fencer is very slow but he has a jet pack that can boost him vertically or horizontially in a short burst. His weapons are: mortars, missiles, guns, shields and melee weapons like energy hammers and swords. He's supposed to be like a close combat specialist with heavy armor, and that's what he looks like, but you start at a lowly 250 armor. The achievement for armor in this class is at 1250, the highest of the four classes (Ranger and Air Raider are at 1000, and Wing Diver at 650). The achievement gives you some idea of a good armor level for each class. The Fencer needs a lot of armor because he's slow and ends up doing a lot of close combat. 

             

              These guys are big and will pull you in with their silk strands. Pains in the ASS!

I played the first level on Inferno and failed, then on Hardest and failed again. At 250 starting armor, any bug that grabs you on these harder difficulties is going to practically kill you. I beat it on Hard and then the next six levels up through level 7. Then I got stuck, nearly beating level 8 several times before I gave up and brought the difficulty down to Normal. In replaying that level over and over, I got the achievement for killing a certain number of Retariuses (giant spiders), easing my frustration. I beat level 8 on Normal and closed down for the day.

In my seven levels on Hard with the Fencer, I had picked up some pretty good weapons. I used a fast firing cannon in my left hand, a missile launcher in my right that shot six missiles at once at targets at any distance (the down side to the missile launcher is that it disables the jet-pack for vertical jumps). My second load-out was a shield and a giant energy sword. With these I could use my jet-pack's dash move. I would switch to my second load-out in order to mop up pickups after clearing an area of enemies with my first load-out.

I played mainly like a slow moving artillery piece, staying well back and launching missile after missile. With low armor like I have at this stage, it's impossible to go in with my shield and sword and think I'm going to survive.

I was a little disapointed that I only got through level 7 on Hard before moving down to Normal. I got through level 57 on Hard with my Air Raider. The thing is, Normal gives you lower power level weapons than on Hard. I'll still be adding to the number of weapons in my arsenal, closing in on 50% of all weapons achievement, but none of them will be of much use to me from here on out.

I figure I'll keep going on Normal and see how far I get. There's an achievement for completing all 85 levels on Normal, but if I have to go to Easy, I'm going to return to the beginning and try harder difficulties to gain better weapons because there's no achievement for playing on Easy (however I just realized that I could accumilate new weapons, even though they are piss poor, for my weapons total). My overall goal is to complete the game on at least Normal with all four classes. It'll take a while, but it should be possible on single player.

In thinking about this, I finally see the purpose of co-op: doing any of the end game levels on Hardest or Inferno. One player just wont cut it. There are even weapons that require the cooperation of two different classes. As a Fencer I got this missile launcher but you need an Air Raider to help guide it to its target. There's also an Air Raider weapon that gives a boost to the Wing Diver's energy levels, allowing her to reload faster and possibly stay in the air much longer. I forsee returning to co-op sometime soon.