Wednesday 21 March 2012

Wasteland: Little Greece

I forgot to point out that when I indulged in the graphic text violence last time, I had backed up my game prior to that, and restored to that backup afterwards.  So our heroine has not, in fact, butchered a bunch of children.  Which brings me to something probably worth mentioning if you're planning on playing this: saving the game.

The way this works is a little different to other games, and can get you into trouble if you're not aware of how it works.  The game does save when you tell it to Save, of course.  But it also saves at other times, specifically, when you use the Radio to get a promotion, and when it asks you "Enter new location?", and you say yes.  So if you want to mess around and then reload, or you do something stupid like get the "Desert Dust" disease too far from a doctor to save yourself, you might find yourself in situation where you're just going to quit the game and never reload it.  There's one nasty section later, where you find can find your entire party infected with a disease, ejected from the map, thus forcing a map change and obviously saving the game, and then placed into the river on the main map, which takes you down river, taking damage at every step.  Since you never regain hitpoints while you're diseased, and the usual method of escaping the river is to fall unconscious from damage and then wake up on the shore...  I'm guessing that was probably one part which forced countless ragequits, since it's a fair way in, and who wants to restart the game at that point?

With that out of the way, let's look at our next destination.  Quartz is ordinarily a boring little town which has little going for it besides it's comparatively friendly community.  However, recently that has changed with some new residents in town.

Let's gather a bit more information at Scott's Bar, where we gave that delightful little meal of a Visa card to our friend Head Crusher.  Wandering around doesn't yield a great deal of information, but we do manage to overhear one little bit of gossip.

"mayor and other hostages held by the gang."
So, gang problems, eh?  Hardly surprising that such a poorly defended town has fallen prey to some unpleasant types.  But that doesn't mean that they deserve their lot.  We should try to help.  Over by the jukebox, we run into some friendly types listening to some high quality music.

Reach for the sky!
Bizarrely, one of the idiots had a tattoo of some information: "GEN QUART THANA TOES".  Helpfully, we recieve a flash of insight that the general headquarters must use the password "Thanatos".  Apparently we're facing a gang who loves rocking out to hair metal while reading the Greek classics.

Elsewhere in the bar, we see various things, such as a barmaid who wanders around serving people, apparently named Ellen, and find various writings, including a strange one, "URABUTLN", and a strange old man who likes asking riddles and taking free drinks.

Same to you, buddy!
Aha!  Now the weird message makes sense.  You are a beauty, Ellen!

Or harder, depending on how you feel about sexual harassment lawsuits.
Yeah, you bet I do!  Uh, what was I supposed to do again?
On entering the hotel room we find, not Ellen wearing nothing but a smile, but her daughter Laurie.

What we're supposed to do is tell Laurie all about how we picked up her mother.
After being told of the exchange between Ellen and ourselves, Laurie gives us a big pile of saleable weapons, and tells us a few details of the gang.  Apparently, they are camped out in the Courthouse with the mayor and the other captives.  The password they use is "Muerte", an update of the "Thanatos" password used previously.

Why we're being considered as trustworthy figures just because we have the ability to flirt with some barmaid, I'm not sure.  But in this particular case, they're lucky and haven't managed to give the entire resistance (consisting of two or three people) away to the gang's leadership.

Next time, we'll tackle the Courthouse, and find out just who is behind all this naughty, Greek classic inspired behaviour.  For now, antio!

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