I did a handful of more missions in GTA3 tonight, finally getting to the titular one and stealing some cars as a mission goal, not just for my own transportation. I also opened up a new weapons shop on the north end where I can now buy a rocket launcher, and did the vigilante mission to get a couple police bribe stars near my hideout. The vigilante mission is a piece of cake once you know a certain cheat-ish trick…
I should be getting close to the halfway point, according to the stats page.
I figured I’d try the GTA3 ambulance missions, since the rewards are useful (health and adrenaline pickups at the hideout, and infinite running stamina). However, after numerous attempts, screw that. The ambulance tips over way too easily, the entrance to the hospital to drop people off is really narrow, and gang members would pull me out of the ambulance, instantly ending the mission.
So, I wound up starting on the missions for the Yakuza on the new island instead, and opened up a bunch of other mission-givers. I’m sure something’s going to drive me away to the next part of the city, though…
I did more missions in GTA3, resulting in a gang war with the Triads, and finally got introduced to the big boss of the Portland area. He had a bunch of missions as well, but they ended with getting betrayed by him, and I fled to the next area on Staunton Island.
So, it was time to hunt the hidden packages again, and now I have shotgun, body armour, and molotov pickups outside my hideout. The body armour one will be particularly handy, since I know where a couple other ones are, but they’re annoying to get to.
There’s also a new side mission to steal certain car models and park them at the docks, and I already collected most of them, mainly because I kept seeing them as I was driving away from the drop-off spot. There are some that are much rarer though, or won’t show up until later. Overall, I’m at 27% completion now.
Back in Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, time gears are apparently being stolen left and right. But I don’t care, so I went grinding on regular jobs and bounties for a while. Eventually I headed off to find a ‘water float’ for a pair of kids, in a new higher-level area.
Unfortunately it might be a little too high-level; after reaching the bottom I was attacked by a boss and his seven bodyguards, and it wasn’t too long before they’d ganged up and burned through all of my revival seeds by ganging up on the weaker members of the group, sending us packing. I guess I’ll have to grind up a bit more, and come back with better party members (the Shroomish I had tagging along wasn’t being all that useful).
Update: I took another shot later on and finally beat them, met up with Dusknoir again, learned that my ability to see the past and future is called the Dimensional Scream, and learned who’s been stealing the time gears.
After a few more sets in Rock Band 2, where I also got the achievement for reaching a million fans, I’m now only 91 stars away from being able to do the Endless Setlist 2. It’ll apparently take just over six hours to go through that when I get to it, and there’s an achievement for doing it all without pausing even once. My biggest fear though would actually be whether my guitar’s batteries can even last that long in one stretch…
I did a handful of more missions in GTA3 tonight, and in one particularly amusing one, I grabbed three other guys and we did a bank heist and get away from the police in a run-down SUV with the hood constantly flapping up. It took several tries to complete that mission though, since the cars can’t take much damage and the police are constantly ramming you and spinning you out while you’re trying to get to the pay-n-spray.
Another amusing-but-frustrating mission was when I had to drive around and collect stolen pornography in a trail that snaked pretty much all over the city. At a few points it wasn’t clear which way to turn though, so if you acted too quickly and got it wrong (I forgot about the look-left and look-right keys) you pretty much had to start over as you’d lose too much time.
I’ve exhausted the missions given out by three of the guys now (Luigi, Joey, and the porn star over the phone), so there’s just this ‘T’ marker left right now. Hopefully the next part of the city will open up soon. (I’m 1/5th of the way through all of the missions, though only 11% complete, according to the stats.)
Tonight I finished off Episode 1 in Duke Nukem 3D, which was a bit shorter than expected (apparently the other episodes have a few more levels each). The level design was pretty good though, with some open areas you didn’t normally see in older games like this. The boss fight was a bit tough since it was difficult to avoid his chain guns and he had a ton of health, but was otherwise a fairly straightforward no-tricks fight.
I’m not sure if I’ll go ahead and do the other episodes anytime soon though, as I’m probably starting to spread myself a bit too thin already. I’ll probably keep them for some other time when I’m itching for a shooter.
Instead of doing more missions in GTA3 tonight, I ran around and collected as many of the hidden packages as I could. I know I’m not going for 100% completion, but the end result is really useful as it spawns more and more weapons at your hideout as you collect more of them (currently only the pistol, Uzi, and grenades).
There are two in the Portland area I couldn’t get though, since I have to open up other areas of the city first.
Back in Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: EoT, we set off on an expedition to look for Fogbound Lake, requiring passing through a handful of dungeons that weren’t too tough. We eventually found it on the top of some plateau, but had to fight a boss there. Fortunately, with my Smokescreen skill, he hardly hit us at all and was fairly easy to beat.
It turned out that the real protector of the lake and the time gear there didn’t know anything about my amnesia though, so that remains a mystery. So, it was back to the guild and regular job hunting. Some famous explorer called Dusknoir has shown up and will obviously be important, though.