BETRAYED ... or Stealth Games that Don't Allow Stealth in Boss Fights - by Digital Nightfall
june gloom on 3/8/2008 at 22:28
3 on easy, 6 on normal, 12 on hard, 20 on extreme, and European extreme- all with the ability to kill you instantly on that difficulty level. (The remaining RAYs are used in the plot as opposed to a boss fight)
The fight really isn't that hard if you know what to do and you don't fuck around- it's just very, very long. As long as you don't make any mistakes you will not have a problem.
A few things to remember:
Don't bother with chaff grenades like with REX in MGS to avoid rockets, instead just cartwheel. It might take a couple tries but you'll eventually get the timing down. When it comes to bullets, there's no real way to get completely out of the line of fire, so what you want to do is make sure those bullets are hitting the ground at your feet so you cartwheel over them. Any closer to RAY and you'll likely get hit due to the angle. Remember to keep your distance and try to stay close to the ammo when you start getting low. The head is the weak point, but you can not only do a lot of damage but also impair the RAY's ability to attack you by hitting it in the knee first- this stuns the RAY and it will open its mouth. Do this about 3 or 4 times and it'll limp off. I like to hit each RAY in turn so that when I strike the final blows, they all limp off one after another, giving me a few seconds to regroup. Chaff grenades do, however, screw with the RAYs so a good way to score a cheap shot is to toss one when a RAY is in the center of the arena, get close, let him try and waterjet you, sidestep it and give him a good one in the mouth.
Tej on 4/8/2008 at 06:25
Am I the only one who found stealth gameplay in the NOLF2 downright frustrating? Yes, you could sneak Thief-like, you could take a non-lethal course where sneaking past the guards was not an option. However, what good did it do knocking out an enemy and dragging the body in the shadow, if, by the time I could deal with the third guy, the first one would wake up and alert everyone else in the area? Maybe I was doing something wrong, but I tend to take the sneaking games patiently and slowly. The game basically punished this type of gameplay, and it hurt having to kill those characters I had just minutes ago listened to in the conversation about their mothers and family.
I liked the game all-in-all, and would recommend it to those who haven't played it yet, but while the stealth is there, playing it non-lethal way is not really too much an option.
As for other games that betray the stealth in end-game boss fights, Arx Fatalis comes to mind. Not that I have tried sneaking through the game, but I don't see how a sneakster would prevail in that fight.
Yakoob on 4/8/2008 at 07:42
Quote Posted by Tej
As for other games that betray the stealth in end-game boss fights, Arx Fatalis comes to mind. Not that I have tried sneaking through the game, but I don't see how a sneakster would prevail in that fight.
I was a sneakster. I survived thanks to two things:
1) also being a mage and thus keeping myself speeded-up
2) having around 30 health potions
3) MEGA-MOVIS. click click click click click click *health potion hotkey* click click click click click *health potion hotkey* click click click click... you get the idea.