GameSpot may receive revenue from affiliate and advertising partnerships for sharing this content and from purchases through links.

Geist Walkthrough

Geist forces you into the role of a disembodied spirit, who's tasked with stopping a demon-infested madman from conquering the world, while also attempting to track down and reinhabit your body. GameSpot's Walkthrough to Geist will help you get through your journey in one ectoplasmic piece.

Comments

By Matthew Rorie
Design by Collin Oguro

Geist works from an interesting premise: in it, you play through most of the game as a dispossessed spirit, locked out of your body and forced to inhabit the bodies of other people, as well as animals and more than a few inanimate objects to achieve your goals. It seems that you've been disembodied by one Alexander Volks, who intends to brainwash your (brainless) spirit form to become a Spectral Operations soldier for him, which would essentially make you a nearly unkillable assassin and sleeper agent. Unfortunately for Alexander, the ghost of his dear, departed sister Gigi quickly frees you from your brainwashing chamber, allowing you to start exploring Volks' facility in an attempt to disrupt his plans and eventually recover your body.

While the game has plenty of first-person shooting action, there's also plenty of puzzle solving, as you'll have to figure out precisely how to use the environment to scare individuals enough to take over their bodies. Once you're inside a body, however, you'll also need to find out precisely how to use their particular skills and abilities to further your goals. In GameSpot's Game Guide to Geist, we'll give you a complete walkthrough for the title, including solutions to all of these important puzzles, as well as strategies and videos for all of the major boss fights. Enjoy!

Walkthrough

Note that this walkthrough isn't intended to get you a 100% log and collectibles rating; we're just going to focus on getting you through the game!

Level One: Containment

Objectives

Retrieve Viral Data
Escape to CR-2 Extraction Point

After the opening cutscene and mini-tutorials, you'll find yourself in control of John Raimi as he attempts, along with a group of government agents, to infiltrate the Volks facility in southern France to discover what the company has been up to; rumors about of chemical and biological weapons manufacturing in the plant you're infiltrating. You'll soon meet up with Thomas Bryson, an old friend of yours, who's been working undercover in the plant. After chatting for a bit, head down the nearby stairs, press A to use the microscope there, then keep pressing A to increase the magnification and eventually isolate the virus that you're looking for.

Don't forget to kneel behind obstacles if you need cover, although there should be plenty of health for you here.
Don't forget to kneel behind obstacles if you need cover, although there should be plenty of health for you here.

When you attempt to exfiltrate, though, everything will start going wrong, as things so often do. You'll be given a gun to defend yourself, but since you're more of a scientist than a soldier, you won't be very effective in combat. Your pistol is pretty handy as a sidearm, but the Volks security forces are going to be wielding assault rifles. You're kind of outmatched, but you'll still need to fire on the enemies that are coming at you if you want to advance. Take advantage of the ducking maneuver when you need to reload, or to pop up and fire a few shots before ducking back out of harm's way. Unfortunately you can't adjust your look sensitivity or lean, so this can be a difficult sequence, even for FPS vets, but there are plenty of medkits on the walls in the area, so feel free to pick one up if you happen to be dying.

Most of the enemies here will take only two bullets to kill, but you'll be able to take a sufficient amount of damage to avoid death, unless you wander into a group of enemies and let them shoot you. You just need to stay mobile and behind cover as much as possible while still proceeding forward along the path that's open to you as much as possible. In one long hallway that you come to, enemies will continue to spawn until you run forward under fire, so just rush 'em and get to the end of the hall to stop them from coming at you.

Eventually you'll come to a locked door. When you talk to the soldier outside the doorway, you'll get the all clear to move on, which will end the first part of the level.

Boss Fight: Creature

'Well, you sure don't look all right.'
'Well, you sure don't look all right.'

The "Creature" that appears here is going to be the first quasi-boss fight of the game, although it isn't all that difficult. It hangs from the ceiling, but is completely immobile, so feel free to run away should you need to; there are a few medpacks on the walls behind you. Anyway, what you need to do to destroy this beast is shoot it in the mouth, when it happens to open its maw. It will normally be shooting little icebolts at you from its mouth, so be sure to strafe left and right at a good distance from the beast while it's doing so, but before and after it launches a volley, its mouth should open up and allow you to blast it. You'll know when it's vulnerable when your crosshair turns red; just keep it hovering over the mouth area and it should "stick" there, even when you strafe around.

After a good dozen or so bullets to the mouth, the Creature will retract into its hole in the ceiling and let you pass on. Unfortunately, you'll soon be turned into a ghost, but since this will result in a much more interesting game than the hackneyed "scientist runs around scientific facility and learns how to fight" plotline (Half-Life, shcmalf-Life!), we'll go with it for now.

Level Two: Containment

Objectives

Escape Containment Wing

    Follow Gigi
      Learn Slip Ability
      Practice Object Possession
      Possess a Human Host

Find Entrance to Science Wing to Help Bryson

Well, now that you're a ghost, it's time to get a little ghostly tutorial. You'll "wake up" and find yourself in an idyllic little forest glade that will serve as the first part of your new powers tutorial. Follow the on-screen prompts to learn about absorbing plant energy, possessing bodies, and wandering around aimlessly.

Objective: Follow Gigi

Soon enough, you'll be freed from your electroplasmic prison by Gigi, a friendly ghost that seems intent on chaperoning your exploration of the spirit world. Follow her through the hole in the wall until you reach a storage room. If you speak to her here (she's inside a mirror on one of the walls), she'll ask you to try possessing some of the objects in the room. You can currently possess one of the arcade machines, the janitor's bucket and mop, the trapped rat, as well as a few other objects; you'll have to move your cursor around the room a bit to see everything. One of the more annoying aspects of Geist is the way that many of the objects that you can possess are so easy to miss due to the way that you have to be pointing directly at the object, but can't be too close or too far away.

Objective: Practice Object Possession

After possessing a couple of objects, Gigi will tell you to possess an explosive crate near a wall. Doing so will let you blow open the wall, without taking any damage yourself, despite your being inside the crate when it detonates. There are some useful aspects to being a ghost, after all. After the wall has been detonated, float upwards and Slip through the hole there to reach the next area.

Objective: Possess a Human Host

Next up, Gigi is going to teach you how to possess the bodies of humans. In order to do so, you'll need to frighten your target first to make them more susceptible to possession. Most humans have three levels of scaredness, indicated by the aura that surrounds them: white, which indicates that they're calm; yellow, which indicates that they're nervous; and red, which indicates that they're terrified. You can only possess humans when they're red, so you'll need to spook them a bit with environmental objects before you can take over their bodies.

Geist gives you some odd perspectives to work from.
Geist gives you some odd perspectives to work from.

To illustrate this concept, Gigi and you will have to scare the janitor near your position. She'll take over the trashcan near the snoozing man, and suggest that you possess the phone nearby, so walk over and head inside. When you're in, you can hit A to cause the phone to ring, which will wake up the janitor, causing him to come over; press A again to scare the fool. After you do so, Gigi will complete her own scare tactics, causing the janitor to go red. With that done, you can escape from the phone console and enter the body of the janitor, thus taking him over.

Your goal now is to reach the PC room. To do so, follow the path down the hall to the server room, where a bunch of scientists are working, take the stairs up to the walkways above, then find the unlocked door and pass through. The soldier here will be a little wary at your presence, but he'll let the janitor in regardless. When you're inside, dispossess the janitor, then scout around for objects with which to possess the soldier. You'll find two: a wastebasket near a set of steps, and a Containment CPU at the top of the same set of steps. You'll have to use the CPU first and destroy it to make the soldier nervous, then enter the wastebasket and scare the guard with that before you can possess him.

While controlling the soldier's body, return to the server room and talk to the scientist there, who'll unlock the computers. If you examine all three computers with the flashing file folder on their screens, you'll be issued a passcode: 9235.

Objective: Find Entrance to Science Wing to Help Bryson

With the passcode in hand, return to the top of the stairs and find the locked door there; there's a small keypad next to it, so use it, then head through the door until you reach the kennel. You can move through here if you wish, but it's worth noting that there are a couple of secrets in here. If you want to find a Host Collectible, then use the soldier to operate the flashing red light next to the far door to open the kennel doors, then walk into one of the nearby cages to pick up the object there; these unlock more multiplayer options in multiplayer play. There also happens to be a Ghost Collectible elsewhere in the room; to find it, dispossess the guard, find the hole in the wall of one of the cages, and Slip through it into a sewer, wherein you'll find the teddy bear. Ghost Collectibles offer up more spiritual enegy for your use while you're not possessing a body.

After moving on a bit, you'll come to a possession checkpoint, where the guards are using dogs to sniff out ghosts in the soldiers that are passing by. Unfortunately there doesn't appear to be any simple way to avoid this trap; if you dispossess yourself, you'll be prevented from moving on by the ectoplasmic field. It seems as though you'll just have to shoot your way past everyone. Start out by moving to the end of the hall across from the checkpoint, on the lower level of the room, then zooming out with your rifle and picking off the soldiers that you can see; you should be far enough away from them to prevent them from firing at you, and if you can get behind some cover, so much the better.

Dogs can tell you're possessed and react accordingly. Luckily there aren't many of them in the facility.
Dogs can tell you're possessed and react accordingly. Luckily there aren't many of them in the facility.

When you've cleared out the room, run through the plasma field and enter the loading dock through the next hallway. There are more guards here to kill, but many of them will helpfully take up position behind explosive crates, so feel free to shoot these instead of aiming at the soldiers themselves, as it'll make them much easier to kill. There's also another Host Collectible here, behind the large set of crates in the middle of the room. You can attempt to move forward as a ghost, or by remaining in possession of your soldier and using his rifle to kill anything that moves; both approaches should work.

Boss Fight: Cord

Eventually, you'll reach the boss fight against Cord, a tattooed soldier who's intent on stopping you before you can wreak any more havoc in the base. You won't be able to possess him, so you'll need to use the guard that you're possessing to do the dirty work.

Cord has a large shield that he carries in his left hand, and he'll usually move so that you're firing on him from that side, so damaging him with your gun can be difficult, but not impossible, especially if you manage to fire at him from his right side, or wait for him to drop his guard, which he'll do periodically. He has two primary attacks that he'll use. In the first, he'll fire bolts of yellow energy at you from his gun; these travel quickly and are thus difficult to dodge, but don't do a huge amount of damage. The second attack comes when he pulls the pin on a grenade and throws it at you; if you're near the grenade when it detonates, you'll take a severe amount of damage. So...don't get caught in the blast, then. Just keep moving throughout this fight, and try to keep the large plaque in the center of the room between you and Cord when he's firing on you.

Blowing grenades up at Cord's feet will eventually cause him to run off, ending the fight.
Blowing grenades up at Cord's feet will eventually cause him to run off, ending the fight.

In order to actually kill Cord, you can get a few good shots in here and there if you have good aim or during the periods when he drops his shield. You can do much more damage, however, if you force one of Cord's grenades to go off in his face. To do so, shoot at him while he's in the throwing animation, and he should wind up dropping the grenade on the ground; if you quickly dispossess the guard, then possess the grenade and detonate it, Cord will take a good amount of damage. You'll need to repeat this process three or four times before he takes the hint that you don't like him and runs off.

Before you follow him, though, possess the statue here and point its hand back towards the rear wall of the room, which will open up a secret passage leading to another Host Collectible. In the hallway beyond this room, note the presence of a grenade on the floor; you can possess it and roll it along the hall to blow up any soldiers you come across.

When you reach an elevator, take it down to a lower level. When it stops, you'll need to start poking around; presumably you're near the science section of the base. After meeting up with Gigi, take your soldier across the gap in this room via the tram. When you're on the far side, though, dispossess him, then jump off the ramp (with the L trigger) and float all the way down to the bottom, where there's a Ghost Collectible and a slip stream that'll take you right back up to where you were. After repossessing your host, use him to turn the crank on the large pipe near the door here, then dispossess the host and move into the slip stream that's been revealed.

Level Three: Separation

Objectives

Shut Down Spirit Separation Chamber

    Bryson Separation
      Access to the Control Room
      Stop the Separation Process

    Trigger Collapse of Demonic Rift
      Gain Access to the Reactor Room
      Initiate Shutdown Procedure

Escape Science Wing

Although there's a guard near where you begin this level, there apparently aren't enough objects around for you to possess him. Instead, you'll need to take possession of Phantom, the dog. Begin by possessing his food bowl, then scare the dog, then jump out of the cage, and then speak to the guard, who helpfully opens the door for you, even though he completely shouldn't.

At this point, you have a choice to make: if you want to stay in Phantom's body, then head out the door, but if you want to trade him in for a soldier's body, then hop up the stacked objects until you reach the ventilation shaft at the top of the room. You're actually going to reach this soldier whether you stay in Phantom or not, but if you do stay in his body, you'll have the chance to acquire a couple of Host Collectibles.

To begin with, after exiting the first room with Phantom, bark at the nearby rats to frighten them, then possess one of them and find the nearby mousehole. If you crawl along it, you'll come to a switchback; crawl backwards at the branch to find the first Host Collectible. If you then return to Phantom and take him over again, you can jump into a small ventilation shaft in the nearby room, near the pumping machinery, to find the other Host Collectible.

Now, if you want to find the soldier's room the easy way, just get caught by one of the nearby guards, which will send you back to the first room here, allowing you to jump up the stacked objects and crawl through the vents to reach him. You can also attempt to evade detection by the guards to get past them (stick to the right sides of the room and sneak by when they look to the left). This will eventually bring you to another ventilation shaft, which likewise leads to the soldier's room.

Tapping A on the control panel will allow you to control the soldier.
Tapping A on the control panel will allow you to control the soldier.

When you come to the soldier's room, via whatever method, use the ladder and fire extinguisher to scare him (in that order), then possess the control valve on the pipes in the middle of the room to put the final jolt in his system. (You'll need to tap A to get the valve's pressure gauge up into the red zone.)

When you have control of the guard, leave the room and take a right, following the signs to the Control Room. You won't be able to enter it without possessing an engineer, though, so take another right into the access corridor up the ramp and use the slipstream there to reach the botanical labs. There happens to be an engineer here, so you'll need to take control of him. To do so, first enter one of the hydraulic arms on either side of the main path and spray him with water. This will cause him to run down the path towards the laptop computer at the other end; entering that and scaring him (pop-ups are indeed terrifying; why isn't he using Firefox?) will turn his aura red, allowing you to possess him.

Unfortunately, you can't do much with him at the moment, so walk him to the end of the walkway, opposite the laptop, and dispossess yourself. There's a lift near here with a bad fuse that you'll need to replace before you can move on, but first you'll have to find a working fuse to use. The engineer will refuse to move past the hydraulic arms, though, meaning that you'll have to bring the fuse to him. It's in the area around the corner from the laptop, in the center of a trio of fuses (the other two are busted), near a red lunchbox. Wheel it around the corner and down the platform until it won't go any further, then possess the engineer and have him pick it up.

Destroying these fuel cells will shut down the hellgate for a while.
Destroying these fuel cells will shut down the hellgate for a while.

With fuse in hand, return to the lift area, open the gate on the right, then find the nearby fusebox and replace the fuse. You may have to select the box twice to put the new fuse in. When that's done, the lift will work again, allowing you to move up to the second level of this area. When you reach the green door, use the optical scanner on its right side to pass through. When you're past that door, return to the other engineer door you saw earlier and head inside; you'll finally find yourself in the Control Room.

Objective: Stop the Separation Process

After witnessing the cutscene that ensues when you enter the Control Room, leave your host and possess the laser that's firing from the observation window. You won't be able to shut it down, but you will be able to aim it manually; take out one of the blue plasma pods that are injecting material into the rift. After one of them goes out, a scientist will begin wrestling the laser, attempting to keep it on target, so you'll have to fight his influence while destroying the other three.

Objective: Gain Access to the Reactor Room

When the procedure has been halted, take control of the engineer again and head through the doorway leading to the Reactor Room. You won't be able to get much further in your current body, though, so you're going to have to wreak some havoc to move on. Begin by pressing the button on the rightmost wall to drop down the guncam, then possess it and shoot the blue soldiers nearby, as well as those that come through the doorway. With that done, drop down and possess the green soldier behind the crates.

Note that the green soldier possesses a grenade launcher for his weapon, which you can use with your Z button. It'll make short work of most enemies on the stairwell, so start heading down, and note that there's a Ghost Collectible in the middle of the stairwell, near the top.

After you've killed everyone in the stairwell, park your soldier near the door and head back to the engineer. He'll be the only one that's able to unlock the door at the bottom of the stairs. Head through and open up the case nearby to put on an environmental suit.

The grenade launcher is an awfully handy weapon.
The grenade launcher is an awfully handy weapon.

After passing through the door here, you'll come up to an engineering supervisor. He doesn't seem too concerned with the catastrophic failure of the demonic rift; instead, he wants you to weld some metal plates back together. There are three of them in all, and they act like mini-memory games; a series of rivets will flash quickly around the plate, and you'll have to rivet those holes in that specific order. The only difficult one is the third one, where the path is: middle left, upper middle, middle middle, middle right, lower left, upper right.

When all three panels have been riveted, you can pass on into the Reactor Room. Note that you can also just shoot the other engineers with your riveting gun, but it's difficult to make it through the passage without dying. Note also that there's a hidden Host Collectible in one of the lockers near the exit to the Reactor Room; you may need to finish the rest of the riveting mini-puzzles in order to unlock the door that leads to it, though.

Objective: Initiate Shutdown Procedure

When you enter the reactor room, you'll be facing off against a squad of environment-suited soldiers. Don't shoot them, though, or they'll quickly kill your host. Instead, leave the engineer and possess the valve on one of the large storage tanks near the door; with that done, you can scare most of the soldiers and then inhabit one of their bodies. They'll all have machine guns, but instead of opening fire on one of the other soldiers, fire into the air to get everyone's attention. Be sure that the engineer is off in one of the corners, preferably one that's not directly underneath one of the gun cameras, before this fight begins.

Boss Fight: Cord

Cord is back, and this time he's got friends. You're going to be facing off against Cord, four or five soldiers, and two gun turrets during this fight, so it's obviously a bit of a tall order to kill everything without dying yourself. Luckily, dying doesn't matter all that much, as you'll be able to possess all but one of the soldiers and both of the camera guns to accomplish your aim.

Begin with one of the soldiers, make sure your weapon is fully reloaded, then walk up to Cord and open fire on him at point-blank range. You'll probably die pretty quickly, but you should be able to get a bit of damage off on him. After your soldier dies, possess another soldier, but be sure your weapon is reloaded before opening fire. No one will shoot you until you fire yourself, so you should be able to do so.

After all of the soldiers are dead (except for the one that can't be possessed), get into one of the gun cameras and use it to pelt Cord with bullets. This is where most of your damage is going to come from, so be sure to take proper aim and keep firing on Cord. As the gun cameras take damage, their viewpieces will begin distorting, so you'll have a hard time actually seeing where Cord is in the room.

Hopefully, between two gun cameras and four soldiers, you'll be able to kill Cord; if not, then you may have to try possessing the engineer again and using him to finish off the boss, but if you reach that level of desperation then you're probably better off just starting the fight over. Cord drops the Reactor Room Keycard when he dies, so possess the engineer, grab it, and use it to enter the control room. There's a switch on one of the walls here; flip it to start the reactor shutdown procedure.

Objective: Escape Science Wing

After starting the shutdown procedure, dispossess yourself and head through the mesh that opened up in one of the walls nearby. When the ensuing cutscene is over, head through the slipstream at the end of the corridor to finish the level.

Level Four: Medical

Objectives

Rescue Bryson From Medical Wing

    Locate Bryson
      Gain Access To Medical Wing
      Find Bryson
    Get Bryson to Safety
      Get Key to Morgue Fridge
      Get Serum
      Give Serum to Bryson
      Escort Bryson to Elevator and Exit

Objective: Gain Access to the Medical Wing

You'll start off this level without any objectives, so just move forward along the corridor. Instead of dropping down when you come to the gap in the floor, jump across to the far side of the corridor for another Ghost Collectible. Mmm...teddy bears are delicious.

'Ah...no...I am feigning terror...I am frightened...cry....'
'Ah...no...I am feigning terror...I am frightened...cry....'

When you do drop down and jump through the slipstream, you'll come across Gigi again, who'll inform you that something terrible has happened. What precisely that thing in the cutscene was is initially unclear, but it's certainly not going to be good for you.

In order to escape from this little cave that you're in, you'll have to possess one of the bats in the area. To do so, possess the lamp that's mounted on the wall (you'll have to jump on top of the rocks to reach it), then light it and explode it. Doing so will freak out the bats, allowing you to take over one of them. To fly out of the cave, point yourself upward with the left analog stick and beat your tiny little wings.

Don't dispossess the bat right away, though; instead, fly over to the worker walking around on the machinery nearby and fly at him a couple of times. You can't fully scare him, but you can turn his aura yellow and force him to hide in a nearby cage. When he does so, dispossess the bat and possess the manhole nearby to scare the fellow completely, allowing you to take him over. Before you move through the door leading to the Medical Wing, though, possess the second manhole near it and pop the lid to reveal a slipstream leading to another Ghost Collectible.

Objective: Find Bryson

Too much botulism in the Botox, apparently.
Too much botulism in the Botox, apparently.

After passing through to the laundry room of the medical wing, feel free to poke around a bit. There's another door nearby, but a guard beyond will prevent you from moving through the corridor there, so you'll need to find another way around. To do so, speak to the soldier looking through the peephole in the laundry room, then pass through to the lady's showering facility. Mmm...ladies.

To possess the medical assistant, you'll need to freak her out by first possessing the showerhead above her. There are two ladies here; the naked one can't be frightened completely, but you can get some fan service by scaring her a little bit. The one in the towel is the one you can possess; turn on all of the shower heads around her to prompt her to move out into the hallway. When that's done, take control of the mirror near her to scare her fully. You may need to wait for her to get all the way to the make-up case before you can do so.

When you have control of the woman, go into the locker room and start looking through the lockers. You can find a customized Samus Aran helmet if you look around, as well as a Host Collectible. You won't find your clothes, though, so you'll have to head back out into the hallway, work your way around to the laundry room, and take the clothes off the rack there to suit yourself up. There's also a dead man; how nice!

This guard can't be scared, but he will helpfully share the door code with you.
This guard can't be scared, but he will helpfully share the door code with you.

When you have your attire on, head back past the locker room and down towards the medical facilities. You'll come to a fork in the path, where you can either turn left or head on straight. Going straight will take you to a pair of offices, the rightmost of which has a fire extinguisher on the wall. If you grab the extinguisher, you'll be able to put out any fires you see, as well as kill the small demons that live in these rooms. It automatically recharges, so feel free to go ahead and use it as much as you like. If you put out the fires in both of the offices, then check the computers, you'll be able to read the notes on the monitors. One reads: "The Morgue Key is kept in the secure area in the waiting room of the ICU." Hmm...

With the fire extinguisher at the ready, return to the branch and head out into the large, decrepit courtyard area. There isn't much to see here, but you can pass through the fire in the right hallway to reach the morgue. There are Host Collectibles in an open room here, and in the refrigerator in the morgue itself, as well as a locked door. Beyond that there isn't much to see, so return to the courtyard and find the slipstream.

After heading through the door here, you won't be able to move on very far, but you don't need to; instead, possess the door switch and "scare" the guard nearby. He won't actually get spooked, but he will pop in the correct passcode for the door: 0426. Knowing that, return through the slipstream, repossess the medical assistant, and use the other keypad to pass through the door.

Objective: Get Bryson to Safety

When you reach the surgery ward, you'll have another encounter with the flame-spitting blue demons, but they'll thankfully leave you alone for the moment. If you don't have one yet, grab the fire extinguisher on the wall. Now, Bryson is lying in the surgery room nearby, but he's too weak to move; in order to help him, you'll have to find the serum that the assistant locked away earlier, which is in the locker in the morgue, for some reason.

There isn't much else to see here, so return to the hallway where the three soldiers were located previously. They'll be dead, of course, and the demons should be behind you in the hallway, so turn around and zap them with the fire extinguisher until they pop. When you're clear, head down the hallway leading to the ICU, where the morgue key is located. Unfortunately, there's an orderly blocking your way to the key, so you'll have to find a way to distract him. To do so, dispossess Anna, walk through the mesh leading into the padded cell, and use the prisoner there to pound on the glass. This will cause the orderly to run away from his post, but he won't stay away for long, so quickly find Anna again and get her into the secure area, where the Refrigerator Key is located.

Firebugs can be killed by zapping them with fire extinguisher.
Firebugs can be killed by zapping them with fire extinguisher.

Now, head back to the courtyard and find the room leading into the morgue. There are more fires, and firebugs, in this area, but there's also plenty of medkits lying around, so you shouldn't be in too much danger of dying. Pick up the Host Collectibles if you didn't earlier, including the one in the smaller refrigerator, then grab the Serum from the large freezer.

There are a number of firebugs waiting for you on your way back to surgery. We found it easiest to just sprint by them all, then wait for them all to group up and fire on Anna; this made them easier to take out with the fire extinguisher, since they'll all be clumped up together and thus all within the area of effect of the extinguisher's spray. When they're out of commission, head into the surgery room and juice Bryson back to full health. He won't be able to fight, but he'll at least be able to walk.

Objective: Escort Bryson to Elevator and Exit

Anna, on the other hand, has suddenly become a complete badass. Even though Raimi was a scientist, not a soldier, he can still apparently get Rambo'd out when appropriate, as Anna will be outfitted with a submachine gun and a belt of thrown grenades for good measure. Regulators...mount up!

Watch out for the sniper in the crane here.
Watch out for the sniper in the crane here.

After fighting your way back towards the courtyard, you'll note that a barricade has been set up, blocking access to the courtyard itself. You'll need to use a grenade to destroy it. The courtyard itself is obviously going to be choked with enemies, so duck behind one of the stone barriers near the door and wait for them to come to you, as a couple will do so. After they go down, pop up and shoot anyone else, being sure to hit the guy on top of the crane, before moving around to the elevator and starting it up.

Boss Fight: Snail

When the elevator stops, you'll be forced into a fight with a snail creature. This is definitely going to be the toughest boss fight thus far, if only because it's so difficult to damage and can hurt you pretty badly. There is a trick to beating it, but it'll still take a while to bring its health down.

To begin with, start by shooting your SMG at the beast's head. It'll almost always have its hands up in front of its face, and the bullets won't do much damage anyway, so this is going to result in a very gradual drain on its life total, but it's the only way to damage the snail initially. It'll be attacking you with icebolts in the meantime, including one attack during which it flings out six or seven volleys of multiple bolts; this does pretty vicious damage, and is difficult to dodge, but if you just strafe around while it's coming at you, you'll hopefully be able to walk through a few of them. This is going to be the attack that generally will take off most of your health, so be ready to grab a medkit as soon as its over. You can also try dispossessing Anna

After a few minutes of firing at the snail's head, you'll force it to retract into its shell, where it'll start to quickly regenerate health. To stop it, chuck a grenade into the hole; you'll need to aim well above the hole itself to actually angle the grenade inside. After you land one in there, though, you'll knock off a lot of its health and force it to come back out to defend itself.

The rest of this fight mostly sticks to these lines, although the snail does bring out a couple of new attacks. One features a yellow laser that is easily avoided, while at the end of the fight, the snail will start retracting itself and wheeling around the outside perimeter of the room. It doesn't do too much damage to you if it runs you over, so you don't need to worry too much about dodging it, but you do need to be ready when it pauses; it's at these times that you need to run around to its front and throw another grenade into its gullet. After a couple of those, the beast will still not be dead, but it will run away and leave you and Bryson, who's miraculously survived the multiple grenade blasts right next to his body, in peace.

Level Five: Escape!

Objectives

Help Bryson Escape

    Contact CR-2
      Find the Radio Room
      Transmit Pickup Code to CR-2 Frequency

    Download Data from PC Room
      Gain Access to the PC Room

    Clear Soldiers from the Cafeteria

After this level begins, leave Bryson behind and start moving down the walkway near where you start, killing anyone in your path. Eventually you'll come to a storage room, at the top of which is a control panel that will start up a sequence of moving crates. Before you start them up, though, be sure to look around for a Host Collectible on the bottom level of this room; there's also a Ghost Collectible in the small passage through which the crates move; you can jump to it when you're in spirit form by floating from the nearby stairs.

In order to move on, you'll have to flip the switch with Anna, then dispossess her and jump up into the passage and wait for one of the crates to get near you. They're possessible, and taking over one of them is the only way to reach the next area, a small storage room where there's a bunch of rats eating some potato chips. If you scare them with the TV, you'll be able to possess one of them; they all have dim Ewok memories of seeing their companions die from rat poison. Poor little guys.

One freaked-out scientist, coming right up.
One freaked-out scientist, coming right up.

Anyway, if you scoot through the little rat tunnel nearby, you'll reach another room, in which you'll be able to dispossess the rat and travel through a slipstream. This will lead you to an access corridor. Although there are a few more slipstreams to check out around here, first head into the Lounge across the way to find a human. To possess him, inhabit the soda machine, spit out a few sodas, then possess one of the soda cans and explode it near him to send him running into the bathroom. If you then follow him into the bathroom and possess the faucet he's washing with, you'll be able to terrify him further, allowing you to possess him.

Grab the Host Collectible in one of the bathroom stalls here before leaving this area. From there, return to the access corridor and enter the Mess Hall, where you can find another Host Collectible in the area at the top of the stairs. There's yet another Host Collectible in the storage area, which you can return to via the door at the back of the kitchen after walking through the pantry.

Objective: Contact CR-2

Bryson is located behind one of the doors on the upper level of the mess hall, so go ahead and let him through. He won't be able to move far with the soldiers standing around, though, so you'll have to find some way to get rid of them. He'll also give you the code to the radio (104.1) and the passphrase. You're going to have to accomplish both of these objectives, so we might as well do the radio first. To find it, exit the mess hall, take a left, then ride the lift there to the radio room. After entering the 104.1 code (hit A to confirm each number after selecting it with the left analog stick), you'll call for extraction, leaving you with only the soldiers to worry about.

Objective: Clear Soldiers from the Cafeteria

The dishes are DONE, man.
The dishes are DONE, man.

In order to get rid of the soldiers, you'll need to feed them rat poison. Yummy! Unfortunately, the doctor you're inhabiting can't pick it up, so you'll need to get someone else to do so. That someone is the chef in the kitchen. To scare him, start out by possessing the oven near him and overheating it to cause the dish inside to burn; tap A rapidly to accomplish this. When smoke is billowing out, grab the fan across the way and point it at the oven; this will blow smoke over to the chef, alerting him that something's gone wrong. With that accomplished, find the stack of plates near the fan and possess them as well. After chucking a few of them at the chef's head, he'll be good and scared, and ripe for the possessing.

When you have control of the cook, return to the storage room across from the Lounge and grab the Rat Poison there. Return with that to the kitchen, then walk into the pantry behind the kitchen and grab the Soup Mix on the shelf there. With that in hand, head back to the pool of hot water on the counter across from the cash register, and dump everything into it.

When the soldiers keel over after you try to leave the room, repossess the doctor you were in earlier and move up the stairs to reunite with Bryson. You can't leave the cafeteria via the stairs yet, but you can unlock the PC Room with the retinal scanner and head inside.

When Bryson starts digging around for info, head to the computer with the flashing red folder on its screen and access it. After scanning through some of the separation candidates, such as Forest Crump, you'll come to your body, which will...wake up? How strange.

Objective: Regain Your Body

After leaving the PC Room, head back to the Lounge, where Bryson will meet you. After hooking up with him, you'll need to head towards the checkpoint nearby and possess the gun turret to off the soldiers that are going to be firing on your friend. He'll escape, then lock himself into a nearby room before pursuing soldiers can catch him. Unfortunately, he'll just have locked himself in with more soldiers, so follow him and slipstream through the door near his position.

You'll need to use all of your tricks to get Bryson out of this area safely.
You'll need to use all of your tricks to get Bryson out of this area safely.

On the uppermost level of this room, you'll have to possess another turret to defend Bryson; on the second level, you'll need to blow up a pair of explosive canistes behind the soldiers that are firing on him. For some reason none of the soldiers here seem to realize that they could just run up and cap Bryson at close range.... When the next set of soldiers run up the steps, return to the turret and shoot them from there, then repeat the process on the final group of soldiers here.

When Bryson moves on into the next room, hurry in behind him and grab the turret there as well, then use it to kill off all of the soldiers in the room, as well as the other turret. After Bryson grabs the motorcycle, polish any more soldiers coming through the door before possessing the bike itself for some Heat Vision and Jack action!

Escape! - The Chase

This section of the game shows up as a separate level in the level select screen, but is actually a subsection of the main portion of this level. In it, you'll have to guide Bryson through numerous hazards while attempting to save him from the numerous trucks, motorcycles, and soldiers that were apparently placed here just in case someone should escape from the facility via the single motorcycle that was parked in the garage. These Volks guys, they cover their bases.

Anyway, the first obstacle here are going to be mines lain across the floor. These do severe damage to Bryson when he hits them, and he's apparently too dumb to, you know, actually drive the damn motorcycle, so you'll have to give him a helping hand by steering the motorcycle yourself. When you clear the first pair of minefields, move Bryson back over to the right side of the track a bit, then immediately jump out of the bike and start running down the track. Although you can only glide around as a ghost, you'll still move more quickly than the bike thanks to the time slowdown.

To begin with, kill off the pair of soldiers by blowing up the explosives by them, then move down the track to the next minefield, beyond the pair of enemy bikers. If you look down the track back at Bryson, you should be able to tell whether or not he'll miss the mines; if it looks like he'll hit, then you'll have to go back and reorient him. If he's clear, then move on down to the truck with the mounted turret in it and take control! After you pop in here, the rest of the level becomes a rail shooter. Take out any opposing motorcycles, cars, or soldiers that you see.

You'll eventually run across a semi truck that will attempt to run Bryson down. It has armor on its front side that will prevent you from shooting out the engine, so instead, you'll have to shoot at the fuel canisters on either side of the cab first. Doing so isn't easy, since you only have a few degrees of arc in which to aim, and the truck will be swerving back and forth the entire time, but it can be done. Shooting out a fuel tank will also cause the truck to drop back a bit, giving you more time to hit the other one. When both tanks are blown, you should be able to target and shoot at the engine block of the truck, so blast it with bullets before it overtakes Bryson. You may be tempted to leave the turret to blow up some of the explosives that the semi runs past (they're all over the place in this corridor), but doing so will cause the turret to start firing at Bryson, which will quickly kill him. It's best to just shoot them out yourself, but you do at least have the option of trying it the other way should it prove too difficult to do so.

Escape! - The Chopper

When you're done with the motorcycle chase, you'll arrive at the helicopter pad, where your pickup is scheduled to occur. Why the military has decided to pick you up at a helipad that's chock full of soldiers and anti-aircraft guns is anyone's guess, but we suppose they have their reasons for it.

Anyway, you'll need to find some way to take out the four AA guns before the chopper comes in - you have seven minutes to do so. In order to find your method, head to one of the nearby towers and possess one of the machinegun turrets underneath them, using it to shoot the nearby soldiers and any other turrets. It's best to possess a turret that's right above an explosive crate, because then you can use the turret to clear the area, then blow the turret you're using up by firing downwards at the crate underneath it. This will clear the area for the soldier you're going to be possessing.

Be sure to take possession of the turrets above the explosives, or you may have to take them out with mines.
Be sure to take possession of the turrets above the explosives, or you may have to take them out with mines.

Said soldier can be found after you fire your first round from a turret; you'll get a little cutscene showing off his position, near the gate you came through. After you clear out the first tower, go ahead and grab the soldier and bring him up to it, then press the button for the elevator and ride up to the top. The soldier doesn't have a gun or grenades; instead, he throws mines. If you chuck a mine on one of the AA batteries with the right trigger, then detonate it with the Z button, it'll blow the battery in one go. You don't even have to leave the elevator platform; just chuck a mine when you hit the top, blow it, then start dropping again. The mines can also be used to kill soldiers and turrets, although it can be difficult to place them accurately when you're being fired on.

Each of the towers here have a differing number of turrets among them, and by the time you reach the fourth one (which can only be found through a tunnel), you'll probably be unable to destroy all of the turrets underneath it without some rigorous planning. Still, it's not really necessary to do so, as there are a couple of medkits scattered around, and so long as you can survive until you've destroyed the fourth cannon, you'll automatically pass the mission.

Level Six: Gigi

Objectives

Regain Your Body

Well, it looks like someone else has possession of your body. But who? And why? Follow...yourself down into the canyon beyond the starting point, then run underneath the falling bridge and jump over the tree at the end of the canyon. You'll need to start climbing the rocks here to reach the slipstream leading on, but before you head through, follow the rock path further up into the mountain to find a Ghost Collectible near where the bridge was destroyed.

After following a couple of slipstreams through the walls, you'll eventually come to the servant's quarters of a mansion that was apparently once in the family of Alexander Volks. There isn't all that much for you to see and do in this area, so when you're done wandering around, head over to the dining room table, jump onto it, and jump from there over the gap in the wall nearby to reach the laundry room. There's an alarm clock here that you can possess; tapping A to raise the spear, then tapping A again to stab the bear will open the shutters over the sunroof on one end of the room, which will open up another door elsewhere in this large area. Follow the path that leads on until you reach another slipstream.

Jump over this gap in the wall to find the clock puzzle.
Jump over this gap in the wall to find the clock puzzle.

The Light Puzzle

This large area here, which includes a fountain and a library, is home to another light puzzle, this one much, much larger than the first. To start fooling around with it, though, you'll first need to find some way to light the place up. If you follow the cord leading from the shutter on the ceiling, you'll see that it winds its way to a painting of Gigi and her older brother, presumably Alexander, in the library. Possessing it doesn't allow you to do anything yet, but if you look around, you'll find a grandfather clock that looks similar to the one in the painting; possessing it will let you adjust the time that's displayed. Since the grandfather clock in the painting is set to 10:05, let's see what that happens to do, shall we?

Well, unsurprisingly, it recedes the painting from its position on the wall and lets you pass through to the office beyond. The only thing you can possess here is the clock on the desk, which leads to an exceedingly tedious button-pressing minigame. The goal here is to wait for the horse to dance around through one line, then press your left analog stick in the direction of the icons on the screen when they light up, a la Parapa the Rapper or the beach dance in San Andreas. Like the San Andreas beach dance, though, the cues on screen don't usually match up to the whistled tune that plays while the prompt is moving from left to right, so you may want to mute your sound while attempting this mini-game; we found it helped a bunch.

Anyway, when the shutters have opened, dispossess the clock and run back to the statue underneath the shutter. You'll be able to rotate it around and command it to shine at the five other statues; you'll need to hit them all in order if you want to unlock the next door. To do so, shine the southwest, the north, the southeast, the west, then the eastern statues, in that order. That will unlock the door and let you pass on through.

This puzzle is awfully annoying, if we do say so ourselves.
This puzzle is awfully annoying, if we do say so ourselves.

When you reach the gigantic oak tree, follow the path on the right wall and follow the green smoke until you find Gigi. After a longish but interesting cutscene, she'll lead you to an exit via her aunt's room.

Repossession

You've been floating around as a spirit for long enough; it's time to get a body! Unfortunately the only guy around the area in which you start has locked himself inside a car to protect himself from the numerous firebugs in the area. To get him out, possess the car's engine and rev it until it scoots across the floor, smashing most of the firebugs. The rest will survive, but you'll be able to take over the soldier, since he leaves the car, and shoot them with his shotgun. Note that the Z button here fires two rounds at once, but that isn't really necessary against the smaller firebugs here.

Make your way down to the train at the end of the hall and start walking through it, killing any firebugs that pop up. You'll eventually run into another Boss enemy, who's functionally identical to the "creature" you fought against in the game's very first level. You can duck back into the car here to hide from the iceballs, then pop back out before he opens his mouth to unload a dual-barrel blast on him. You only have to bring the beast down to half health or so before it retracts into the ceiling. It will of course reappear when you reach the end of the rail tunnel, but it'll be a bit further away from you this time, so use single-barrel shots on it while staying behind cover to finish it off.

Bosses never die, they just come back to harry you again.
Bosses never die, they just come back to harry you again.

After moving up the stairs past the boss enemy, you'll come to the first phasing enemy; a large crab that can turn invisible at will and which will fire spit at you from a good distance away. It probably won't be able to hit you thanks to the ceiling of the stairs, though. If you get close to its position, it'll be forced to phase into sight, allowing you to blast it to pieces, but it will attempt to ram into you when you do this. You can strafe around this, though, and they'll be forced to stay corporeal for a couple of seconds after attempting to ram you, so this is definitely the way to go.

Uh-oh...

When you hit the top of the level, you're in for a rather nasty surprise: the soldiers here can see your spirit form and seem to insist on shooting you while you're floating around. They also have super-speed, which happens to let them match your own speed while you're not possessing a body. None of them are frightened enough to possess, so you'll just have to try and run past them. Stick to the left side of the area to flank around one of the ectoplasmic shields in the area and sneak back to the small corridor behind the first group of soldiers; you'll know you're in the right spot when you hit the gap in the floor that you have to jump over.

Unfortunately, when you reach the end of the path here, you'll discover that, much like Ackbar warned, it was a trap all along.

Level Seven: Captured

Objectives

Virtual Combat and Infiltration Simulation

    Simulation 1: Long-Range Sniper Training
      Eliminate All of the External Summit Security
      Assassinate the Dignitary

    Simulation 2: Stop All Soldiers from Exiting The Lobby
    Simulation 3: Dignitary Assassination and Possession
      Access Second-Floor Stairwell
      Keep All Hosts Alive

Now that you're back in the hands of Volks, you'll have to take part in his simulation exercise designed to train his operatives for his assault on the Summit meeting. There's no Gigi to break the simulation machine for you here, so you'll have to play along...for now.

Objective: Long-range Sniper Training

You're going to start off here with sniper training. Your objective isn't so hard to understand; just use your sniper to kill everything that moves. You'll want to use the infrared attachment to your rifle to pick out the soldiers on the streets below you; don't forget that your scope can zoom out either a short distance or a long distance, depending on how hard you hold down the left trigger button.

The infrared mode here will turn things green. No, it doesn’t make any sense, but it helps to spot soldiers on the ground.
The infrared mode here will turn things green. No, it doesn’t make any sense, but it helps to spot soldiers on the ground.

The initial wave of soldiers is fairly easily dispatched, and even if they hit you a few times, they won't do much damage. The snipers that start to pop up afterward are going to be trickier, since they can appear on multiple platforms around the area, including on the ones on either side of your own platform. They'll be much easier to spot, again, if you use your infrared scope. Don't worry too much about the damage that they deal, which is again fairly minor; just pick them out and take them down. You have one medkit here if you really run low on health, but you probably won't need it.

After a while, you'll get word of a VIP heading for the building. When you spot the group of four targets, find the VIP (he's the one who doesn't look like a soldier), and pop him in the back to finish this first segment of the level.

Objective: Stop All Soldiers from Exiting the Lobby

Well, first you didn't want anyone to get inside the building, and now you're going to try and prevent anyone from escaping. You're going to have two hosts to use here, but hopefully you'll only need one. The soldiers that you can possess here use rocket launchers, which unfortunately aren't the ideal weapons for this mission; although they do have a large splash damage radius, their rate of fire is poor, as is their reload time. You'll need to pick your shots carefully and lead the soldiers as they run towards you if you want to kill them.

Standing on the balcony above the door you're guarding will make it easier to hit the ground around the incoming soldiers.
Standing on the balcony above the door you're guarding will make it easier to hit the ground around the incoming soldiers.

To begin with, grab the soldier on the lower level and immediately walk him back to the steps leading to the balcony over the door you're guarding. If you stand on the balcony over the door, then you should be able to spot anyone coming at you well before they hit the door; be sure to focus on the soldiers that are closest to you, and be sure to aim at the floor in front of them, rather than their bodies. The splash damage radius should easily take them out.

The second and third waves are a little trickier than the first, since soldiers will start popping out from doors closer to the one that you're guarding. They'll usually stop advancing when they spot you and just start firing at you, though, so that should arrest their forward movement somewhat, even if it does wind up killing you. There are medkits around, though, so be sure to grab one of them if you're running low on health; if you die and have to repossess the uppermost soldier, you might not be able to prevent the soldiers from hitting the door before you can fire on them. Don't forget to use the beams in the middle of the room as cover when soldiers are coming across the floor. Since everyone has to come down to the floor to reach the door, you might want to just stand right in front of it and force them to kill you if they want to get past. It's frustrating to try and be sneaky and cover the door from farther up, only to have someone sneak around behind you and pass through. A single soldier hitting the door ends the mission.

Objective: Dignitary Assassination and Possession

Getting through this first fight unscratched is necessary if you want to get to the stairs beyond.
Getting through this first fight unscratched is necessary if you want to get to the stairs beyond.

Well, it's time to take control of a Man in Black, apparently. Your goal here is to make it to the second-floor stairwell without getting your host killed. You have no way to heal him, so you'll have to be pretty quick on the trigger if you want to live.

You'll need to kill two agents in the same room as yourself before you can even pass through the first door. It's easiest to do so if you push your way through both of them until you're up against the door, then talk to both of them in turn; this will force them to turn around and face the door. If you then push your way back through to the other side, they'll be facing the door, allowing you to shoot them in the back. You need to be right up close to them for your SMG to have any accuracy, so get the first one in the head, then blow the second one away with body shots.

After you leave this room, you're going to realize that you have almost no chance to kill the agents that stand between you and the stairwell; there are too many of them, and your SMG doesn't do enough damage to take them down quickly. The answer? Sprinting. You'll just have to ignore all the gunfire, and head straight for the stairs as quickly as possible. The route will take you straight down the hallway beyond the first room, to the left, to the left through a door, then straight ahead to the stairwell. Check out the video on this page for a quick run-through of the route, as well as the examples of how to get through the other sections here.

Next up is an assassination mission. After you shut down the elevator power and take control of another agent host, you'll have to kill your way through the numerous other agents that stand between yourself and the assassination target. Just proceed as slowly as possible here, and use the corners as cover to ensure that only one agent can engage you at a time. Don't worry too much about losing life here, as you should be able to reach the barricade before the assassination target without dying, so long as you don't run up to everyone and try to take them out Rambo-style. Just go slowly, pick off targets one at a time, and you'll eventually reach a barricade that prevents you from moving on.

When you do so, check the door to the left of the barricade and proceed around until you reach an elevator. You won't be able to do anything with the elevator in the way, so...get it out of the way. If you shoot all three of the cords that hold it up, it'll crash to the bottom of the shaft, letting you dispossess your host, float over to the open door, and possess the assassination target there. Killing him is as simple as walking into the elevator shaft. Yay!

Last up, you have to find and take over a VIP target. This mission is a lot easier than the previous ones, mostly due to the fact that you now have grenades to use, which you can lob off of walls or through doors to kill the groups of soldiers that are in your way. Thus, you'll be able to kill almost everyone here without ever taking a hit if you proceed slowly, check out enemy positions, then chuck grenades at them from behind cover, using walls and the floor to roll them where they need to go.

Of course, you can't be so zealous that you wind up killing the host you're aiming for. He resides in the locked door to the right of the sealed grey double-doors near the end of the level, along with a few guards. If you throw a grenade into his room, he'll likely die, so you'll need to use your SMG to take out the guards while being sure not to spray the VIP by accident. When you clear out his bodyguards and take over his body, your mission will end.

Level Seven: Captured - Part Two

Objectives

Regain Your Body
Infiltrate Spec Ops Conference

    Restore Power
    Trigger Primary Relays
    Gain Access to the Command Wing
      Possess Authorized Host

    Disable Security Lockdown
    Find a Way to Enter the Conference Room

Unsurprisingly, there's another break in containment at the beginning of this level which allows you to escape from your training simulator and make your way back to the "real world," which, coincidentally, is also being inhabited by demon crabs. You'll find a frightened technician down the hall from where you begin, so go ahead and grab him before heading up the steps and out the door there.

If you take a left past the door, you'll come to a dead end, but there is a Ghost Collectible on top of one of the large grey plates here. You'll probably need to leave the body that you're in to see it, let alone grab it, though. Further down the hall you'll come to another set of doors, one leading to the weapons lab, another to the power room. There's nothing in the weapons lab for you to do yet, since the power's out, so head into the power room first and see about getting the lab up and running again.

Ah, invisible crabs. Fun!
Ah, invisible crabs. Fun!

There are two doors in the first section of the power room. The one to the left leads to an elevator that can't be powered up yet, though, so head to the right and take the stairs down. You'll eventually come to a locker with an environment suit in it; go ahead and suit up, then head out to the gas-leak area beyond. More firebugs and crabs are going to be waiting for you here, so use your nailgun to take them out as best you can. Note that there's a hard-to-see Host Collectible near the first real working door that you come to here.

When you reach the generator room, ride the lift and talk to the other worker there, who needs your help to restore the power. This is a pretty simple puzzle here; just find the flashing switch, flip it, then find the next flashing switch, flip that, and so on. You'll need to flip all six switches before the timer at the top of your screen runs down, but it shouldn't be too complicated to do so. When you hit them all, return to the top of the lift and flip the three relays there to get the juice flowing again. Unfortunately, you'll have to deal with the same old Creature boss again after flipping them all; you know the drill on how to defeat it, so shoot it in the mouth, then flip the relays again to really restore the power.

Objective: Gain Access to the Command Wing

After returning through the corridor to the decontamination room, hang the environment suit back up in the closet and return to the weapons lab. Your technician host has outlived his usefulness, so abandon him when you reach the lab and try to find something to scare the scientists there with. Hmm, massive robotic arms? That sounds like a plan.

After you've freaked out the scientists, you can choose any one of them to be your host for the next little shooting gallery. You have to pick at least one, but you can free all three of them from their rooms if you want to try out all of them. Follow the first of them through the door with the slipstream in it, then possess the file cabinet next to him and deliver the final blow to his psyche. With him in tow, go ahead and grab the Hydra weapon from the wall. If you hold down the R button with this guy, you'll get an unlimited amount of flamethrower fuel; if you press Z, you'll chuck out a single powerful bolt of hellfire.

Each scientist here has his own unique gun, so pick whichever one you like best for the upcoming combat.
Each scientist here has his own unique gun, so pick whichever one you like best for the upcoming combat.

If you want to try out the second scientist, walk up the steps from the main lab and examine the door there. You won't get through, but the scientist on the other side will open a peephole, which is just enough for your spirit form to slip through. Possess the microscope on the desk to push this scientist to the brink of madness; you'll need to tap A repeatedly until he comes over to the examine the slide. This guy can nab the fearsome braingun, which rapidly fires bolts of energy.

Time for the third scientist, who's off in his own little lab off of the main science station. This guy actually opens the door for you, but it's not enough to get your whole body inside, so you'll need to float through in spirit form. This lab features a severed tentacle on the desk; after possessing it and getting the doc to come over, point it at his head and smack him a good one to freak him out. This guy packs an alien rocket launcher.

Now, with your chosen champion (we liked the guy with the braingun, ourselves), head back up to the tram tunnel and walk through the large doors at the end. There'll be a large firefight ongoing when you proceed through, so kill off anyone in your path before moving on. You'll need to use an optical scanner to move on into the command wing at the end of the next corridor.

Objective: Possess Authorized Host

Now that you're in the Command Wing, you have to find some way to disable the security lockdown and enter the conference room where the Spec Ops conference is being held. To do so, first find the door with the slipstream in it, then pass through and possess one of the soldiers within. After the firefight with the bugs, you can feel free to wipe out any remaining security guards, but your real goal is to pass through the next door here and locate the security station. There's a crab here, so be on guard for it, but when it's dead, you can check out the two computers with the red flashing folders; clicking both of them will override the security.

Return to your scientist and open the door that says "Command Wing" next to it. There's only one real path to follow here, so get moving down through the many busted sub-levels until you reach a cutscene and a boss fight.

Boss Fight: Metal Slug

This big ol' slug creature has somehow managed to accrete himself by rolling through a number of metal canisters and explosive barrels. These initially form a protective barrier around his body, but as you shoot more and more of them off, you'll be able to hit the body itself. The trick is to not get run over by the crab as it scoots around the area. It's big and mean and would be more than happy to run you down.

Luckily, there are a few spots you can stand in where the monster absolutely cannot hit you; our favorite was in the corner of the arena, near where there's a broken wall. If you just jam yourself up to any of the arena corners, in fact, you should be completely safe from the rolling attack, although some of these positions can get you stuck in the ground if you're not careful. From one of these safe positions, you can just blast away at the slug until it winds up dying. It'll take a while, though, so if you want to try and sprint after it to get more shooting in, feel free to do so.

Periodically, the beast will pause, then supercharge his spin and move incredibly fast, so you don't want to be in front of it when this occurs. Also note that some of the canisters on its body will let off blue smoke when hit, so try not to run behind it if you want to keep a good health total. Lastly, there are also some explosive containers scattered around, which can be possessed and exploded when the slug is rolling past, if you're interested in doing minor damage to it after waiting a while. It's fun!

This fight can be as complicated and dangerous or as simple and safe as you like; it's up to you. When the beast dies, a slipstream will appear, so take it to move on.

Level Eight: Rourke

Objectives

Stop Project Z
Find Helipad With Spec Ops Transport

    Enter Restricted Area
      Possess Authorized Host

    Get Spirit Hunter Armor and Weapon

Regain Your Body

The assault on the Paris Summit is about to begin, so you'll need to find a way to get to the helicopter that's about to take off, and presumably disrupt its takeoff somehow. Begin by heading down to the stage that Alexander was giving his speech from; there are a pair of subtunnels on either side of it that lead to a larger room. The door to the Helipad is here, but you won't be able to get through there just yet. Instead, find the nearby slipstream and head through to Rourke's office. If you possess the bed here, you can easily scare Beth, the secretary, and take her over.

You can't do anything more with Rourke at the moment, so leave his office, take a left, and head through the doors at the end of the hall there. The dog trainer is at the bottom of the steps, looking for her pet rat Juliet. Juliet happens to be well away from her, in a room full of spoiled dog food at the end of one of the nearby halls. If you possess the rat trap near the group of rodents, shake it to lure one of them over, then kill it with the spring, you'll scare Juliet and be able to possess her. There's also a Host Collectible behind one of the empty boxes here.

You'll need to walk up this hand rail to reach the dog trainer; be careful not to fall off.
You'll need to walk up this hand rail to reach the dog trainer; be careful not to fall off.

Your path back to the dog trainer will be beset by numerous rat traps. Unlike most other possessed hosts, who have things that they're frightened of and can't approach, Juliet will be sucked towards each rat trap as she nears them. Although your way will sometimes seem to be completely blocked by traps, there is in fact a clear path through the room if you look hard enough. Sometimes you'll have to detour through fallen rocks or around a storage shelf, or something similar, but you can get through the area without taking a scratch if you do look around a bit.

When you return to the dog trainer's area, she's nowhere to be found, so you'll have to head into the hole by the steps and follow them up to the top of the stairs, using the small handrail ledge to avoip the unpassable steps. A soldier will be going through the door when you reach the top, so follow him out. He'll continue on into the checkpoint zone, so follow him through there to reach the dog trainer.

The trainer will take you back to the kennel area, and lock you in a cage. Little does she know that, not unlike Pierre in War and Peace, your immortal soul cannot be bound by a mere prison! Float on out, possess the work lamp behind her, and explode it to freak out the parrot in the cage. If you possess it, you'll be able to scare the dog trainer enough to take her over.

Phantom is lying down in his cage nearby; you'll have to get him to trust you if you want to get him out. To do so, open his cage with your key, then lure him out a couple of times with your dog biscuits. This will let you attach your leash to him, which in turn will let you convince him to run around by throwing dog biscuits on the floor. He won't follow you if you move the dog trainer, so you'll have to use the dog biscuits to propel yourself along from this point. You can throw them pretty far in front of you and still have Phantom pull you along, so long as you let him finish eating one before throwing another.

Take Phantom up the stairs to the main hallway and go through the checkpoint area nearby (it's through the doors on the opposite side of the area from Rourke's office). After descending the stairs, you'll come to a control room where Rourke is located; upon seeing your dog, he'll immediately freak out and start shooting you. If you quickly run into the room and press A to Release Phantom, he'll run over to Rourke and completely scare him.

Before taking over Rourke, drift into the vent near him and grab the Ghost Collectible on top of one of the fallen girders at the bottom of the rift site. You can jump up and grab it from atop the spotlight nearby. With that done, possess Rourke to complete one of your objectives. Moving back up to the hallway and heading through the door leading to the Helipad will complete another.

Level Eight: Rourke, Part Two

Objectives

Stop Project Z
Find Helipad With Spec Ops Transport

    Enter Restricted Area
    Possess Authorized Host
    Get Spirit Hunter Armor and Weapon

There's another Host Collectible behind the elevator that you start out in here. Soon after leaving the door, you'll be able to pick up Rourke's Custom Armor, a maddeningly powerful suit armed with both a machine gun, grenade launcher, and a speed boost (which effectually slows down time for everyone else in the area).

In order to get to the command center, you'll need to enter the nearby control room and kill all of the guards there. Unfortunately, despite your powerful new equipment, these guys are equally well armored and will be tough to take down. Don't hesitate to use your Boost to fire off grenades with perfect accuracy; that's the quickest way to bring them down. It's easiest to just hang back near the door through which you enter and fire grenades through it; if you head through the portal, it'll lock behind you and prevent you from taking cover during the fight.

These grenades are intended to be used against ghosts, but they work well enough on humans.
These grenades are intended to be used against ghosts, but they work well enough on humans.

There are many more enemies in the next room on, but don't forget that your grenade launcher can be fired without any reloading time; just keep hitting your Z button to pop explosives off at the feet of anyone you see. There will be a hard-to-spot soldier on top of a crate near the far door, so be careful of the grenades that he launches; if you see one coming at you, use your Boost to escape before it detonates.

The next small set of corridors are where things can get really difficult, as the soldiers here will have no problem with chucking grenades at you from short range. We recommend that you just hold down the Z button to fire grenades at a floor section near the first bend in the corridor; as soldiers come charging around, they should get caught in the blasts. Keep moving on until you reach the garage; there's a Host Collectible on the floor by one of the cars here.

A bit further on, you'll come across a number of elite soldiers in copies of your own Spirit Hunter armor. These guys possess the same grenades that you do, and now that they're firing them at you, their purpose is revealed; the gas that's emitted will knock you out of your host and temporarily prevent you from repossessing Rourke, allowing the soldiers to shoot at you. While you're inside Rourke's body, though, you can boost and gain the benefits of doing so without worrying about them moving faster to match your own speed. So, whenever possible, boost when you spot a soldier coming at you and take him down with your machine gun or your own grenades.

Boosting yourself, then spamming grenades, is a good way to kill off these Spectral Hunters.
Boosting yourself, then spamming grenades, is a good way to kill off these Spectral Hunters.

When you reach the top of the room here, you'll meet up with whomever's inhabiting your body again; he'll run off towards the helipad. Follow him, then repossess your own body when given the chance to do so.

Unfortunately the cutscene after this was hopelessly garbled for us, so we can't repeat what occurred within. We gather that there's some kind of meaningful storyline tidbits within; hopefully it'll work for you!

Boss Fight: Rourke

After you get through the cutscene and regain your body, you'll have to take on Rourke, who's still in the Spirit Hunter armor that you left him in. For some reason, he won't use the special spirit-sapping grenades on you, but he will absolutely abuse the boost power and the machinegun that he wields to quickly drain your health.

The first rule of fighting Rourke is to not panic. Although he may appear unbeatable at first, he's really not too difficult, especially when you consider that you have a full six medkits in the area to restore your health with. These will have to last you through the Rourke fight and through the fight that follows it, but that shouldn't be too hard to deal with.

Rourke, as mentioned, sticks to the machine gun, and will occasionally warp in and out of sight thanks to his own boost ability. He'll be moving too quickly to really hit for most of the time, so to counteract this effect, you'll need to use your own boost to match speed with him for a short duration of time. While you match speed, get right on top of him and unload as much of your machinegun ammo into his belly as you can. Your bullets will still be travelling slowly during this period, so you'll need to be as close to Rourke as you can get to prevent the bullets from flying off to either side when he moves.

After your boost charge drains, you'll need to wait for it to recharge before you can use it again, obviously, but Rourke will often dash off to the far side of this little arena and oblige you by leaving you alone for a few seconds. This process will have to be repeated a few times before Rourke keels over dead, so don't hesitate to use a few of the medkits in the area to keep your health up while you're fighting him.

Since you previously switched bodies with the demon that was infesting your own, you'll now have to kill the demon itself, but it's not going to go without a fight. It will manifest itself in ghost form for much of the fight and attempt to chase you down; when it follows you, backpedal and fire grenades at the ground to do a good amount of damage to it. If it catches up to you, it'll fight you for control of your body, and attempt to walk you into the numerous spinning blades in the area, but you can tap A rapidly to prevent it from doing so; this is obviously easier if you make a point of staying away from the blades while you actually control your own body.

After the demon comes into contact with a number of your grenades, it'll wink out of existence, letting you move on to the next level.

Level Nine: Volks

Objectives

Stop Project Z

    Destroy Spec Ops Helicopters
    Eliminate Spec Ops

Defeat Volks

All right, time for the grand finale! Volks' plan to send spectral operatives to Paris is about to come off, so you'll need to throw the proverbial monkey wrench in the finely-meshed gears of his war machine.

To do so, you'll have to take down the transport choppers that he's going to use to transport his operatives. Begin by leaving your body, then possessing the anti-air missiles on one edge of the helipad. The first helicopter here will go down easily, after just a few missiles, but the second will insist on destroying the AA battery. That's no fun.

Anyway, as with any good Half-Life inspired game, you’re going to have a shootout with a helicopter at this point. Try to keep the central group of coffins between you and it; just run up next to the coffins and let it float around while you reload your weapon. When you're ready to open fire on the chopper, pull back a bit, activate your boost, and unload on it with your machine gun, firing a bit in front of the direction it's traveling to adjust for the time it'll take for your bullets to reach it. After a dozen or so rounds of this, it'll fall down and destroy the coffins, causing most of the spirits within to pop up and come after you.

Objective: Eliminate Spec Ops

These Spec Ops enemies are going to be annoying and time-consuming to defeat.
These Spec Ops enemies are going to be annoying and time-consuming to defeat.

The Spec Ops spirits that come after you now are going to be time-consuming and annoying to defeat. All of them can possess your body, and since that's pretty much the only form of offense they possess, they'll do so constantly, and attempt to either push you into the burning helicopter, or walk you off the edge of the helipad to an instant death. Obviously neither of those outcomes is very advantageous to you, so do your best to backtrack away from the multiple spirits, given the small amount of space available to you, and pelt them with grenades until they wink out of existence. There are a lot of spirits to go through, and one of them will inhabit the still-working turret on one side of the chopper, so that alone will restrict your movement. Still, if you're careful not to hit yourself with your own grenades, you should be able to survive this little ordeal without too many problems.

After dispatching the normal soldiers that come in after the Spec Ops are finished, you'll be able to move on into the corridor through which Volks escaped. You'll come across a few more soldiers whom apparently have been taken over by more Spec Ops; kill them to flush the spirits out and into the next room. After you open the door with the slipstream in it, you should be able to chuck down grenades on top of one spirit as it just sits around, waiting for you. Pop a cap in it and move on. There's a Host Collectible at the bottom of this room, behind where the spirit was waiting.

Watch out for the two soldiers that'll fire at you when you climb up the makeshift wooden ladder here, then head through the door. There's another Host Collectible in one of the two rooms at the bottom of the steps. If you move on, you'll come to the ruined Volks mansion, the interior of which has been hollowed out and made into one huge ambush zone. There are two Spec Ops soldiers within, each possessing rocket launchers, as well as numerous normal soldiers. When you spot the Spec Ops soldiers moving across one of the upper levels (just after the Stage Completed text pops up), immediately make a run for cover on either side of the room and proceed from there.

You can check out the library at the end of the passage on the far side of the ground floor if you want to pick up another Host Collectible, if you wish, but your ultimate goal lies higher, so climb the ramp up to the second floor and start making your way to the third via the stairs there. You'll eventually come to a rope bridge leading across the area. There'll be another Spec Ops here waiting for you, but don't worry if he possesses you; he can't take you off the bridge, so you'll have plenty of time to dispossess yourself. You'll finally find a medkit on the other side, so grab it and head upstairs to a minorly difficult boss fight.

Objective: Defeat the Golems

To protect himself, Volk has constructed a pair of massive stone statues and given his demon friends the ability to possess them. They're obviously pretty big demons, but once you know how to beat them, they'll go down, if slowly.

Each of the statues here accounts for half of the total life for the boss encounter. Since fighting them both at the same time is rather difficult, you'll want to concentrate on a single statue, take it out, then finish off the second one in one-on-one fighting. It can be difficult to kill the first one while they're both attacking you, but with judicious use of your boost mechanic, you should be ok.

To begin with, it helps to know the attacks of the statues. They have three primary means of dealing damage to you. The first is a beam of energy which is shot out of their eyes; usually this will only be fired while both statues are alive, as the one you're not attacking will sit back and fire away. It moves quickly, but not too quickly, so you should be able to dodge it if you just keep moving. It does light damage.

The second attack comes when a statue starts moving around slowly; it'll send out shockwaves with the impact of its feet, which deal rather larger amounts of damage. Just keep your distance, though, and this shouldn't strike you. The final attack comes when one of the statues pauses for a second, then rapidly shuffles towards you and attempts to trample you. We're guessing that this does a good amount of damage, but we couldn't say for sure; the boost ability allowed us to dodge this attack every single time they attempted to use it on us.

To damage the golems, you'll need to find a way to damage the demon inside of the shell. To begin with, shoot the glowing pieces of the shell off; this will take a while, though, as they're fairly resistant to damage from your bullets. There are pieces of armor on the head, both arms, and the back of the golems; to hit the harder-to-see areas, you'll have to use your boost ability to slow the golems down. When you've cracked the armor in all of the possible locations, the demon will have to pause and regenerate itself; take this opportunity to chuck grenades into one of the holes, which will deal damage.

When each golem takes 50% of the total health bar's damage, it'll keel over dead; when they both die, you'll be free to move on.

Objective: Defeat Volks

Alright, it's time to take on Alexander Volks and put this operation out of business once and for all, pursuant to international banking rules and bylaws, of course. He's going to be difficult to defeat, but as per usual with the boss fights, after you know his pattern of attack, it's mostly a game of outlasting him and trying to whittle down his health while not dying.

Not dying will, indeed, be the key here, as Volks has some powerful attacks that can quickly wipe you out. His primary attack will come from the chaingun mounted to his wheelchair, which has become redundant since he can use his mind to float back and forth in the air. The chaingun doesn't do a huge amount of damage with each bullet, but you'll want to avoid its fire nonetheless since you only have one medkit here (so far as we can tell, anyway; we were too busy avoiding his fire to really look around all that much). The other attack is from a rocket launcher, which is the real bruiser here; a hit anywhere near your position will do severe damage. Since Volks will be firing from an elevated position, this will almost always take off half your health or so if you don't move after it fires; when you spot it coming at you, use your boost and quickly move out of the way while it's still in midair.

In addition to these attacks, there are also Spec Ops soldiers in the area that will indirectly try to get you killed by taking over your body and moving you into the fires at the edge of the arena or into Volks' line of sight. You can avoid the first danger by sticking to the middle of the ring, which you'll want to be doing most of the time anyway, but avoiding Volks' fire can be more difficult. Don't forget to use your boost to give yourself more time to shake off their possession, and if you spot a rocket coming at you, try moving in the direction in which the spirit is attempting to move you; if you're fighting their efforts, then you won't be able to move quickly enough to dodge the attack. When you're free of their possession, focus your efforts on blowing the spirits away with your gas grenades; they're more of a threat to you than Volks will be most of the time, due to the fact that they're much more mobile. Luckily, there'll be a downtime of a couple of minutes in between their appearances, so you'll have time to concentrate on Volks in the meantime.

For Volks, though, you'll have to use your machinegun to take him out. This can be frustrating, if only because he can take so much damage before dying. Luckily, he has a predictable moving pattern, in which he'll duck back and forth between two points over and over again. He'll change the points if you change your position, so for the most part, you'll want to hide behind one of the three pillars in the middle of the arena and use it for cover while reloading or to hide from his fire. After a while you'll get used to his movement, which will take him to a point, pause him for a second, then move him back to the other point if he can't see you. If he does get a look at you, though, he'll open fire. Using your boost here will be advantageous; you can activate it just before he hits one end of his movement, dart out, unload a few dozen rounds in his general direction, then get behind cover before he can return fire. You might want to try doing this just before he starts moving, and lead him a bit. This is a bit safer since he doesn't seem to fire when he's moving, but you're more likely to miss your own shots when attempting this.

After you get him down to around one-third of his health, Alexander will change his pattern a bit, choosing to rotate around the exterior portion of the arena instead of between the three pillars. You'll probably still want to use the pillars to hide behind, but you'll have to flip to the other side, and rotate between the pillars as Volks moves around. You'll need to be a little more cautious in your firing methodology here, as you'll probably be farther away from Volks when he hits a stopping point, but still, if you can Boost yourself, take aim, and squeeze off a good number of rounds before getting back behind cover, you should be able to finish him off. Occasionally you'll be forced to deal with two Spec Ops spirits during this fight, though, so be mindful of them and be ready to backtrack and fire grenades until the coast is clear.

Objective: Defeat the Demon inside Volks

The massive Hell Knight that's taken over Volks is intent on keeping his prize. Although Volks is just a battered shell of a man, he's still a powerful guy. Now that the demon has taken Gigi along for the ride, it's up to you to put this demon down once and for all.

This fight, while sometimes annoyingly arbitrary, at least has the benefit of being brief; you can probably defeat the monster within three or four minutes once you get the hang of what's happening. That's more difficult than it might seem, since you're completely divorced from the usual constraints of gravity. In the spirit realm, you'll still only be able to move in two dimensions, but instead of one of those being front and backwards, it'll be up and down. Put a bit less confusingly, you'll only be able to move up, down, left, and right during this fight. If you move to the top of the arena, you seem to be automatically warped back to the bottom.

The demon here is protected by a dozen or so rings of energy that swirl around it horizontally. Each of these rings has a small gap in it, though, through which you can fire your "ethereal blast" to hit the beast; you'll need to rotate along with the ring if you want to keep the gap in front of you, though. Every so often, though, the demon will become enraged and attempt to attack you; he'll do this by causing one of the rings to flicker, then expand it rapidly so that it impacts you. In the beginning of the fight, this is easily dodgeable by looking for the flickering ring and moving up or down to get out of its impact zone.

After you shoot a couple dozen blasts into the demon, it'll change form and reveal its weak spots, which are represented by five or six glowing blue spots. The heart here is what you want to hit, but it's protected by a hard shell; to drop the shell, you'll need to hit all of the other spots individually. When they've all been blasted and are dark, you'll be able to hit the heart; blasting it a half-dozen times or so will finally result in damage to the demon's health equal to about a third of the life bar. Of course, you'll have to dodge numerous bolts of energy coming from each of the weak spots (even after they've been extinguished) to accomplish all of this.

You'll need to repeat this process three times in order to finally kill the demon and beat the game, but it does get more difficult. During the second and third ring-shooting-through segments, the demon will attempt to activate and propel more and more rings at you; during the third segment, it can be especially difficult to see which ones have been activated and dodge them. Since you only have one life bar throughout all of this, you'll need some exceptionally sharp reflexes to get through the entire fight. Some of the ring-blasts are all but undodgeable, so you may also just have to suck it up and take some damage near the end of the fight.

After defeating this boss, however, you'll have freed Alexander Volks from the demon that's been possessing him for such a long time, and restored peace and order to the universe, etc. Congratulations!

Got a news tip or want to contact us directly? Email news@gamespot.com

Join the conversation
There are no comments about this story