Mission 10: Showdown Below

Time to fight through the remaining NEVEC forces in an attempt to get to the orbital elevator. You start off in a large cave with plenty of scorpion Akrids and large dongos to deal with, so quickly hop into the VS suit near your starting point and go to town as best you can. There are also some of the automated turrets in this area; you can either destroy them directly or search around for the purple stalks nearby, which control their fire. Destroying the purple stalks will shut down all of the turrets.

There's another VS at the end of the tunnel beneath the suite of three turrets; busting through the walls will reveal one of the faster VS models there, equipped with a rocket launcher and grenade launcher. Feel free to shuffle around its weapons before scaling the wall nearby and reaching the tunnel that leads on.

The Underground City

Follow the tunnel until it dumps you out near a collection of buildings and smashed roads. There's a large Chryatis stomping around here, with no apparent weak spots. It can also spit explosive rocks at you! Its weak spots will eventually be revealed as it thrashes around, but there's no real reason to fight it. Instead, find the two holes in the ground, semi-obscured by fallen buildings, and drop down to reach another Data Post. There's a fresh VS in this area, so grab it before activating the post and jumping into the Akrid hive.

Boss Fight: Akrid Slug

This Akrid boss looks very intimidating, but is, in actuality, something of a pushover. He has two feelers that stick up from the ground, as well as a large central shaft that is where you're going to want to finish him off. Its attacks aren't particularly devestating; the usual assortment of physical attacks, as well as some ranged attacks that will start coming from its mouth towards the end of the fight. At the outset, you'll mostly be dealing with its feelers, which will attempt to bash you into the ground. It's fairly easy to sidestep these attacks. It may also sweep its feelers side to side, which can be jumped over.

At The Outset

In the beginning of the fight, concentrate your fire on the "hands" at the end of the feelers. There are two weak spots there, so fire away at them and try to knock them off. When you manage to destroy a feeler stalk, it will retract into the Akrid's body through the passage it punched into the ground. Quickly leave your VS and walk into the tunnel it leaves behind. There'll be a large weak spot underground there, near the lava. If you have a rocket launcher, peg a round into this weak spot; otherwise, unload on it as best you can.

Video Walk-through

This slug takes a while to kill, but should fall eventually.

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If you don't destroy the weak spot underground quickly enough, the stalk will regenerate and kick you back out of the tunnel, forcing you to re-enter the VS and fire away at the feeler again to repeat the process.

Destroying The Body

When both of the feelers have been dispatched, start working on the main body. Begin by shooting out the two weak spots on the lower left and lower right corners of the main body area; you should see these spots periodically spit out Trilids or other missiles coming your way. A bit of gatling fire will knock them out permanently, allowing you to focus on finishing off the beast.

The central mouth of the Akrid will periodically open, revealing a fleshy missile-spitting orifice underneath. This is the target that you need to take out permanently. If you have a rocket launcher on your VS, you can wait until it's exposed, then nail it for some big-time damage. Its attacks at this point are relatively avoidable; when it rapid-fires projectiles at you, move forward towards the beast to avoid them. With a few rounds of explosives down the gullet, the beast will solidify and reveal a passage leading onwards. Surprise! The level continues!

NEVEC Base

Not much to say here - more Akrid and NEVEC enemies to kill. There are plenty of VS suits to go around, though, including the handy speedy ones, so feel free to shuffle around as much as you like.

Eventually you'll drop down to a huge room with rows upon rows of VS's parked inside. Avoid dallying too long here, but be sure that your VS is at or close to full health when you move through to the end of the room and drop down.

Boss Fight: Brother

You know, we've been paying so little attention to the storyline that we don't even know what this character's name is, or what role he's supposed to play, save for the fact that he was apparently designed with the same kind of thermal energy absorption device that you were. But he's a bad guy. Of that much we're sure.

This electrical attack will do a lot of damage. Don't let your opponent get too close!

He's going to be coming at you with a suped-up VS of your father's design, and it's something of a beast. Among the attacks are a simple gatling gun spray, a pair of fire-and-forget rockets, and most damaging of all, a close-up attack which causes an electric field to sprout in front of him. This last attack can easily take off half the life off of a VS, thanks to the fact that it will mostly immobilize you and prevent you from moving while it hits you.

Video Walk-through

This guy won't be able to withstand the firepower of multiple VS's.

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Luckily, there's nothing especially mysterious about defeating the VS. Equip your own VS with a rocket launcher of some sort, along with either a gatling gun or an EM laser or something similar. Use the posts in the area as cover, and listen to your opponent to know what attacks are coming your way when you can't see him. The rockets are usually going to be the most annoying, but you can slide away from them if you can see them coming. The gatling guns can be listened for and avoided by only slipping out of cover when they're almost over.

Apart from that, well...hit him with rockets and stuff. The opposing VS can move quite quickly, but you can definitely overpower it, especially since you'll have two fresh VS's waiting for you in the arena if the one you enter with is destroyed.