Mission 03: Crossing The Plains

Your goal now is to find the source of a large thermal energy reading in the snowy plains near the group's trailer; you'll need fuel if you're going to...go somewhere, presumably. You'll start in a small collection of buildings with a number of trilid generators. Destroy them, if you wish (there's a VS rocket launcher near your starting position which will do the trick nicely), then collect the energy and ammo scattered around before heading off to the north.

Reaching the power plant will take a goodly amount of time, thanks to the fact that you can't use a VS to cross the huge plain. There are VS's in the starting area, sure, but as soon as you take one onto the plain, you wind up getting knocked off by a giant worm Akrid. There are two ways to proceed here: fight the worm for an achievement (but no real in-game benefit), or simply avoid it entirely and move on to the power source in the far north.

Avoidance Tactics

If you decide to simply avoid the worm completely, the best way to do so is to stick to the rock wall on the eastern side of the plain and walk along it. If you stay as close to it as possible, the worm will generally not appear at all, preferring to stick underground. It'll still occasionally cause you to stumble, but it won't be able to attack you for the most part.

Attacking The Beast

On the other hand, if you decide you want to attack the worm and earn your 50 achievement points, you're in for a heck of a ride. The worm has a few major attacks, all of which occur after it sticks itself up out of the ground. The hardest to avoid is a wave of ice which it cause to erupt from the ground with a well-timed breath of hot air. This wave attack won't instantly kill you, but it's almost impossible to dodge, so you'll definitely take damage when it hits.

Secondly, if the worm sticks its tail up into the air, it will launch, um, big blocks of material at you. We don't want to know what the heck this stuff is made of. The blocks will come your way and deal heavy damage if they hit. They won't instantly kill you (not on Normal difficulty, anyway), but if you get hit by a block, fall down, then get back up and get hit again (which is all too likely given the rapidity with which they come), you'll be killed and will be forced to start over. When you see these things start coming your way, it's best to actually start running towards the worm, as they'll fly over your head and wind up landing behind you.

Video Walk-through

The death of the giant worm is somewhat confusing, but here's what it looks like.

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Most problematic is the swallow attack, wherein the worm will rear back, pause, then slide across the ice towards you on its belly. If this attack hits you, you automatically die. It can be tough to dodge, as your only real defense is to move laterally away from the path that the worm follows as it comes towards you. If you're not far enough away from the worm, then you won't have enough time to avoid this attack and will be dying rather often. It's tremendously frustrating to get hit with this attack when you've damaged the beast significantly, as dying here resets the entire encounter and forces you to start over.

That's tough, because killing the worm requires dealing a lot of damage to it. Its only weak spots are the yellow spots on the sides, which are rarely going to be facing you; hitting them reliably is difficult to do. It's best to aim at them either when the worm's tail is in the air and it's shooting missiles at you, or just after you dodge its swallow attack, when the worm is temporarily motionless. You can finish off most of the spots with nothing more than your machinegun, and it's probably recommended that you do so, as it'll be the most flexible weapon available to you.

When you "kill" the giant slug, it'll pop out of the ground and flop over onto its side, and the tension music will stop. You won't receive the achievement for the kill at this point; you need to wait until the end of the mission before you can obtain that.

The Fight

When you cross the plain and reach the building on the northern end, find an entrance to it near the windows and head inside. You'll want to have as much T-Eng as possible before you do so. You'll immediately be accosted by a mysterious VS which claims that the area you're entering is under NEVEC supervision. You'll have to fight her to complete the mission!

Video Walk-through

You can take on Basil on foot or in a VS, or in a combination of the two.

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The enemy VS attacks with missiles, gatling guns, and an odd laser beam which sweeps back and forth across the battlefield. You'll have a tough time dodging her attacks, especially since she often uses a smokescreen ability that will make it difficult even to see her. If you're in a VS yourself, the lasers are almost impossible to dodge, although you can attempt to jump over them if you see them coming ahead of time - which you probably won't. Since you probably won't be able to keep your VS alive throughout the entire fight, try to unload on the enemy with your gatling gun while constantly firing and reloading your rocket launcher. There are other rocket launchers on the ground, in both VS and normal form factors, so if you run out of ammo you can pick up something else.

If you are forced to fight on foot, you can climb the snow pile in one corner of the building to get above the laser beams and avoid them. The woman will still hit you with her rockets, of course, but avoiding the lasers will allow you to avoid a bunch of damage. Shell her with your rocket launcher or grenades until you wear down her health all the way.