Everybody loves rotoscoping: Let's Play Out of this World!

Hmm, might want to run from the wall of water next time. Of course, I'm sure that's going to be easier said than done.

He's still got his laser pistol (pyew pyew) pulled out. That wall of water is relentless and inescapable. Maybe.

I don't see how this problem couldn't be solved with more lasers.

It's too bad that, with all the universe to be involuntarily sent to, Angus ends up on the one planet where the entire ecosystem geographic is doing everything it can to kill him.

Alternatively, he may be in Australia.

I wonder if that lake/pool is the same one that houses the hungry tentacles at the start of the game? Yeah, let's see how easily you can grab and eat scientists from a dry riverbed, Grabby.

This is a brilliant idea and I don't see how it can possibly fail. First thing's first, let's turn on the waterworks:


Here it comes! I hope you're ready to meet your maker, water!




Take that! *pew pew!*




I think it's working!




Dammit.

Maybe you didn't use enough lasers?

As unthinkable as it may seem, we may be forced to pursue a no-laser option. I know, I can hardly believe it myself!

Or maybe I just don't want to believe it.

All right, water, you win this round. Better make a run for it!


Yeeee!



The advancing wall of water slows a bit whenever it finds a new hole to fill, thankfully affording Gus the time he needs to scamper to safety. Well, relative safety, it's not like he's on his way to go have tea and scones with his thesis advisor or anything.



The water surging down into the caverns below creates a pressurized jet that sends Angus rocketing up to dry land, and also causes him to briefly ponder the Bernouilli effect. This blocks off the bottom exit of the screen, effectively preventing us from ever returning to the caves below. NOT THAT WE'D WANT TO.

Man, I am more than ready to get the hell out of these caves. Run for the surface, Angus!


All right, the flowing water has stopped! I have no idea how draining an underground lake is supposed to stop a waterfall three stories higher, but let's not look a gift horse in the mouth. With the water gone, we can finally cross over in safety.



Bye bye, caves! See ya never!

Ever seen a relaxation fountain? That waterfall and lake were clearly part of a really big one. You broke the reservoir tank, so the motor is just pumping air now, greatly reducing its lifespan. Way to go, Angus McScience.

Hey, Angus' job is to collide hadrons, not engineer water-based stress relievers.

Cut him some slack.

And we're back! Well, almost. Thanks for everyone's patience while I was on vacation, now that the jetlag has worn off I'll be starting this this up again sometime this weekend. I actually sat down and played through the rest of the game today, and I should have more than enough screens for everything that I want to show, so all that's left is to start writing.

Stay tuned for the continuing adventures of Gus in Everything Wants to Kill You Land!

Voted #1 by the UN!...

...The #1 place to die.

Having tamed the bloodthirsty relaxation fountain, Gus finally crosses the dam and finds himself inside a place that we will be referring to as The Fortress.


Interestingly, it would seem that Buddy chose this moment to enter The Fortress as well, only he chose a somewhat less comfortable access point. Note that he also flies onto the screen as though he was somehow thrown by someone or ejected from somewhere, which is a mystery that I may never solve.



Anyway, Buddy crawls along until he hits some sort of metal plate, at which point he starts fidgeting with it in an attempt to dislodge it. There is quite obviously no way that we can help him with this, so let's just wish him luck and move on.


In the next screen, Angus comes face to face with another guard. It, uh, looks like I've gotten a bit rusty in the last few weeks. Heh heh. Let's just assume that I killed that guy and move on.


Entering the next screen, we find another guard running toward the right. Yeah, you better run, guy!


Following him into the next screen, we see that he's set himself up inside a barricade of some sort. Angus does the first thing that comes to mind:


Hmm. Blowing down the doors gives this guy the chance to get the drop on us, with extra-crispy results. Eh, forget him, let's go downstairs - we'll deal with him later.


Coming downstairs, we have the choice of going right or left. I vote for left!


A short firefight later, we find ourselves in a room furnished with several chandeliers. Angus can't stand ostentatious lighting, so he does a little redecorating:

The light fixture hits the ground with a satisfying pop-and-sizzle. Hopefully these goons have learned a valuable lesson about interior decorating.

Out of curiosity, we head left:


Hey, it's...where we were right before this update started. Huh. Anyone who has been paying close attention will know that there were two levels to the dam that we crossed earlier. It just so happens that, the first time you successfully cross the dam, the game acts as though you were on the higher level regardless of where you actually were. So, although we entered on the lower of the two levels, we were in fact transported to the upper one and then made our way down to the lower one through the inside of The Fortress. This can be handily demonstrated like so:


Ta-da! Back where we started today. But what's this? It would appear that the light fixture we destroyed was actually connected to the metal plate that was barring Buddy's progress. Severing the chain connecting the two seems to have made it possible for our alien chum to dislodge the plate and move deeper into the ducts. How...obtuse.

No point in dwelling on that, I suppose, so let's move on.


Heading back down the stairs, we decide to take the right path this time, where Angus discovers...


The fist of an angry alien guard. Gus collapses to the ground and his trusty pal Blasty slides across the floor, ending up near the left exit.



This certainly seems like quite the pickel for our friend Gus! Faced with certain death at the hands of the guard, Angus does the only logical thing he can do: he kicks him in the beanbag.


Pulling off a sweet dive roll, Gus picks up Blasty and delivers some red-hot justice. You have to admit, that's pretty badass for a game that was programmed on an Amiga.

Gus is just lucky that aliens from dimension wherever have their reproductive organs between their legs, and not tucked safely inside their ribcage or whatever.

Star Trek taught me that the are located in the knees

You can never go wrong by kicking out a knee, ever.

Unless it's your friend or your mom or dad or an old lady who needs help with her groceries.

With no more invisible fists waiting just off-screen, we can now finally make our way to the right.


I mentioned earlier that Eric Chahi expects players to die as they make their way through Out of this World, and this area is a prime example of that. When Angus arrives at the halfway point of this screen, he is suddenly flanked by guards arriving from both sides of the screen. I'm pretty sure that it is completely impossible to survive this encounter if you don't know it's coming ahead of time - you more or less have to set up a shield on the left side of the screen before the enemies step in, as you don't have time to put up two shields once you are under fire. Once you've got yourself bunkered down, though, you can take care of these guys like any other firefight in the game: charge up a shot to destroy their shields and follow it up with a quick blast to vaporize them.


Zing!



This next area apparently features some kind of swimming pool. Maybe those two guys were actually lifeguards?


Moving right along, we come to a room with a transparent green disco ball hanging from the ceiling. Oh, there's also a guard here, I suppose we should take care of him.


Unfortunately, this guy sports some kind of perma shield that I can't seem to blast my way through. What's more, if I put up a shield of my own, he starts rolling some sort of glowy ball things along the floor toward Gus. And what should happen if one reaches his feet?


Predictable. All right, screw this guy; let's go for a swim.



Sploosh!


And down we go.


What's this? Why, this appears to be the bottom of the swimming pool that Angus found at the end of the Cave of Terrors! Sure is a good thing that we randomly decided to blow up that wall for no reason, eh?


Nothing to see here.


And we're back at the screen with all the munchers and deadly holes. Incidentally, while the munchers are harmless now that they are submerged, they still do that thing where they start chewing as you swim by them. Their unfailing optimism is simply adorable.

Angus is quite a swimmer, but he does need to breathe now and then. Heading up the right passage is a one-way ticket to glub glub, but by taking the left path he finds an air pocket to keep him going.


Feeling refreshed, Gus heads to the left...


...but the cave-in nips that plan in the bud. All right, let's try heading down instead.


Well well, what have we here? A large air pocket improbably awaits us on the lowest level, along with a few munchers and something that resembles the power line we destroyed much earlier in our adventure. Gus decides to work to his strengths:



Like any good particle physicist, the only language that Angus speaks is violence.

Now we have to swim all the way back to the surface. Yes, we have to stop at the air bubble on the way. I'll spare you all the details.


I included this image just to show that Gus swims like someone who just stepped out of King's Quest.



Where are we going, you ask? Angus has a score to settle, as you shall soon see.



Remember this guy? Last time things didn't go so well, but this time we've got his number. While blasting down the doors got Angus killed, you can also simply walk up to them, which triggers them opening. It is highly recommended that you set yourself up a shield before doing this, however. If you do, then the guard will react like his pal with the green disco ball and start rolling explosive charges toward Gus. The solution is simple, if devious: simply close the doors!


Stepping backwards causes the doors to close automatically. The charges then bounce off the doors and head right back to their owner. It's like poetic justice, only with violence!

MIND BLOWN

Feeling really rather clever, Angus proceeds to explore the world behind the heavily guarded door.


The first thing he finds is another one of those weapon charging doohickeys. I've never actually run out of juice for Blasty in this part of the game, but this room leads me to believe that such a thing must be possible. Well, as long as we're here...


Wheeeee!




Coming into the next area, we find an assortment of Christmas decorations jovially suspended from the ceiling. Note that jovial here is used to denote "gaily" or "merrily", not the planet Jupiter. At least, I think we aren't on Jupiter.


Come to think of it, haven't we seen something like this before? Oh yes, back when we met this guy:


Huh. So that means that we're probably right above him. In fact, if you look carefully at the green orbs, you can see a white blob in them that appears to pace back and forth in the lower screen. And given that there is a convenient hole in the wall there, the likes of which a blaster shot could be fired through, I think our next course of action is pretty obvious!



Oops, looks like we missed. The guard below, who personally spent hour at the Brick choosing those orbs after driving 3 hours to find one that had them in stock, is none too pleased and attempts to exact fiery vengeance.

...

Wait, that's not how it happened.


Gus waited patiently until the white blob reflected in the orbs came to a stop, directly beneath the deadly implement of decoration. Loosing a shot from his trusty Blasty, he cleverly dropped the sphere onto the guard's head, ending the fight before it ever began. His efforts were rewarded with a sudden yelp, cut short by a pleasing crunch and the sound of breaking space glass.



A dish best served cold indeed.




Continuing on, Angus finds...a hole. No sense, uh, wasting it, I suppose.


Work those sturdy physicist knees! This room is initially calm, although it doesn't take long before a mob of alien guards unleashes a withering hail of gunfire from the left side of the screen. Because we cut the power in that underwater cavern, however, the door on the left stays closed and grants us a short grace period to act before getting murderized. If we hadn't, however, things would have looked something like this:


Instead, we do the sensible thing. If there are dozens of angry guards to the left, we blow the door and book it to the right.


Stay tuned for the most exciting, cinematic sequence in the whole game!

Can you smell that? It's my breath, and it's baited. As I'm waiting. With baited breath.

That shit didn't work at all.

...

Can't wait for the next update!

I'm under the impression that Angus was somehow responsible.

To my knowledge, he is not. Last time we saw Buddy was, I think, when he sent Gus into the steam vents shortly before that whole nasty cave business. After that, his fate is uncertain until you see him crawling through the pipes in The Fortress. (TM)

Are you guys ready for some exciting excitement? I know I sure as hell am!

When we last left our hero, he was running to the right. And run he should! For there must be several dozen guards (offscreen) in the left area and they are doing everything in their power to reduce Gus to a crispy pile of carbon.


Coming into the next screen, there are a few things to notice. Notice how the gunfire artfully missed Angus, creating a sense of dramatic tension. Notice that Buddy appears to have worked his way through the ventilation system and happens to be crawling in the ceiling above us at this very moment. Notice how we are running up to no fewer than nine separate doors. This last thing might seem like cause for concern, but in fact it is not.


These doors are powered, so they part upon Gus' arrival and, more importantly, seal closed behind him as he continues running. Speaking of running, now would be a particularly bad time to stop doing so:



As we charge ever to the right, the doors are systematically reduced to cinders mere moments after we traverse them. Isn't that EXCITING?!

Here's the next screen:


Frankly, I don't know how much more of this my poor heart can take.


At last, a way out! If we can just get to those bars we can...


I mean, just as soon as we open this...locked, barred door...


Crud.



At this point, the only thing to do is to set up camp by the door. Gus throws down some shields and tries to take out his aggressors.


Thankfully, the ridiculous flood of gunfire coming from offscreen has diminished to a more manageable trickle - maybe those guys forgot to visit the blaster charger upstairs?


What's this? Like some sort of crazy deus ex machina, Buddy opens up the panel in the ceiling that connects to the ventilation shafts that he has been exploring for so long now. Get me out of here, Buddy!


Phew, much better. Now that we're outside again, Gus has a second to orient himself in his harsh, alien surroundings. During a moment of calm, he wonders how any living being could ever survive in such a treacherous, unwelcoming environment. The answer, he suspects, lies in copious amounts of drink.

WTF?! He's in Australia? I knew the continent was shady I didn't realize though that it was infested with Aliens

I genuinely did not see that coming.

So . . . this wasn't a joke then, was it?