I head to Hades to meet up with David Hassan. Hades is the military/prison planet in the system although the military don’t seem too keen on taking prisoners. Hassan is played by Christopher Walken who was in the credits with a starring role but isn’t in the game for much longer than anyone else. He tells me that the Kindred are looking for me. The name of the Kindreds leader, Kronos, seems to spark some sort of memory in me (signified by a grasping hand?) but I don’t know why for now. Hassan wants to use me to capture one of Kronos’s lieutenants called Malachite since he is the one looking for me. For now, he tells me to look into a company called Blessed Aquawine.

I check them out on the database.

And get led to seek out a guy called Hugo Carmichael on Bex.

Before I get there I get an email from a guy in distress and fly out to help.

He wants me to meet him at the Sinners Inn after I rescue him.

I’m rewarded for my efforts by a free set of Mark IV lasers – the best weapon in the game. These are also available to buy now in the booths.

While I’m in here, I notice Melissa hanging around.

She has sorted her problems out and we get a brief chat. Thats the last we’ll be seeing of her in this game – most of the acting parts in this are really short actually. They are the sort of thing the actor could come in and do in an afternoon which may have been the key to getting such a famous cast.

I head for Bex next taking out a few bad guys on the way. I’ve bought myself a full set of the new lasers by now and they do take things out a bit quicker than the old ones. There isn’t quite as much difference as you would expect but I wasn’t exactly struggling before.

In the bar on Bex there is a woman waiting to see me.

She must have been here a while as I have to put CD 1 back in to see her cutscene. She has come into some money and wants to leave the planet. Someone doesn’t want her to go so she needs me to fly her to Hephastus. It only pays 3000 but I agree to do it.

I head to meet up with Carmichael. He is packing and in a big hurry to get off the planet. He tells me that Malachite is dead and went down on the Canera! That’s as much as I get out of him for now. He is also flying to Hephaestus and I offer my services as a wingman in return for more info when I get back.

On the flight there we are ambushed by a serious number of fighters. Hugo runs off leaving me to it. My new lasers help out here and I survive without too much trouble. I go looking for him at his hotel when I land, but find Hugo dead and some bald guy searching his body. A quick firefight later and I take some strange metal container off the bald bloke. There was talk of a memory solid which should have been on the pod going missing, maybe this is it?

I head for the bar here and collect my 3000 for the other mission. I do like the way all the bars and worlds in the game look so different – a lot of effort must have gone into the sets and costumes. It’s a shame that we don’t see more of them. We have a good cast and loads of real sets but just pass through them all quickly.

I take the metal thing to Joe to see if he knows how to open it. He puts me in touch with a guy called Dimitri who will do the job but only for 30,000 which I don’t have. On the bright side, I’d remembered this as being 50,000 so its cheaper than I was expecting. Time to go and earn some money.

Right on cue I get an email with a job offer before I’ve even left the bar.

The job is for a Lord Vonx who wants me to destroy a gun shipment for the mutant war. There is a certain irony in that my first mission of the game was escorting guns to the same place for Xavier. It pays 8000.

This is a difficult mission. When I get to the nav point there must be about 8 ships defending the transports and there are 3 transports taking potshots at me. The transports are worse than the fighters in this game – when I fly escort for one a monolith freighter it’s not clear who is escorting who as these things have several giant guns on them. To make things worse here, I can’t just fly in and kill them all – I have to identify which of the 3 is carrying guns and only blow that one up. This means flying near to it while all 3 are shooting at me.

I get the mission done in the end with liberal use of afterburners but it was more trouble than it was worth money wise.

I go to work flying cargo again to raise cash and get distracted once more by a pilot in trouble. Where do they all get my email address from? I fly out and save her and she wants me to meet her in the bar on Crius.

I meet her at the bar and wish I hadn’t bothered. The pink flight suit is enough and I beat a hasty retreat.

I spend a good amount of time from this point flying cargo between Anhur and Hermes. They are just 3 points apart but I can make good money by taking minerals from one and technological/building goods to the other. The tech goods especially earn a lot of money although they are expensive so I need about 40,000 spare to make the trip in the first place.

I soon trade my way up to 260,000 total wealth (including my ship). I underestimated how much I’d need for the best ship. I’ve got all the best extras on the one I’m using and that adds up to 150,000 on its own. I’m looking at another 200,000 for the best ship and that can carry more gear than the one I’m using. Its looking like around 400,000 to 450,000 for the perfect ship on that basis. I expect there will be a rock hard mission or two near the end of the game but I’m not having any real trouble yet with the ship I’ve got so I may just go for a smaller upgrade rather than trying to get the best ship before I pick the plot up again.

I’m offered another job by Xavier and go to meet him on Crius.

He wants me to guard his mining base while he is occupied out of system for 5000.

The moneys not great but since its a video mission I accept and head off. I get an email on the way telling me that he’s under attack and I need to go and rescue him which I do.

He’s grateful enough to double my pay for being saved despite the original mission being scrubbed. That gets me up to 270,000 credits.

I’ve had a lot less technical trouble with P2 today and have found myself enjoying the game more because of it. All the issues I’ve mentioned before still apply but P2 can be quite good fun for all of these when its behaving itself. It’s a game that either needs a true Dos machine or a faster PC to run Dosbox on.

I’m onto the 3rd and final CD now with the main plot FMV so I’m not all that far off the end. There seems to be a lot less video per CD than there was in WC4 and with half the number of CD’s that means you get through them quickly. It’s not a short game for all that, I’ve spent plenty of time on it this weekend. The FMV is well spread out and I never go too long without a new one but I still get to do my own thing for long enough that I’m not being continually pulled off to carry out these missions. P2 is well paced in this respect, with the plot missions and general privateering mixing together well. I’ve got enough money now that I can easily afford to get my metal thing opened up and have money left over for trading. I’m split between whether to try to get enough money for the best ship or just to stick with what I’ve got and carry on with the plot. With all the extras I’ve got, I have a feeling I could possibly complete the game in the ship I’m in even though it is one of the cheap ones so I’ll probably plough on with the plot.