In what I thought at the time was an optional area, I find a new gun + a data pick.

The data pick allows me to get through a locked door – it seems to be a one use item so in effect its just a key. If there was another way through this door I don’t know what it was.

I get to the next level and Denning tells me I have a choice of routes. One involves rolling under some floating mines and the other takes me through a highly radioactive area. I’m supposed to go under the mines as far as I can tell.

I do this but get to a dead end – I’m sure there is some way through but I don’t find it and head South instead.

After I take this route Denning tells me where to get a radiation shield. It’s probably worth coming this way just to get it.

It’s just stashed in a footlocker to the West. Getting through the radioactive area is no big deal actually. I have to shoot through some barrels but its straightforward otherwise.

I’m having to jump up and over things more often in this game than Crusader 1. Here I have to get the conveyor belt up and running to deliver a few crates , then use them to climb over the railing and get to the keycard and lever.

The habit of hiding stuff behind crates could get annoying but so far its not been a problem – if I can’t get a door open I just blow everything up.

I’m getting to the prisons now and free a load of employees who don’t seem that grateful.

In the end I find our two prisoners. Torch isn’t here but my old pal Colonel Ely is + a scientist.

They are stuck behind a forcefield and I can’t get to them.

Denning powers up a telepad by them to get them out and I have to make my own way to the nearest tram. Why he couldn’t just power this up without me having to fight my way here I have no idea.

I get the usual cutscene at this point. The chairman is not impressed with how things are going and is sending for a squadron of Enforcers. The director blames him for interfering in the first place.

I get to meet one of the prisoners I just rescued at the base although her name escapes me for now. She was working on alternative energy sources and apparently got somewhere but her research was stolen.

I get a joint briefing from the Colonel + Shepherd now. The security up here is looking for us and we want to distract them by stopping the mining operation. I have to go and blow up a refining machine in the mines.

So it’s back to a mining style level again with similar graphics to the last mining level.

I’m also being guided by Torch again who has shown up unharmed after all.

I find myself one of those nifty triple rocket launcher guns that proved so useful in Crusader 1. I have to kill load of bots to get it but its worth the effort.

Torch tells me to blow the floor away to get to the next level. I use a det pack on it, then walking on it collapses the tiles and I fall to the level below.

I make my way to the mining machine without any big drama. Torch tells me to use a fusion pack on the conveyors. I do this but the conveyors don’t move. I have to jump on them myself then run off at the last minute before I fall in along with the explosives. This gives me two minutes to get off the level before it goes bang.

I escape in time, and the news reports the further difficulties with the mining operation.

A fusion battery is waiting for me back at the base. This will help no end as my power meter now goes all the way up to 100%.

We have intercepted a message from the director and she is planning to introduce a toxin into the air systems here at the base to kill us off. There are three possible sources so I get sent to one, Shepherd and Ely to 2, and Denning gets one on his own despite the fact that he’s about to keel over at any moment.

This level is a bit more office like.

I run into a sliding floor trap – I’m stuck in the area with a slowly moving floor revealing a big hole under me. Fortunately I just have to shoot a wall switch to remove the force field holding me in here.

There is a semi-secret area which I have to get to by using the burning temperature of paper as the code. This is actually different depending on what sort of paper as you would expect + it doesn’t tell me whether to use Celsius or Fahrenheit but this is a reference to the book Fahrenheit 451 so 451 gets me in.

There is a new type of bot in here with a freezing gun. I can control this one through the screen but there is no one in the room outside left to kill. I’ll be fighting a few of these from here on out.

There is also a Graviton shield which combined with my fusion battery means I’m well set up for the coming missions.

I keep finding new guns although I confess I usually stick to the machine gun and the super shotgun as every thing else tends to either use energy up or burn/freeze my victims leaving me with no ammo to pick up.

To get out of this room its another hidden grate behind crates.

Sekada (no wonder I couldn’t remember the name) is on the comm for this mission and she warns me about some incoming bots and tells me to head to the room to the North.

This gives me control of a floor turret and I can quickly kill all the bots with impunity.

More hidden grates later I get to the end of the level.

Just when I’m getting to my goal we discover it was all a trap and there never was a plan to release the toxin. Shepherd and Ely make it out but Denning goes down fighting.

Sekada gives me directions to the nearest tram.

On the way there I manage to end up standing on one of the troopers heads and he just stands still ignoring me.

The director and the chairman are arguing again, about the failure of the trap this time. They have Dennings communicator and realise we must have a base on the moon. The chairman sends us a personal message that we will die soon.

We know that the Enforcers are on the way. Rather than deal with them after they land the mission is to get to the moon base guns and shoot them down.

I’ve done 7 out of the 10 missions now – I’ll probably take a couple more sessions to finish this game as 3 missions at a time is a bit much. I’m not quite as keen to carry on as I was, its all a bit too similar. There is no way I could have played Crusader 1 and 2 back to back without getting bored with the whole thing to be honest and I’ve just about reached the stage now where its starting to get monotonous. Attempting to play through the whole thing relatively quickly doesn’t help, it’s a game to play a level at a time over a couple of weeks really. It’s still a decent game but I’d much rather have had Bioforge 2.