I was feeling all smug and smart about sneaking into the Statue of Liberty without using the front door, which last for all of ten seconds before Alex, my mission control guy, reminds me that I need to rescue a UNATCO agent name Gunther, who’s being held prisoner on the ground floor. This eliminates pretty much any tactical advantage my stealthy approach might have given me. Things get much worse when I try to go down the stairs, and am ambushed by a security camera and an automated turret. One quickload later, and I reconnoiter the area more carefully.

Being inching along the wall I can get a good view of the ground-floor lobby without being spotted by the camera. Imagine my joy when I see that there’s a security panel situated very close to the fucking front door. Naturally, there isn’t one on the second floor landing, where I am. After some deliberation, I use my GEP gun to scrap the camera and the turret with a single rocket, which doesn’t seem to alert the guard in the lobby. I make it down the stairs and avoid the guard, finding a crawlspace along one wall. What’s a stealth game without human-sized ventilation ducts, right? Good thing it’s there, because the doorway between the lobby and the area where Gunther is locked up is blocked off with lasers. What are the odds?

After some sneaking around and picking up of loot, I find myself pretty much where I want to be, which is to say I’m crouched in a room full of computer equipment, staring at the back of a guard’s head. I’ve picked up some sort of one-shot plasma weapon, which I zap the guard with. It sets his head on fire, which rules, but it doesn’t actually kill him. It also doesn’t prevent him from running over to the door (the one with the laser tripwires) and setting off every alarm in the joint. I try to switch to my pistol to shoot him, but I can’t do it until I cycle through my “throw the now-useless plasma weapon away” animation, which eats up several seconds. Sigh. Quickload time.

When I try again, it turns out that whether I use my crossbow or my pistol to kill the guard, he makes enough noise while dying that he alerts his three compatriots in the next room, who come running into the room to set off the alarm. After a few tries, I get good enough with the combat system to murder all of them in short order before they can either set off the alarm or kill me. Once I’ve done that, there’s nothing to prevent me from letting Gunther out of his cell. Gunther is a large steel-plated Austrian man whose serial numbers appear to have been filed off. He’s all “Give me a gun so I can make these terrorists pay,” which is awfully big talk for a guy who was locked in a jail cell up until ten seconds ago. I give him my pistol to shut him up, and he runs off start killing people. I grab a pistol from one of the dead guards and beat him to it. There were only a couple guards left alive on the ground floor anyway, and Gunther stays there to “secure the area” or some such, leaving me to accomplish the actual mission. Thanks, G.

After all that, I go back up the stairs, and I’m right back to where I started. I decide to make good on my promise to clear the place out, and stealth-kill the guards on the exterior balcony, the same ones I’d sneaked past earlier. I like to think that maybe they used the extra ten minutes of their lives to sign their wills, tell their wives how much they loved them, sing lullabies to their kids, whatever. For everything there is a season, and now is the season for killing dudes and taking their ammo.

Things get more interesting as I ascend the stairs to the top of the statue. I listen in on a conversation between a mercenary talking to one of the NSF guys. The mercenary complains that the NSF commander has weird tattoos on his face, and that they wouldn’t put a guy like that in charge of a mission back in Alabama. I don’t care how they do things in Alabama, and I express this by shooting a few holes in the barrel full of toxic gas the two guys are standing next to. While they’re choking and dying, I sweep the area for booby traps, acquiring a couple gas grenades in the process, and once the cloud dissipates, I keep heading up the stairs to the command center.

I’ve saved some tranq darts for the NSF commander, but he’s not interested in fighting. In fact, when I ask him what the NSF is planning, he’s pretty forthcoming about admitting that the entire attack was a diversion so the NSF could hijack a tanker ship full of Ambrosia, a vaccine for the nano-age plague known as the Gray Death. Who says you need torture to make terrorists talk? Once I capture the enemy leader, the UNATCO troops apparently feel sufficiently empowered to occupy the area and clear out the remaining terrorists. I’m ordered to head back to UNATCO headquarters, but I first take the opportunity to search the room. After picking the lock of a floor safe, I find a nano-augmentation cannister, which the terrorists captured and didn’t know what to do with. So naturally they left it with their diversionary force for safekeeping. What? I’m starting to think the Alabama guy might have had a point.

Nano-augs are one of the primary ways to buff up your character in this game, so this a welcome find. The down side is that they can only be installed by a medical droid, so if you find one, you’ll probably have to carry it around for a while before you can take advantage of it. Furthermore, each canister requires you to choose one of two possible augmentations. This one offers an arm upgrade, either Microfibrial Muscle, which lets you lift heavier objects and wield heavy weapons more effectively, or Combat Strength, which increases your melee damage. Obviously, this is the sort of decision that can have a major effect on your gameplay, and the player is asked to make this decision after completing only the introductory mission. I think this is what they refer to as “replay value,” although it’s a slightly unfair way of doing it.

Next up: a fun trip to UNATCO HQ! Which is right by the docks where I started the game! Why did they need me to liberate this place on my own, when the entire New York branch of UNATCO was apparently sitting right on the terrorists’ doorstep? God only knows.

It’ll be nice to meet some of my coworkers, though. I bet they’re all pretty cool.