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I’m taking a break from preparing for my trip to New York in order to write about JC Denton’s trip out of New York. It’s all symbolic and metaphorical and stuff.

After escaping from the MJ12 base where I’d been incarcerated, I found myself in UNATCO HQ, in the medical bay. I encounter Jaime Reyes there. Jaime’s had it with the threats and the torture and the inexplicable violence UNATCO has been inflicting on everyone named Denton. I tell him he should get away as soon as he can, and try to meet up with me later in Hong Kong. It’s also possible to tell Jaime to stay at UNATCO; the course of action you recommend to him determines when you’ll see him next, and what useful goodies or information he’ll bring you.

Jaime also has a retirement gift for me: a brand-new Torso upgrade canister. This isn’t one of the Aqualung/Environmental Resistance canisters like we’ve seen before. This one gives me a choice between Regeneration and Energy Shield.

At its lowest level, Regeneration lets me recover 5 hit points per second; since each body part can take 100 points of damage, this means I can go from nearly-dead to completely healthy in less than a minute. Mind you, it’ll take less than a minute to completely deplete my power supply, but a single bioelectric cell will give me enough juice to heal about 60 points of damage, twice as much healing as I can get from a medical kit. At higher levels, Regenerate heals damage even faster, and the power drain per second remains the same; at its maximum level, it heals 40 points a second, which is fast enough that you can actually use it in combat.

Energy Shield uses much less power than Regeneration does, and at the lowest level reduces the damage I’ll take from fire and energy weaons by 20%. At the highest level, it reduces that damage by 80%.

So the question is, is it better to be able to heal any type of damage, any time, anywhere, or is it better to be able to reduce the damage from a few types of weapons? This is a difficult conundrum, if you’re a complete idiot; I select Regeneration without hesitation and go on my merry way.

I suppose that there are some character concepts that would benefit from Energy Shield. If you’re playing as some sort of rogue doctor with a high Medical skill, the improved healing you’d get from medical kits might make Regeneration redundant. Or if you want to be some sort of Mirror Man whom lasers bounce off of. The problem is, both augmentations are very similar in function: they act to increase the amount of punishment you can take. Regeneration acts a bit slower and drains considerably more power, but it’s much more versatile than Energy Shield. Plus, whenever you find a recharging station, you can switch on Regeneration for a quick fix.

Overall, I find that Regeneration makes the game much easier; once I had it, I no longer had to conserve my limited supply of medkits, and spent much less time replaying difficult firefights to try and get through them with minimal damage.

Anyway, enough of that digression. There’s a guard wandering around the medlab area, so I take him down with a tranq dart. I want to avoid going on a bloody shooting spree against my former comrades, so I rely heavily on non-lethal weaponry throughout this section.

Across the hall from the medlab is Alex Jacobson’s office. I’m all “Thanks for the help, Daedalus,” and he’s all “Huh? What are you talking about?” This is actually somewhat surprising. Usually there’s only room for one hacker in a game, and he or she will do everything computer-related. This raises the possibility that there are multiple characters hacking into my infolink and telling me what to do. Intrigue!

Alex gives me the key I need to get out of the building, and remarks that he’d been considering a change of careers anyway, promising to find me in Hong Kong.  After this chat, I stop by the armory, and Sam Carter gives me a speech about how most of the people working in this office are 24-carat gold, doing their best to make the world a better place, et cetera. He refuses to leave with me to join the rebels, saying that the only way the organizatino can be saved is if the good people stay. He finishes his speech by letting me into the armory so I can steal any weapons and ammunition I need. A quick inspection of his computer reveals an email from one “Minister of True Lies,” thanking him for helping undermine UNATCO’s security protocols so I could escape. The Minister of True Lies is, as it turns out, the leader of Silhouette, the French terrorist group which was assisting Paul and the NSF.

Once I’m done there, it’s up to the first floor for an exit interview with Joseph Manderley. His secretary is shocked to see me, but I ignore her and go into Manderley’s office, where I discover the man talking to a Walton Simons, who’s appearing on some sort of funky holographic projector. Simons expresses his belief that Manderley will be much happier in his new job with the Library of Congress. Some might view this as a demotion, but I prefer to think this means that MJ12 is finally getting serious about infiltrating Delta Green.

God, that last joke was geeky and obscure even by my usual standards.

Simons is pissed at Manderley’s lack of effectiveness as a commander, and is upset at the way Manderley handled the Dentons, who Simons describes as having been very expensive assets. I interrupt the conversation and Simons signs off; Manderley tells me I won’t be able to get away; security already knows I’ve escaped, and with my killswitch activated, I’ll be dead within 23 hours. After the conversation, Manderley just kind of stands there like he’s waiting to see what happens next. I’d feel kind of bad about taking down an old guy, so I turn to leave. Manderley then pulls out a pistol and shoots me in the back! Jerk! I forget about my reluctance to visit violence upon old people, and zap with with my electric prod until he drops, which in the world of business etiquette is widely recognized to be an acceptable subtitute for submitting two weeks’ notice.

There’s no one else of interest in the building except for some armed guards, and I already have everything I need to make my escape, so I run out of UNATCO HQ at full speed. Outside, I find that Jock is waiting for me with a nifty stealth helicopter. He says that Daedalus contacted him and somehow authorized him to fly one of the UN’s ubiquitous black helicopters from Hong Kong to New York to rescue me. I hop in the chopper and we take off for Hong Kong to find Tracer Tong and get my killswitch deactivated.

This segment of the game really ups the WTF factor. It introduces Daedalus as a significant player, further establishes MJ12 as a force to be reckoned with, and throws Tracer Tong and Silhouette into the mix, too. When you also factor in the NSF (which might be in dire straits with Lebedev’s death and the failure of their New York operation), and UNATCO (which appears to have been mostly, but not entirely, coopted by MJ12), we have six different people or organizations involved in the plot so far. Luckily, aside from MJ12 and UNATCO, they all appear to be on my side. We’ll see how long that lasts.

I arrive at Castle Clinton in the company of Agent Navarre and a couple nameless UNATCO troopers. They take up positions in front of the castle, waiting for my arrival.

Their plan lacks subtlety, so I look for alternatives. An ill-fed urchin hits me up for some food. I give him a candy bar and he lets me know that the NSF goes in and out of Castle Clinton through a secet passage behind a soda machine on the docks, and he gives me the code I need to enter into the nearby keypad to open up the passage. I sneak in, crossbowing a few terrorists guarding the secret passage, and scout around until I find some of the missing Ambrosia. It turns out that Computers is a really great skill for sneaky characters, as it allows you to hack any security computer you find, turn off security cameras and turrets, and open or close doors at will.

In addition to the Ambrosia, I find another nano enhancement. This one offers me the choice of Aqualung (increase the amount of time I can spend submerged in water) or Environmental Resistance (reduces the damage I take from radiation, gas, and poison). This is not a difficult choice.

I work my way up to the castle courtyard, where a bunch of NSF dudes are patrolling. I fire a few shots at them, which prompts them to run outside to seek cover. Anna and her troops are still waiting out there, and are apparently pretty bored, as they gun down the terrorists without warning. Anna is pleased about waxing all the terrorists, and gives me some EMP grenades. I move on to the next part of the mission, going on to the nearby subway station to resolve a hostage crisis. The NSF have wired the subway platform with explosives, and are threatening to blow it up.

They’ve set up a barricade of crates at the bottom of the stairs into the station, and I just don’t have the ammo for a prolonged shootout. I eventually hit upon the solution of chucking a gas grenade down the stairs, and shooting the bad guys while they’re helplessly choking and unable to shoot back. Rude, but effective.

Once I get to the bottom of the stairs, this entire gunfight turns out to have been a huge waste, since the NSF have set up laser tripwires in the doorway, and I can’t find any way to bypass or disarm them. Disturbing the lasers means detonating the many, many crates of TNT which are spaced strategically on the subway platform. This also makes any shootout with the remaining guards on the platform rather dangerous.

I quickly retreat up the stairs and find and alternate entrance: a hatch leading into the steam tunnels above the station. I’m then able to drop from the tunnels onto the platform, kill the remaining NSF, and rescue their two hostages. Once I do this, I get the message that Battery Park is secure, and I hop on the subway train to proceed to Hell’s Kitchen. Alex tells me that Gunther will arrive to secure the park, which will become something of a running joke throughout the game: sure, he talks tough, but he only shows up once all the bad guys are unconscious or dead.

Overall assessment: being sneaky and looking for a back way into Castle Clinton worked splendidly. Being straightforward and mounting a frontal assault on the subway station resulted in a difficult gunfight, and I was forced to find an alternate route onto the platform in any event. It’s like this game is trying to tell me something.

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.