On one of my partial playthroughs, I had a policy of never rescuing anyone. The universal stupidity among them was clearly because of irreparable psychological trauma, so I decided the most merciful policy when finding a survivor was to smash in their skull with a barbell. That being one of the quickest ways to put them down; done properly they probably didn’t even have time to feel pain. If one of those pneumatic guns used in cattle kill floors had been available, I’d have used that instead. It was simply the most merciful way to do it.
Doing it while dressed in a pink nightgown was optional. But it’s okay, Frank covered wars. He’s qualified to smash in skulls with a barbell while in drag.
Yeah, despite numerous attempts I STILL haven’t been able to save those two a-holes from the barricaded store in Al Fresca plaza because they insist on trying to fight the F’ing zombies rather than just sticking close to me.
And what the F is up with that queen bee thingy? It kills a bunch of zombies in the area but when they die they leave behing glowy green bits that hurt you? What good is that??
I got such a huge kick out of seeing Frank in the mostly serious cutscenes wearing some ridiculous outfit he decided to put on for no reason from the zombie-infested mall stores. I desperately wanted at least one instance of “Frank, what the fuck are you wearing?” from the NPCs, but I guess it was way funnier they didn’t seem to notice.
The bouncing glowy ouch blobs usually won’t hit you if you keep moving (never stand still in a zombie apocalypse); the queen bee bomb is best suited to quickly getting past some of the more impressive crowds.
Well, for one thing it’s a handy emergency button. For another it’s good if you’re escorting a survivor and he/she gets mobbed by zombies. Sure, you could go in there with your sledgehammer, but you’d probably just smash the poor survivor’s brain in. Easier to smash a queen which give leaves the survivor standing alone in the middle of a pile of zombie corpses.
Also, the glowing green bits (larvae, I assume) are fairly easy to avoid and/or trample.
The playthrough this thread has pretty much guaranteed my return to has our hero dressed only in the wrestling trunks (unlocked by something or other I forget–X number of hand-to-hand kills in a row, I think), and armed primarily with the Megaman Blaster. I just wish there was a lucha libre El Santo mask to complete the get up. There need to be more stories about a freelance photographer who pro-wrestles on the side being dropped into an zombie apocalypse armed with an experimental plasma cannon.
I think I used the full wrestling outfit the most. It amused my wife greatly to see Frank running around in wrestling tights, hitting zombies with teddy bears prior to ripping their guts out with his bare hands.
I remember reading an interview with the dev where he stated that one member on the team was able to save all the survivors and complete the entire story mode starting from scratch. I would love to watch that.
This was the game that made me want a 360. I’ve played through the story and have wanted to go back to it for a long time, but something has always held me back. Maybe it is time to re-visit the Willamette Mall (especially now that I live in the Willamette Valley!) and save some people and say fuck the police. And the overtime mode, I could use a lightsaber.
Edit: Oh yeah, I actually had one tip. Waypoints are the way to get survivors to move. The follow me command is generally useless, and should be avoided.
OK, resurrecting the thread to ask: how the heck do I climb on the gazebo roof with the picnic tables under it in Leisure Park? It’s rumored to be the place to shoot from if you want to take out the convicts (with a sniper rifle) without having to deal with the zombies, but I can’t see a way up there-- the barrels don’t seem steady enough to use them as a platform to climb onto the roof.
Also, any tips on killing the Cult leader in the movie theater? He’s very fast and those sword whacks are painful.
What’s the strategy (besides quitting to the dashboard and reloading) if Frank ends up captured by the Cultists? That seems like a no-win situation.
If you’re leveled high enough, you can do pretty well using the instakill unarmed combat moves against them. The room you wake up in also conveniently has an quasi-altar area with a ceremonial sword on it, so the trick is to get there, pick it up, and murdering them all in the room gets easier. That also gets you the keycode to get out, which dumps you out a back door, whereupon you can do the usual desperate run back to a safe spot, then resupply etc.
As much as I love the sledgehammer the cultists aren’t the best target IMO. Sure, they’re slow. Right until you’ve misjudged the distance by a step and the lunge out and stab you right quick. A lead bar works better I’ve found, since the animation is quicker and you have a bit more time to react, but really the best way to deal with them is to grab a bench and kill them way out of knifing distance.
And when they’re in inventory, weapons they’re enhancing the durability of will have one to three little icons on their icon indicating it. There’s a handful of items that can be enhanced by 3 books at once, and that makes them last an absurdly long time–which can be very handy when you’re concentrating less on just mayhem and exploration and more on a serious shot at getting to the ending.
I spent about an hour trying, when going for the all PP photos achievement, and never found a way up there. For the photos, you don’t need to be up there to get the three on the clock-tower, just scoot back further away from the tower and you’ll find a good spot for each corner.
With reference to the convicts, I rarely fought them. But when I did, I’d either get them “stuck” against a tree opposite from me so that I could just stand there and shoot the 50 cal guy though he couldn’t hit me, or I’d stay way way far enough away on the grass so that they didn’t drive around or shoot and I’d just snipe them from really far. Once you take out the guy on the .50 cal, their only attack is to drive over you and that can be dodged pretty easy especially near a tree that they are always trying to drive around.
Thanks for the reply, shift6. I read elsewhere in the meantime that a good way to do it is to jump on a zombie standing near the roof, stand on its shoulders, then jump from there. I’m going to try that.
