Outlaws - need help on level 4

[beowulf]

Jeez, I 'm stuck already.

I think I've been everywhere on this level, and wasn't much fun. It
didn't take long to run out of oil, so I had to use the map to travel
through long dark passageways to get to the higher areas. After
running out of places to go (I think), I decided "Dead Man's Leap" was
an invitation, so I jumped. That only meant more long passages
(underwater), and whenever there was a room for air, it was dark. Was
there a passage out of one of those rooms? Eventually, I found myself
back at Dead Man's Leap again. How do I get out of this level?

beowulf

[Susan]

Okay, Dead Man's Leap was the correct way to go, but do you
remember, before leaping off it, and beyond it, a chasm that blew you
up in the air and back to where you were? Do you remember seeing an
opening on the other side that you could not get to? Now, after
jumping off the Leap and working your way back up didn't you come out
at this same chasm at the opening you saw from the other side?

Okay, now looking across you can see another opening _below_ the
ledge you were on when you traveled up the trail a little from Dead
Man's Leap. You want to travel across into this lower opening to
finish the game. To do so just run across -- don't jump. The wind
will carry you straight across into this new place instead of lifting
you up to the old ledge.

Try that.

* Susan * <Sus...@concentric.net>

[lincol...@gmail.com]

I've caught myself in the same riddle of the game, 22 years after. Thank you from the future, Susan! :)

[Ant]

lincol...@gmail.com wrote:
> I've caught myself in the same riddle of the game, 22 years after. Thank you from the future, Susan! :)

Woah. I remember this game back in its days. Very fun! I miss old LucasArts!
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[Rin Stowleigh]

On Tue, 22 Jan 2019 07:08:08 -0800 (PST), lincol...@gmail.com
wrote:

>I've caught myself in the same riddle of the game, 22 years after. Thank you from the future, Susan! :)

Check Youtube maybe?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxWZ1iITcTU

[Spalls Hurgenson]

On Tue, 22 Jan 2019 07:08:08 -0800 (PST), lincol...@gmail.com
wrote:

> I've caught myself in the same riddle of the game, 22 years after. Thank you
> from the future, Susan! :)

Outlaws: still the best Western game ever. It may not have the depth
or sophistication of Red Dead Redemption, but its gameplay - not to
mention its soundtrack - were far superior.

Well, mostly. As the original poster hints at, its map layout is
straight out of the mid-90s school of design: maze-like labyrinths*
where you have to find the magic token or switch that will let you
progress to the next part of the map. There are no hints as what you
need to do, no indication that the pixelated texture you are looking
at is actually interactive, and if you do finally interact with it,
the change it affects is usually far across the map and you usually
its done anything.

The end result was a lot of wandering around, randomly humping the
walls trying to get something to happen. But in the 90s, this was
considered /good/ gameplay. Modern FPS games are often too linear but
even so, I prefer them to the old-school method.

Level 4 is the "canyons" level of Outlaws, which I recall had a good
bit of wandering around underground, looking for a series of switches.
It is, in my opinion, the third worst of the game's levels (with the
Sawmill and the Mines levels taking first and second worst levels,
respectively). Fortunately, as has already been pointed out, there are
numerous online resources - be they video walkthroughs or FAQs and
maps - that can help a player out. Of course, if you purchased the
game through GOG.com, you also have access to the (not entirely
useful) official strategy guide too.




----
* are there any other sort of labyrinths?

[Rin Stowleigh]

On Wed, 23 Jan 2019 09:17:36 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson
<spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Tue, 22 Jan 2019 07:08:08 -0800 (PST), lincol...@gmail.com
>wrote:
>
>> I've caught myself in the same riddle of the game, 22 years after. Thank you
>> from the future, Susan! :)
>
>
>Outlaws: still the best Western game ever.

Did you play Call of Juarez : Bound in Blood? Shit tons of fun.

I liked COJ:Gunslinger too. Never played the first COJ game.

[Spalls Hurgenson]

On Wed, 23 Jan 2019 10:29:30 -0500, Rin Stowleigh
<rstow...@xnospamx.com> wrote:
>On Wed, 23 Jan 2019 09:17:36 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson
><spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>Outlaws: still the best Western game ever.

>Did you play Call of Juarez : Bound in Blood? Shit tons of fun.

The Call of Juarez games never really appealed to me. Firstly, the
soundtrack in no way compares. The graphics are technically prettier,
but the over-saturated cartoony graphics of the original Outlaws -
though obviously aged and pixelated - still maintain a lot of their
appeal too. I never found the stories or characters a tenth as
interesting in the Juarez series. And while the gunplay in the newer
games was satisfactory, pretty much everything else was disappointing.

>I liked COJ:Gunslinger too. Never played the first COJ game.

Gunslinger was an improvement over the abysmal Cartel, but that's not
saying much. It had a slightly more interesting character but felt far
too arcadey at times.

After "Outlaws", I'd probably rate the oft-forgotten "Gun" by
Neversoft as my second favorite western-themed video game, although
"Red Dead Redemption" might challenge that (I give "Gun" some
liberties because it is rather old, and ding RDR because it was a
console game). And maybe the old Desperado games after those two. The
Juarez games would be much further down my list, possibly even below
the Mad Dog McCree games, which had a certain campy appeal to them ;-)

[Rin Stowleigh]

On Thu, 24 Jan 2019 09:08:29 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson

Agreed Cartel was horrible... but I'm pretty sure Gunslinger came
before it.

[Anssi Saari]

Spalls Hurgenson <spallsh...@gmail.com> writes:

> Gunslinger was an improvement over the abysmal Cartel, but that's not
> saying much. It had a slightly more interesting character but felt far
> too arcadey at times.

Still, Gunslinger was fun for an afternoon or two. Or do I misremember,
I think it was short?

> After "Outlaws", I'd probably rate the oft-forgotten "Gun" by
> Neversoft as my second favorite western-themed video game, although
> "Red Dead Redemption" might challenge that (I give "Gun" some
> liberties because it is rather old, and ding RDR because it was a
> console game).

I never played Outlaws but I have an OK recollection of Gun. Or I think
I do? Was this the one where you had a tough horse race early on and you
couldn't proceed until you won? And then you hand interesting fight
against some indians on a bridge they were trying to blow up? I can't
remember much after that, just a general feeling that it wasn't that
good.

I think also in Gun there was a weird feature where draw distance was
greater than animation distance so horses in the middle distance just
glided around creepily without animation.

[Spalls Hurgenson]

Nope, Gunslinger is the fourth and latest of the series. It was the
"reboot" of the franchise, abandoning the McCall's storyline (and
returning back to the "Old West" after Cartel's foray into the modern
day) to instead focus on the protagonist - and untrustworth narrator -
Silas Greaves. It wasn't an awful game - Greave's over-the-top story
and his reluctant reversals after some of his bigger lies were
challenged were quite amusing - but its gameplay harkened back to the
mindless shooting of the Doomclone era. The moment-to-moment gunplay
was solid enough, but it required mowing down far, far too many
identical enemies before being allowed to proceed to the next section,
just to repeat the process.

In terms of gameplay, it was probably the most polished of the series,
although I tend to give the first game - Call of Juarez - the nod just
because that game had so much (sadly unused) potential. Gunslinger
felt very rote in comparison.

IMHO, of course.

[rms]

>I never played Outlaws

As Spalls rightly concludes, Outlaws really is the best western game,
play it :) Though filled with constant shooting -- which can be
stress-inducing when done poorly -- the cartoony graphics, mustache-twirling
bad guys, over-the-top voice-acting, and general campy presentation (like
the Evil Dead series or Braindead did for horror, and Blood did for games)
make it truly fun to play. And the shooting itself is well-done and rewards
skill (manual reloading is a joy); sound-effects and the breath-taking
soundtrack are the cherry on top.

rms

[Rin Stowleigh]

On Fri, 25 Jan 2019 09:08:36 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson
<spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Thu, 24 Jan 2019 19:01:54 -0500, Rin Stowleigh
><rstow...@xnospamx.com> wrote:
>
>>Agreed Cartel was horrible... but I'm pretty sure Gunslinger came
>>before it.
>
>Nope, Gunslinger is the fourth and latest of the series.

I looked it up and you're right. I think the confusion in my mind
came from the fact that Cartel never really felt like part of the
series to me. Not just in the sense that it was probably one of the
most disappointing releases I can remember in my gaming history, but
the fact that it couldn't even be considered a Western. Maybe like
GTA San Andreas takes place "in the west".. lol.

WTF were they thinking, branding it Call of Juarez?

[Spalls Hurgenson]

On Fri, 25 Jan 2019 18:15:09 -0500, Rin Stowleigh

<rstow...@xnospamx.com> wrote:

>On Fri, 25 Jan 2019 09:08:36 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson
><spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>On Thu, 24 Jan 2019 19:01:54 -0500, Rin Stowleigh
>><rstow...@xnospamx.com> wrote:

>>>Agreed Cartel was horrible... but I'm pretty sure Gunslinger came
>>>before it.

>>Nope, Gunslinger is the fourth and latest of the series.

>I looked it up and you're right. I think the confusion in my mind
>came from the fact that Cartel never really felt like part of the
>series to me. Not just in the sense that it was probably one of the
>most disappointing releases I can remember in my gaming history, but
>the fact that it couldn't even be considered a Western. Maybe like
>GTA San Andreas takes place "in the west".. lol.

>WTF were they thinking, branding it Call of Juarez?

It's been a while, but the connection was that the protagonist was a
descendant of the heroes of the earlier games and - although set in
the modern age - thematically it /was/ still a "western" in the sense
that it was set in the West (albeit one that has long been overrun by
suburbs and pavement) and featured a lone gunman taking on hordes of
black-hats. But you weren't the only one disappointed by the direction
the franchise took, hence the soft reboot to Gunslinger.

Honestly, had the gameplay (and story/characters) been better, I
wouldn't have minded the shift - you /can/ do a modern-day Western -
but Cartel just wasn't a fun experience. Its setting felt generic, its
characters were unlikable and its gunplay was unsatisfying. I didn't
really enjoy any of the Juarez games, but Cartel is definitely the one
I liked least.


So rather than devote more time to /that/ awful game, let's focus on
some forgotten Westerns I enjoyed more. These aren't the best Western
games, just a handful of titles that deserve to be remembered.

- "The Gunman Chronicles"
It's a Western... but in SPACE! A mod-turned-professional, Gunman
utilized the old Half Life 1 engine to tell a story about a betrayed
space ranger hunting down his traitorous commander. In terms of
gameplay, it wasn't anything special but it had a decent variety of
locations and styles and was just camp enough to keep things
interesting.

- "Damnation"
Another odd mix of sci-fi and Western, set in a steampunk alternate
future. Its gameplay and production values are rather poor, but I
remember being impressed by its potential; it was a mix of Tomb Raider
exploration and traditional third-person shooter. It didn't pull
either facet off very well, but I appreciated that it was at least
trying something different.

- "Dead Man's Hand"
Honestly, not that great a game but given the dearth of Western
shooters, I played anything. My memories are vague on this game - I've
only played it the once and never returned for a second playthrough -
but I recall it felt slow and clunky and had an awful soundtrack.

- "Hard West"
Not a first-person shooter, this is more a cross of X-Com with a
Western. It also adds some weird mystical elements. The combat was
fairly satisfying but the bits outside that - its progression system
and the side-missions - weren't as much fun.

- "The Gunstringer"
An oft-forgotten game, largely because it was so dependent on the XBox
Kinect peripheral. Gameplay wasn't that great, but it was just weird
enough - the protagonist was a puppet-on-strings - to be memorable.

[Rin Stowleigh]

On Sat, 26 Jan 2019 09:15:18 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson

Another forgotten western themed game: Helldorado -- an underrated
single player tactical game.