Mission 02: Stronghold Assault

City Streets

Crimson Unity, a group of snow pirates, is who you're going after now. Time for some fun. The first section of this level will see you fighting off against large numbers of dongos. Head down to the open area in front of you and shoot the cars to reveal more weapons; you'll find plenty of machinegun and shotgun ammo to work with. The shotguns work well on the dongos if you get caught in the open; fire a round into their faces to stun them, then work your way around them and unload into their abdomens. If they roll at you, sidestep their attack and wait for them to hit an obstacle, then perform the same motion. If you have to take on multiple dongos, though, it's somewhat safer to get up onto an elevated area and pelt them with grenades.

You'll have plenty of dongos to deal with here. Grenade them from above, if you can!

As you head further down the street, more dongos will appear, followed by a pair of Chryatis's that pop up one at a time. Use your machinegun on their arms, then shotgun their abdomens into oblivion, before heading through the Akrid tunnel nearby.

After passing through the tunnel, use your machinegun to wear down the number of trilids somewhat before moving off to the left and shooting the hangar door. A VS suit is waiting for you there, pre-loaded with dual gatling guns. Use it to bust through more of the trilids and make your way down the street. Around the corner, you'll finally come across the snow pirates you've been looking for; they're trying to pound the hell out of a Chryatis. Finish it off yourself after defeating the snow pirates, then start making your through the streets to a dilapidated building nearby. The pirates here will be pelting you with rockets, so you may want to step out of your VS and engage them on foot. It's up to you!

The Railway

Make your way up through the building with your anchor system. Be sure to clean out any soldiers above you before grappling, though; if you're hit while you pull yourself up, you'll fall to the ground. Eventually, you'll come out to a longish railroad line that leads to the Pirate base. You'll have a long trip to reach it, though.

Grenades at the feet of this VS are needed to take it down. Or you can just run past it!

To aid your travel, you'll be able to find a GTF-13M VS near where you first hit the railroad. This is a VS that can transform into a bike. It moves exceedingly slowly as a VS, but the bike form can speed along with the A button, and if you hit the left bumper button when you're on a ramp, you'll fly into the air and will be able to cross the gaps in this area. You can use the bike for quick transportation, and switch to the VS form when you need to shoot some fools, if you wish.

Further down the tracks, you'll come across your first Rifle. You can use the rifle in conjunction with your zoom function (up and down on the directional pad) to get headshots on foes from long distance. When you cross the gap near the rifle, though, you'll be accosted by a large VS, equipped with a rocket launcher. You can also grab the gum grenades atop the train car here to use those; they stick to whatever they hit, making them useful against VS's. Regular grenades work fine, if you can angle them under where the VS is currently standing. If you don't want to fight the VS, though, you can probably just bypass it and head into the tunnels nearby to reach the next section of the level. Note that it'll be best to bring in a rifle instead of a rocket launcher to the next area.

Rail Tunnel

The lengthy tunnel in front of you houses a fair number of soldiers, all bedecked with machine guns, with a couple wielding rocket launchers. These guys are easiest to deal with with a rifle; you can find one on the upper walkway above the rails if you grapple up. Proceed slowly, nabbing headshots when you can, and be careful of the rocket laucher soldiers near the far end of the tunnel. There's a Data Post halfway through the tunnel if you need some extra T-Eng.

When you reach the exit from the tunnel, you'll be at a familiar site: this is the snow pirate camp that you probably assaulted a few dozen times in the Lost Planet E3 demo. The basic route here is much the same. If you bring a rifle with you from the tunnel, you can attempt to snipe the pilot of the mech out of his cockpit, leaving you with a full-powered mech to use on the rest of the pirates. Otherwise, though, your best bet is to head towards the large building up the ramp to your left as you exit the tunnel.

You'll find a Data Post atop one of the buildings, and a few of the soldiers here will drop energy guns. Energy guns aren't great in firefights, due to their slow-firing mechanisms, but if you use them on the rocket turrets across the way (hold down the fire button to charge them up), they'll boot the turret gunners out of their seats, thus freeing you to walk across the fields beneath them and find the steps leading up. You can hop into either the VS here (assuming it's still intact) or the rocket turrets and use them to finish off the remaining Snow Pirates. Before you head up to the large door nearby, be sure to pick up any rocket ammo in the area.

VS Arena

Video Walk-through

Stay on foot for as long as possible, using rocket launchers, and you should have enough VS energy to defeat the boss here.
Watch It »

When you head through the doorway nearby to the next area, you'll immediately be accosted by a pair of Crimson Unity VS suits, both of which will wield gatling guns in an attempt to take you out. Fortunately for you, you should have rocket ammo and hand grenades to use against them, as well as no fewer than three VS suits scattered around the area. The initial two VS's aren't overly difficult to defeat. If you have enough rockets, then you may want to get behind one of the small buildings in the area to block their fire, then duck out and use the rocket launcher on them to weaken them up while preserving the health of the VS suits in the area.

After one of the initial VS suits goes down, another VS jumps into the area. This model packs a rocket launcher, as well as a jumping attack that can stagger you when it lands nearby you. Hop into a VS of your own at this point; the one closest to the door through which you entered has a gatling gun and a shotgun. If you use the shotgun at close range on the enemy, you'll deal a good amount of damage to it. There's also other goodies around the area, including a rocket launcher atop one of the buildings. With three VS suits to go through, and plenty of thermal energy from the VS's that you destroy, you shouldn't have too many problems here.

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