Amazon – That's a Paddlin'

Written by TBD.

Jason Roberts Journal Entry #3: Well, I finally found out what the Captain of The Amazon Queen wants from me apart from cigarettes. Now I'm settled in for a nice relaxing trip to our destination. I'm sure nothing can go wrong here – Maya and I feel completely confident in trusting this man with our lives...

Flashback: Chapter 6

Once again I start a post with a flashback due to the game hitting me with another dead-end. Is this going to happen for the rest of the game? Most likely.

Anyway, not knowing what to offer the captain in order to get him to give us a boat ride, I asked for help, and Alex Romanov was kind enough to give it.

I checked his first two clues.

1. What you are missing is in chapter six
2. Someone needs your help.

I felt confident that I knew who Alex was talking about. I felt a little guilty about the serving boy being beaten up by my actions, but didn't know what to do. Now that I knew I needed to help someone, I thought about it more thoroughly. The answer came quickly – the ladder I'd picked up at the same time the boy started being assaulted. Now, I didn't have the ladder when I originally found the boy being beaten, but if I'd thought saving the boy was an option, I'd have almost certainly noticed it immediately. I use the ladder on the hotel wall.

Now I get a much better view of the fight. I should sell tickets and call this the balcony section.

Come on game, how hard would it have been for Maya or Jason to say “We can't just leave while the boy is being beaten – let's see if we can help him first”? That would have saved me a lot of reloading.

Anyway, long story short, after I leaned the ladder against the wall of the hotel, I used my pole to knock the hotel sign down onto El Loco's head, spoke to the boy who game me a nugget of gold for saving him, make my way back to the boa...
…
…
Wait...
…
...
THE SERVING BOY HAD A NUGGET OF GOLD?!?!?!?!?!

I've heard of people who don't quit their boring job when they win the lottery, but this is ridiculous.

I don't know if the boy just thought he'd found a nice looking shiny yellow rock, but in 1957 money, I'd guess that would be worth enough that he could at least hire someone to get beaten up for him.

Oh well, his stupidity is Jason's gain, I guess. We hear Allen's fascinating story again, cross the Bridge of Death again, and give the Captain our cigarettes again. Then we also offer him an entire nugget of purest gold. (So does this mean the price of passage is a nugget of gold PLUS a packet of cigarettes - that's just weird!)


Chapter 7 cont'd

I'm still trying to work out if you're wearing a brown shirt, or if you've just never washed your white shirt.

After some travelling on the boat, the Captain draws a gun on me and pistol-whips me overboard because I can't travel anywhere without my host trying to kill me.

Fortunately there are no dangerous creatures living in the Amazon river, or I'd be in real trouble.

And thus ends Chapter 7... finally!

Chapter 8

If they were just going to take Maya as a slave anyway, why was he so reluctant to let us on board until we payed him enough?

Somehow not being eaten by deadly piranha after being thrown overboard, I follow the ship from shore until it moors for the night, looking for a way to rescue Maya. I start the next scene behind a bush. If I leave my cover, I'm noticed.

I wait for a while and notice that Sam Salvador's patrol takes him all along the boat, then he turns and follows the other side of the boat. I wait for him to do so, then try to swim to the boat, but the current is too fast for me. I can move to the other side of the screen, then wait for Sam to do another trip around the boat before trying to swim.

The piranha became hungry some time between me being thrown overboard and now.

I pick up a reed that I feel I can use as a blowgun, but have no ammo for it, so can't shoot Sam from the riverbank. I try a few things, saving the game when Sam's about to patrol the other side of the boat. Unfortunately, on reloading the saved game, Sam always starts his patrol from the beginning, making me wait for him to walk the entire length of the ship on each game reload. Anyway, continuing on...

I use my poison on the river, which kills all the piranha.

Jason Roberts: destroying the local ecology like any good explorer.

Now I can go onto the boat by entering the river from the right edge of the screen after Sam has gone out of sight, which gives me a new type of screen – a top down view of the boat.

I pick up a fishing pole from the deck, and look in a porthole to see the sleeping captain. I don't get time to do anything while looking through the porthole as Sam gets to me after a single move. I try waiting until he's only just passed by, but I still only get one turn before I'm shot.

I follow Sam around the boat to the sharp end, exploring as I go. I can push one of the crates, but can't climb it. Both cabins are locked. By looking around I hear muffled female sounds in Sam's cabin, so I know where Maya is being held. I keep ahead of Sam so he can't catch me.

Lets me have what? Ice cream? Maya? A gun so I can fight back?

Oh. I see.

I can open another crate in the middle of the boat, and take a harpoon. I can also move the harpoon gun at the sharp end of the boat. I think you can guess what my plan is.

Unfortunately, the harpoon does not follow the usual laws of physics, and shoots more to the right than it should.

Okay, Let's try again.

Now I'm regretting that the piranha aren't still alive to eat Sam. Oh well, I'll have to settle for the gaping wound in his chest instead.

Now that I have time to act, I go back to the porthole and take the Captain's keys using my fishing pole.

I use his keys to open Sam's cabin, where I see Maya. Unfortunately I've heard the Captain waking up and noticing his keys missing (don't ask me what it sounds like to notice missing keys, just work with me here) so I quickly look around the room.

He parts my chest hair, if I'm interpreting the picture correctly.

Oh. It's one of THESE timed sequences again, is it? Okay. I quickly find an iron bar and bar the door.

I hear the captain shooting as bullet holes appear on the barred door.

Quickly looking around the room, I pick up a rag and a bottle of alcohol (after opening a cabinet). I use my knife to untie Maya. Then look out the porthole.

If Jason's only going to know one Spanish word, I'm glad it's Gun Powder.

So, combining my rag and bottle and then combining them both with my lighter gives me a molotov cocktail. Throwing it out the porthole at the polvora has predictable results. I really thought it was going to blow Maya and myself up as well, but was glad to be wrong.

That's the response I want after risking my life multiple ways?

Having escaped the slave traders and blown up their ship, Maya and I trek through the jungle for a while until we come to a small village. I'm sure the villagers will be friendly. I have to switch to Maya to be able to understand them, so I do so. I find out that the boy laying down is sick, probably dying. I expect that between the two of us we'll find a way to cure him better than the people with local knowledge.

We're either gods or dinner. Why isn't there a third option?

As I'm wondering how best to prove my divinity, a crate makes its way on the current past the village.

Fortunate coincidence or proof of my supernatural abilities? You decide.

I try to use my lighter on the floating fireworks but it doesn't work and the fireworks crate floats away. Ignoring it for now I switch to Maya and look around.

Having studied in the Amazon for a time, Maya knows more about the local flora, so when I look at a plant as Maya I see that if I combine it with fish oil and boiled lime calcified water I can make a powerful cure-all. I remember my jerrycan having lime on it, so I only need fish oil.

I try to get the fish oil by using my fishing rod on the stream, but don't catch any fish. I need bait. I move a stone, and pick up a worm that appears under it, then...

… I get killed because I'm in another timed sequence.

After reloading, I try to do stuff a bit quicker. I use the worm on my fishing rod, then use the rod on the water.

Is it just me, or are they claiming Maya's bad at fishing purely so Jason isn't totally useless in this section?

After trying to do all the required steps quickly numerous times, I have the idea of using my fishing net with the crate of fireworks as it floats by. It works (if you're wondering why the fishing net won't catch any fish as well, just remember that we need Jason to do something other than stand there mid-stride for the entire sequence.)

Using the fireworks on the firepit impresses most of the natives.

I find your lack of faith disturbing.

Eventually, I do all the steps in time – it's tight because it's easy to get stuck while trying to walk somewhere quickly so it takes a lot of tries.

1. Move stone
2. Pick up worm
3. Use worm on fishing rod
4. Use fishing rod on stream
5. Use net on fireworks
6. Walk to firepit
7. Use fireworks on firepit
8. Walk to plant
9. Pick up plant
10. Walk to hut
11. Pick up ladle
12. Walk to pot
13. Move pot to firepit
14. Use jerrycan on pot
15. Use fish on pot
16. Use plant on pot
17. Wait for mixture to boil
18. Use ladle on pot
19. Wait for ladle to cool
20. Use ladle on boy

Phew.

Do the supplies include food? Because I'm not sure I want to eat food given to me by cannibals.

You know, when I picked up that jerrycan outside Cuzco airport way back in Chapter 4, I had no idea it would only be useful in pretending I was a god. That jerrycan and I had been through a lot together – I'll miss you, Jerry! Sniff!

Before starting the next chapter, Maya made sure to borrow some of the cannibals' lipstick.

Chapter 9

Now that we're canoeing down the river, we have another new screen. We're on a river that consistently scrolls to the left. I soon find out that I can move either up or down to steer the boat. I can't go forward or back. But before I realise that, I meet my first obstacle.

But the cannibals also had us for lunch – how long does lunch hour last in this part of the world?

I follow the friendly cannibal's instructions, saving regularly and dying even more regularly. I have to dodge the rocks by moving up or down the screen. I've always had problems navigating in a 3-d world using 2-d graphics – it's hard for me to judge the perspective accurately.

And even harder to judge if you insist on having the camera on the other side of a dark jungle, obscuring large parts of the screen!

After many perspectively-challenged deaths, I finally get past this section alive after 20 minutes. When I finally do, I meet famed archaeologist Doctor Hans Stroheim.

And the archaeologist I was interested in talking to is Indiana Jones, but we're stuck with each other, old man, so start talking.

I fail the dialogue puzzle the first time and Stroheim refuses to talk to me.

Um... why do Maya and Jason hang around Stroheim's hut until we're old? I'd have thought we'd get the point within the first week.

Instead of talking to Stroheim, I try bribery - I start by giving him Allen's map.

If I have to reload to a few chapters earlier to find what you want from the most unlikely gold hoarder, I won't be happy, Stroheim!

Fortunately I already have the other item Stroheim wants, Allen's compass. I give it to him and he tells me where to look to find evidence of the emeralds. If I find the evidence, then he will help me.

Maya and I leave his hut and we walk through the jungle for a while longer looking for the place Stroheim marked on the map.

This is about the fifth time a cutscene has shown us walking past this exact section of the Amazon and these exact two birds. Have we been walking in circles all this time. Are we still right next to Rio Blanco?

Maya and I find ourselves next to a large tree house sitting high in even larger trees.

Yub yub.

I find a plank on the ground and put it on a rock, creating some kind of see-saw, but can't find anything else to do with it. I try to climb the trees, but fail.

If only I had something to help me climb these trees.

At this point I had a thought that filled me with total dread – I didn't try to pick up the ladder after using it to help the boy three chapters and a near infinite number of reloads ago. A ladder might help me at least reach the platform of the leftmost tree or climb the stump so I can jump on the plank and catapult Maya to the higher platform. Sighing, I reload Chapter 6 to take the ladder, preparing to do the last three chapters full of death and timed sequences again. It's not often that I hope I fail to do something, but I really hoped that taking the ladder wouldn't work...

Oh, thank the gods Jason and Maya

So, now I'm in an Ewok village, and I think it's time to stop for now. With my history in this game, I'm giving myself a 35% chance of having found all the items I need. With all the timed sequences I've been through it would be very easy for me to miss an item here or there as I don't have time to explore thoroughly before dying.

I do have some specific concerns that I'll look into if I can't find anything to do with this treehouse - I moved a crate on the boat but didn't do anything else with it - perhaps its only purpose was to make Sam walk into the path of my harpoon, or perhaps I missed something. I also didn't do anything with the reed I picked up on the riverbank and I no longer have it - have I missed something somewhere that needs a reed, or was it a red herring?

This isn't ending on a Request for Assistance, as I haven't tried to do a lot in the treehouse area, but the usual rules apply - if I've dead-ended myself, I'll be very happy if you let me know with ROT13 encoded comments.

Session time: 1 hour 55 minutes
Total time: 9 hours 15 minutes
Inventory: Machete, Paddle, Knife, Lighter, Jason's Car Keys (if those damn car keys don't become useful at some point I'm going to be disappointed)
Cost of Passage from Rio Blanco to Tefe: $2,267 worth of gold and a $0.25 packet of cigarettes

(Note: yes, I looked up 1957 prices of gold and cigarettes and scientifically worked out the weight of the nugget based on the size of the average human palm and... okay, I made up a number for the weight of the nugget - sue me!)

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There’s a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. Please...try not to spoil any part of the game for me...unless I really obviously need the help...or I specifically request assistance. In this instance, I've not made any requests for assistance. Thanks!