Game 25: Codename: ICEMAN - Pixilation Detonation

Johnny Westland Journal Entry 5: “I knew navigating the Blackhawk through dangerous waters was going to be difficult, but I never imagined I was going to have to do so without the help of Captain Hawkins. He took a nasty fall today, leaving me to take on not one, but two Russian destroyers on my own. I have no idea how I managed to take them down without taking a hit myself, but I guess the training I had prior to this mission paid off! We’ve reached Tunisia, and I can now see the drilling rig that the CIA want me to destroy in the distance. It’s time to put on the scuba diving gear and take a more direct path through the Mediterranean. I really hope this dive vehicle does what it’s supposed to!”

The moment I, Johnny Westland...

Well, I made a lot of progress on the weekend, but I can’t say it was a lot of fun. Codename: ICEMAN continues to make me backtrack, and throws repetitive tasks at me that are clearly designed to make the game longer. It also suffers from some pretty serious parser limitations that make solving some puzzles if not impossible, far more difficult than they should be. There were at least a couple of occasions during the three hours plus I put into it where I was close to asking for assistance, only to eventually figure out was of cheating the system. Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself and giving the game away (so to speak, don’t get excited). At the end of my last post I was finally in a position to take on the Russian destroyer with a functional weapon system.

...became first in command of the USS Blackhawk!

This section of the game really sucked. The manual gave me some basic hints about how to do battle, but the rest was really just trial and error. My instinct was to fire off as many torpedoes as I could, as quickly as I could, but I soon found out that the majority of them miss the target, leaving me a sitting duck when I run out of torpedoes. I reckon about one in every ten torpedoes actually hits the destroyer, so considering you only have a handful of torpedoes to fire, that pretty much forces the player to cheat. I eventually settled into a groove of firing one torpedo, waiting to see whether it would hit the destroyer, then saving my game if it did. Every time I missed, I restored and tried again. Only a matter of time I hear you thinking. Wrong!

That's clearly going to miss dude!

You see, the destroyer fired harpoons at me too, and these seemed to have a pretty damn high chance of hitting me. The manual suggested that diving would make it more difficult for the enemy to hit me, so I started diving as low as I could and then resurfacing while firing my torpedoes one at a time. In the end, I think I had to hit the destroyer four times for it to sink, but even then I had to cross my fingers that the harpoons already on their way towards me didn’t make contact. It probably took about half an hour for me to figure out how to cheat the system and then go through with it, which was tedious to say the least. Did anyone find a better way of beating this?

My supersize torpedoes will defeat your infrared beams any day you Ruskies!

Once the destroyer was dealt with, I received another encoded message from Washington, and yet another from the CIA. I’d figured by now that there was no way I was going to find out how to get into the safe or crack the CIA codes in the game. Since I knew that adding a 3 to each decoded number was the key to cracking the CIA codes (I only know this from a reader comment), it just seemed silly for me not to decode them. The first thing I did was decode the one I’d received much earlier in the game. “Russian war ships on patrol. Use extreme caution in Bering sea. Use alternate entry to harbor.” No shit! This begs the question though! Was there any way that I could have avoided contact with the Russians? I can’t see how I could possibly have used an alternate entry into the harbor.

So this is the message that you made impossible to decode. Not important or anything isn't it!

Regardless, I set about decoding the new Washington and CIA codes I’d received. The Washington message decoded as “Contacting fisherman… After exiting the water, contact agent for further instructions.”, while the CIA message decoded as “After polar crossing is achieved… Do not surface for remainder of mission.” Neither of these assisted me in the here and now, so all I could do was hop back behind the controls and head towards the next waypoint. As soon as I started moving I was informed of “many icebergs in the area” and advised to “turn on my TV monitor and slow down”. Once I figured out how to turn the TV on, I soon found myself navigating the sub through an iceberg obstacle course. What first looked easy turned out to be tedious once again.

I'm not trained to navigate this submarine through a field of tornadoes!

My first attempts to dodge the icebergs failed miserably, mostly due to the terrible collision detection in the game. Three hits and it was game over for me! My second attempt gave me more success, and after negotiating around six or so icebergs, I suddenly found myself in the clear. I’d expected some sort of message to pop up, but nothing happened. I started looking at my position on the map and wondering if I was supposed to be directing the ship towards the next waypoint or something. In the end I thought I must have missed something, so I restored back to the beginning of the icebergs and started again. This time I passed a lot more icebergs and eventually received a message telling me I’d scored 7 out of 10 for crossing the ice pack. It appears I discovered yet another bug on that second run through!

My six pack wouldn't rate that high!

With the icebergs behind me, I wondered whether I should be applying the CIA message and remaining submerged for the remainder of the journey. Was that the “polar crossing” it mentioned? While I was pondering that, I was informed of “active sonar on 150 degree arc, 100 miles south of true north. Sonar is stationary...could be ice station looking for us”. I sat there for a while waiting for another message, but received a game over screen for not responding to the sonar. What was I supposed to do? I restored and this time I got up and went and had a chat to the sonar man (next to the radio man). He was far too busy to talk to me, so that wasn’t the answer. Eventually I just tried typing “contact ice station” and that turned out to be correct!

No thanks to you buddy!

This contact resulted in two new messages from Washington and the CIA respectively. The former message was “Rendezvous with USS Coontz...36 degrees latitude 12 degrees longitude. Listen for erratic sonar. At that time, signal presence with one active ping. Pass through straits under Coontz.” The latter message was “Diversion tactic necessary. Locate nearest off-shore drilling rig and destroy. Do not use Blackhawk weaponry.” The coordinates mentioned in the Washington message were in fact my destination coordinates, so I only had to worry about that on arrival. The CIA message had me worried though. Was I supposed to find this drilling rig now somehow? Should I dive and plant the explosives I found in the torpedoes room underneath the rig? I decided the game would soon let me know if I was meant to have made a diversion already, so I hopped back behind the controls.

One active ping you say. Easy...what can go wrong!?

I immediately received more sonar messages: “Reporting inversion layer at 1,000 feet. Reporting trenches on ocean floor.” Navigation then informed me that we must be above Reykjanes Ridge, whatever that is. I knew from my earlier manual readings that inversion layers were warm sections of water that can be used as cover from active sonar. I began my descent to 1,000 feet, assuming that I was about to be attacked again. I received a bunch of other messages that basically informed me that a sub was “dogging” and “pinging” us from somewhere, and eventually that they were flooding their tubes to fire upon us. I thought to myself “no problem, I’ll just use my cheating tactic again and this should be all over in a jiffy”. Nope!

I can't be a seasoned submariner because if I was, I'd know what the hell I was supposed to do!

You’ve probably picked up on how tedious I’ve found some aspects of this game, but this section took the cake by far. I spent close to an hour trying to destroy this damn Russian sub without being destroyed myself, and at times I was tearing my hair out. The sub rapidly fired torpedoes my way with pretty much all of them making contact. One hit was enough to send me down to Davy Jones, meaning I had absolutely no chance of hitting it multiple times prior. I figured the inversion layer was the key to success, but even if I sat at 1,000 feet or just under that, I kept getting crushed. It was by pure luck that I dove to just past 1,100 feet, and suddenly the torpedoes started missing me!

Oh...so by 1,000 feet, you meant 1,100 feet! My bad!

Even still, since I had so few stingers (apparently I could only use stingers at this depth) at my disposal, I was forced to use the one shot save and restore tactics as I used during my previous battle. The major problem wasn’t defeating the sub though, it was dodging the three or four torpedoes that were already in the water once my final stinger made contact. By the time I hit the sub three times and destroyed it, the Russians had entered the inversion layer, meaning I could no longer just sit there and wait for their weapons to miss me. I must have restored about twenty times after beating the submarine, only to watch as I followed them into oblivion. I literally had to play through the whole scenario multiple times until I finally managed to get to that last hit with few enough torpedoes in the water to match the amount of decoys I had. Not fun!

I really wish the whole submarine bit had started with "Forty-six hours later..."

I was very pleased to find myself at latitude 36, longitude 12, once this test was over. I’d made my destination, and hopefully would no longer be required to play impossible battleships for the rest of the game! As the Washington message had suggested, the USS Coontz was waiting for me, so I signalled them with one ping (the first time I pinged them twice and the pedantic bastards left the scene!). I was then given an overhead view, with the USS Coontz represented by a yellow cross. I needed to navigate my ship into the same space as the moving target, which I apparently did well enough to receive 4 out of 5 navigation skill points.

Oh come on! Surely you can ignore one extra ping! Come back you pedantic bastard! I'm on your side!

I then had to keep the USS Blackhawk as close to the cross as possible as it zig-zagged across the screen. Not a difficult task when it wasn’t changing direction much, but very challenging when it suddenly decided to take a right angled turn and go up a gear in speed. Subs apparently do eight point turns while attempting to change direction at speed! Succeeding in sticking with the cross pretty much involved knowing what it was going to do next and therefore being able to prepare for it. After a few failed attempts, I stayed close enough to the USS Coontz to receive a navigational skills rating of 8 out of 10, and was able to move on. I’d reached Tunisia, and a weak captain tapped me on the shoulder to congratulate me on my success!

This is me trying to stay exactly underneath the yellow cross. Admiring my talent aren't you!

The captain told me that “It looks like we have more on our hands than we anticipated. There’s a gunboat out there keeping a close watch on the entrance to the harbor!” I was then told to take a look through the periscope at our predicament. I was able to move the periscope left and right a full 360 degrees, but there really wasn’t all that much to look at. I certainly couldn’t see anything that looked like a gunboat, unless the grey blob merging into what appears to be the mainland was it. I did come across a drilling rig out to sea though, which immediately reminded me of the CIA message telling me to blow one up. I took note of the fact the rig seemed to be at 283 degrees (and that the grey blob was at 40 degrees), and left the periscope.

Yes...that thing! At least that one looks like something.

The captain was nowhere to be found at this point, and he hadn’t exactly left me with any instructions. I tried getting behind the controls to see what would happen, but received a game over message telling me I was on a time limited mission. What mission!? Well, the obvious thing to do was to try and blow up that drilling rig, and I wondered whether the key to the storage room compartment was now in the machinist mate’s possession. I wondered whether the compartment held scuba diving gear, rather than the radiation suit I’d first assumed. Well, the machinist mate did have the key now, which he gave me, so I was about to find out whether my way of thinking was on the money.

It's amazing how often people only find keys when they need the contents within the compartment that hosts the lock in adventure games.

I used the key to unlock the door and then watched as Petty Officer Johnson entered the room and take the scuba equipment out of it, vowing to take it to the escape hatch for me. I immediately wandered up to the engine room and collected the dive vehicle. I then entered the escape hatch, put on the scuba gear, and pressed the big red button. Watered flow into the room, so I opened the hatch, and swam out into the Mediterranean Sea! The game told me that I had “a strong feeling of insecurity” as I directed the dive vehicle away from the Blackhawk. That feeling turned out to be well founded, as less than thirty seconds after leaving the ship, the DV-3X diver malfunctioned and I was left for dead!

Well you can't blame me can you?

Apparently I was supposed to check the diver, as if I’d done so I would have noted there was a missing washer. Clearly I’m going to have to collect said washer from the machine room and insert it using a wrench from the drawer in the engine room, but somehow I doubt even that is going to be n easy process. I continue to be thwarted at every stage of Codename: ICEMAN, and often I’ve only become aware of what I “should” have done after not doing it causes a game over message (and usually my death). I’m determined to finish this game, but I can’t say it’s been much fun! At this rate I’m going to have to postpone playing Emmanuelle so I can join Chet in playing Hero’s Quest from this weekend onwards. Just wrapping this game up in time may prove challenging!

I guess I should have learnt from the lessons taught to me in Police Quest.

Session Time: 3 hours 30 minutes
Total Time: 12 hours 00 minutes

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: I've written a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before 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!

What's Your Story? - The Mad Gamer

While I struggle my way through Codename: ICEMAN, it's time to post another reader's responses to the What's Your Story questionairre. A fellow grammar nazi, The Mad Gamer is a veteran of the blog and gaming in general. He's also a reader who in some ways has similar tastes to my own, but in others couldn't be further from them. Finally, The Mad Gamer now holds the undisputed "Most Shocking Answer" title, which will undoubtedly require some explanation.

My home country is… The good old US of A

My age is… 31

The first adventure game I played was… King's Quest III, the first computer game we got on the first computer we got that could do more than word process.

My favourite adventure game is… Quest for Glory 1 or 2. I loved the setting in 1. I loved the story in 2. I'm also a huge fan of RPGs, and love the combination of the two genres. I feel that adventure game RPGs are the only hybrids that really compliment each other, as they both focus on story and inventory puzzles.

QFG = GAG - PNC + RPG

I like my games in (a box, digital format)… These days digital, simply because its easy to transport and use.

The thing I miss about old games is… The feelies. I miss opening the box and finding a thick manual full of beautiful drawings and backstory. I miss the cloth maps and trinkets of the Ultima series. It just helped suck you into the game that much more.

If I could see any band live it would be… Either the Coffin Shakers or Einherjer.

Metal!!!!!!!!! (Although I wish you'd given me an excuse to post a Bathory image)

The best thing about modern games is… The indie scene. Most of the AAA titles are bland and boring. I'm actually having this discussion in several forums right now about how modern gamers seem to focus entirely on graphics and glitz, while the depth that text only dialogue trees and quest branching offered is lost due to budget constraints from hiring big name VAs limiting how much NPCs will react to.

The one TV show I never miss is… My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Yes, I'm a brony and fiercely proud of it. The show has good characters, good writing, and the best animation I've ever seen for flash.

I'm sure you have a good explanation for this. I'd really like to hear it (no sarcasm there)!

When I’m not playing games I like to… I'm currently writing a roguelike, I also watch old school film noir and gangster movies from the 20s through the 50s.

My favourite movie is… Modern times, Boondock Saints. Powerful movie, with great characters and an engaging story. All time, ummmm, I like the '41 remake of Maltese Falcon, or maybe I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang.

Boondock Saints: One of a very select few movies that I couldn't even finish. Others seem to love it though, so it must be just me.

One interesting thing about me is… Back in my crazy days I separated my rib from my sternum taking a huge hit off a waterpipe. I just tied it down, and didn't see a doctor cause I couldn't afford it, or pain killers. I ran out of gas, and had to pay a bum to push me to a gas station. I didn't sleep 2 days from the pain. When I feel asleep I flipped over and popped my rib back in. My roommate later told me he heard it, and was worried until I snored. I remembered waking up, stretching, and being impressed that there was no pain.

If anyone else wants to send their answers and get 20 CAPs, please send them to theadventuregamer@gmail.com.

Game 25: Codename: ICEMAN - Radiation Causation

Johnny Westland Journal Entry 4: “I have spent some time exploring the rest of the USS Blackhawk. I feel if I am going to do a good job as second in command, I need to have awareness for everything that goes on in this technologically advanced submarine. Good thing I did too, as I came across a fairly significant issue with the weapons conveyor belt in the torpedoes room. It took me quite a while, but I’ve managed to fix it, figuring out where the various maintenance tools and equipment are in the process. I’m really looking forward to...um...I’ve got to go! It appears there are some Russian destroyers on the horizon. We may have need for those weapons sooner than I thought!”

Previously on Codename: ICEMAN: Hmmm...he went under the stairs. Is there something under the stairs!?

At the end of my last post I'd just discovered something very, very important. When I watched the gambler walk away, he went under the stairs and off-screen. It suddenly dawned on me that I too might be able to go under the stairs and that there might be a whole new area there I hadn’t explored yet. I can’t begin to tell you how stupid I feel that I didn’t try this earlier, but it just never occurred to me that there was anything there! Am I the only one that missed this? I found myself in a tube with a ladder going up and down. I tried climbing up the ladder but was told that wasn’t a very good idea while the submarine was moving, so I went down. At the bottom of the ladder I went through the door and appeared in what must be the torpedo room.

Suddenly Johnny found himself in Space Quest.

I had a chat to the guy in the torpedo room, who told me “I cycled me equipment early this morning, Commander, and it sounded a wee bit strange. There could be a problem.” He then left me to fix it! Why is everyone on this ship leaving me with the responsibility of doing their jobs when I know nothing about anything?! Anyway, there was a control panel with an equipment cycling button, so I pressed it. Indeed there was a problem, as the conveyor stopped halfway through the cycle with a loud ratcheting sound. When I looked at the conveyor, I found a cylinder that had been sheared off, which I picked up. I tried to “fix” it, but was informed that I didn’t have a replacement cylinder. Inside a cabinet at the back of the room were two boxes of flares and some plastic explosions, all of which I took, but I couldn’t find anything to help fix the conveyor.

If you want something done...

Codename: ICEMAN had already made me feel like an idiot several times, but never more than what happened next. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to fix that cylinder! I looked everywhere for a replacement without success, and it was only after about half an hour that I accidentally realised I could exit the tubes on the left hand side (see the door on the left two images up). Doing so on the bottom level gave me access to a storage area, whereas doing so on the mid-level brought me to a machine room! Looking at the screenshots now, it’s hard to believe that I didn’t try it earlier, but my only excuse is that the shadow effect on the doors makes them fairly indiscernible. I recall Charles mentioning that he’d made good progress since he'd noticed some now-obvious background scenery. I wonder if this is what got him too?

On of those adventure game moments where I was ecstatic and pissed at the same time

A cabinet in the machine room contained the cylinder I needed, along with some washers, nuts and cotter pins. I took a cotter pin, but if I tried to take a washer, nut or cylinder I was asked what size I wanted. The broken cylinder in my inventory had a diameter of 1 inch and a cotter pin hole of ¼ inch, but I had no way of telling the length I needed since it had been sheared off. The cylinder choices I had were 3, 4 or 6 inches, so I simply took the shortest one and hoped for the best. The machine room also contained a lathe, a drill and a grinder, so I set about moulding my cylinder into the dimensions I needed. I used the lathe to give it a 1 inch diameter, the drill to give it a ¼ inch cotter pin hole, and then smoothed out the edges using the grinder. Feeling pretty happy with myself, I took my new cylinder down to the torpedo room.

I can feel a worker's comp claim coming up!

I attempted to put the new cylinder into the conveyor. “The replacement cylinder is not long enough” was the result. I should have known really. This game was clearly designed with the goal of making the player dedicate hours and hours to it, even if that means repeating the same processes over and over unnecessarily. Can anyone tell me how I was supposed to know which cylinder length to choose or was it purely guesswork? I reloaded back to the machine room to test a theory I had. I’d gained one point for picking up the 3 inch cylinder first. I also gained one point if I picked up the 4 inch cylinder first. However, I gained two points if I picked up the 6 inch cylinder first, so the 6 inch cylinder had to be the one I needed! I used the lathe, drill and grinder again, then once again moved down to the torpedo room with cylinder ready to go.

Oh come on! Size isn't everything!

This time I was able to successfully replace the cylinder! I then tried to insert the cotter pin into the hole and was informed that “you’ll need a hammer to properly install the cotter pin”. Bloody hell! I was being thwarted at every turn! I reminded myself that playing adventure games was all about solving puzzles like these ones, and set about trying to find a hammer. I hadn’t seen one anywhere in the game, although I hadn’t fully explored the storage room or the machine room for that matter. The storage room seemed to contain nothing but food, with eggs, soup, potatoes, meat etc. all in fridges and boxes. There was however a compartment that was locked and I was told that “the key is obtainable from the Machinists mate”. Could the hammer be in the compartment?

Haven't you ever heard of improvisation?

Before I went back to the machine room to ask him, there was one more thing I wanted to try in the storage room. A door at the end had a big radioactive sign on it, so I knew it would be suicide to enter without some sort of suit. I had to see what would happen though, so I saved my game and entered! I found myself standing next to the boat’s nuclear reactor, which was unlikely to be very good for my health. I didn’t seem to be able to go very far or interact with anything, so I left the room the way I entered it. I reappeared in the storage room glowing like a neon light. Shortly afterwards I collapsed on the ground and died, “the searing radiation” having “already begun to turn your cells to jelly”.

Electric Boogaloo

I made my way back to the machine room to ask the Machinist’s mate for the key to the compartment. His response? “Well, Sir, I seem to have misplaced that key. If I find it, I’ll see to it that you get it.” Figured it wouldn’t be that simple, plus it also made sense that the compartment would contain a suit to protect me from radiation and not a hammer. I tried walking off the left side of the screen and found there were yet more screens to visit. In fact, the next room was the same nuclear reactor room I’d been in previously, only this time I was protected from radiation by a “special shielded passageway”.

The inverted commas make it particularly "special"!

Through the passageway I came across the engine room, complete with turbines, generators, pumps and tanks. “Look around” revealed a glass enclosure in the background that apparently “houses computerized panels used to monitor and control the nuclear reactor” and a “ladder leading to the escape hatch”. I could see no way to reach the glass enclosure, so focussed my attention on the escape hatch. There simply had to be a hammer in there somewhere! At the base of the ladder was a small compartment with a button next to it. Pushing the button opened the compartment and revealed a dive vehicle, which I picked up (don’t ask me where exactly I put it). I then climbed the ladder and entered a room with a hatch leading to the water outside. I knew what would happen if I opened the hatch, but I did it anyway.

Drowning: What the room is for!

After restoring I investigated all of these rooms more thoroughly, trying desperately to figure out where the hammer I needed might be. I couldn’t find it anywhere, and with no further leads left, I went back to the control room to see if anything scripted might occur. As soon as I hit the floor, the captain demanded I get back behind the controls so we could make our way to the next waypoint. Common sense was screaming at me that I needed to fix that damn conveyor before confronting the Russian destroyers, but I was interested to know whether the bug I faced during my first play through was still hanging around. I navigated the submarine up to the point where the captain suggests we go topside for some fresh air. The destroyers were there as expected, but was I going to be able to fight them this time?

Uh-oh indeed!

Unlike the last time I reached this point, this time the captain piped up with: “Clear the sail, John and get to your station!” If anyone can ascertain whether or not the player gets the option to go back to the control panel and fight is somehow connected to another action or simply a bug, I’d love to hear it. Anyway, I wasn’t going to miss the opportunity this time, so prepared for battle (albeit without weapons). Surprisingly, on our way back down the ladder, the captain fell and knocked himself unconscious! He was taken to a cabin by the medical officer for emergency treatment (that explains the paramedic bug I faced earlier), leaving me in command of the ship. Whatever I had to do next, I was going to have to do it alone! With manual in hand, I positioned myself in front of the controls.

Ladder fail!

The manual has a section devoted to Defensive Strategy (When Attack is Imminent). The following summarises what it has to say: 1. The USS Blackhawk is equipped with “the latest in electronic noise eliminating transducers”, but they are only effective if the submarine is operating at speeds of 5 knots or less. This is called silent running. 2. Active sonar gives your position away, so switch to passive sonar as soon as possible. 3. When using harpoon missiles and String Ray Torpedoes, you must lock onto your target first. Decoy torpedoes can draw enemy fire and do not require locking onto a target. 4. Diving deep and changing course will aid evasion tactics. With all of this in mind, I checked to make sure my speed was no faster than 5 knots, that I had active sonar disabled, and that silent running was activated.

Well I can't say that came as too much of a surprise!

I brought the fire control panel down, selected a harpoon, locked onto my target, and fired! Rather unsurprisingly I received a message telling me that “the torpedo room reports a malfunction.” I played with the controls a little bit more, but it was clear I was a sitting duck, with numerous torpedoes rushing towards me. All I could do was sit and wait as the incoming torpedoes came closer and closer, eventually ripping me and my ship apart. As much as I didn’t like it, I was going to have to find that hammer! I restored to the engine room and began a full sweep, facing every object in the room and typing “look”. Then...I saw it!!!

OK, so now that I know it's there it's really frickin obvious!

It’s hard to explain why I’ve been so incompetent while playing Codename: ICEMAN. I’m still not certain whether the game is entirely to blame for my floundering or whether it’s more to do with my playing style, but either way I seem to miss things that are right in front of me and often give up when I’m actually on the right path. Maybe I’m so used to commands like “look around” actually handing me solutions on a platter that I’ve stopped really investigating parts of screens it doesn’t mention. In this case, there was a drawer in a cabinet that was described as containing “necessary items used for maintenance”. I opened it and found the hammer I needed, along with wrenches of various sizes. I picked up the hammer and went as quickly as I could to the torpedo room.

Stop! Hammer time!

Once there, I was able to put the cotter pin into the hole in the cylinder using the hammer, finally fixing the conveyor! I pressed the cycle button and watched as the conveyor went through a full cycle successfully. Now it was time to try and take down those Russians again! I quickly made my way to the control room and directed the ship until sonar contact was made. Once again the captain and I went topside and witnessed the attacking Russians before the captain then fell and injured himself on the way back down the ladder. It was time to take charge and go into battle, this time with a functional weapons system. You’ll find out how I fared soon enough!

It's all up to me now! No, I 'm not very confident about it either!

Session Time: 2 hours 00 minutes

Total Time: 8 hours 30 minutes

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: I've written a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before 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!

Game 25: Codename: ICEMAN - Resuscitation / Fornication

So, I decided if I was really going to give this game a fair go, I was going to have suck it up and start over again. Readers kept suggesting that I might be able to complete the game from the position I was in at the end of my last post, but there were just too many unknowns, and I was struggling to figure out what the hell was going on. It took me a total of two hours to play through the early parts of the game over again, but a lot of that was spent trying to solve puzzles that I'd simply missed altogether on my first play through. I don’t want to get too caught up in covering ground I’ve previously described, but I think it’s important that I cover the new stuff in some fashion, starting with...

Hey...these guys weren't here before!

...the volleyball match. I’ll say straight up that it’s unlikely I would ever have found this section of the game if it wasn’t for Jarikith’s comment about it (in ROT13 I’ll add). You start the game sitting in a beach chair, with a shirt hanging over the back of it. You can’t enter the hotel behind you without putting that shirt on, and I struggle to see why anyone would stand up, leave the shirt where it is, and decide to ignore the hotel and wander up the beach. If you come across the volleyball net with your shirt off, there are two girls and a guy playing. If you’ve got the shirt on, they’re simply not there. Maybe it’s just the way I play adventure games, but I would put that shirt on and enter the hotel 99 times out of 100!

Oh of course! Everyone knows that volleyball matches are invisible to anyone wearing a shirt.

I’ve been whinging about how stingy the game is when it comes to handing out points, but the volleyball game dished out no less than 16! A few I gained from playing the game (which I had no control over), but the majority were earned by resuscitating one of the girls who drowned trying to retrieve the ball from the water. This involved nothing more than following the exact CPR steps outlined in the manual, and while I originally thought the girl must be Stacy (and perhaps that rescuing her might be the trigger to her having sex later), it turned out to have absolutely no bearing on the rest of the game whatsoever. She drowned, I resuscitated her, she thanked me and walked away.

I fail to see the point of a puzzle that spells out the solution to the player while having absolutely no bearing on the rest of the game.

My main reason for restarting was to try to get the girl in the bar to have sex with me. While I had a brief crack at it during my first play through, and had even managed to dance with her, everything I’d tried had failed and eventually resulted in her slapping me and walking out. I’d assumed at the time that the creators were making the game seem like a Leisure Suit Larry game, and then letting you know in no uncertain terms that Codename: ICEMAN wasn’t going to contain the same juvenile titillations. I’d also had absolutely no motives to flirt and bed women in this game, so once I was called upon to leave the island and help defend my country, I quickly forgot about the brunette and moved on. It came as quite a surprise to me to find out that I was supposed to have slept with her, and that not doing so had made me miss out on valuable information and items, not to mention points.

You mean apart from the one I'm standing directly in front of?

Entering the bar with the knowledge that I could score with Stacy didn’t make things any easier. You might recall that I’d tried sitting at the table several times on my first play through, but had never managed to do it. This time I walked straight for the chair and typed “sit”. “You’ll have to find a seat” was the response, despite the fact I was standing right in front of one. I then stood right next to Stacy and typed “sit”. She responded with “aren’t you at least going to buy me a drink first”. So the whole reason I hadn’t been able to solve this “puzzle” the first time round was because the game made me type “sit” in a completely inappropriate place. Anyway, typing “buy girl drink” resulted in us sharing a bottle of champagne (while I was still standing up mind you). I then typed “sit” again and she requested a dance first, which was a request I knew I could fulfil.

The game has no problem with me trying to sit on Stacy though.

Once the dance was over, I stood right next to her again and typed “sit” a third time. This caused me to finally sit down in the chair across from her, at which point she rather bluntly came out with “would like to come back to my place”. You can compare Codename: ICEMAN to James Bond if you so choose, but the infamous British spy still has to seduce women with witty dialogue and sexy suggestiveness before they start taking their clothes off. All Johnny Westland has to do is buy a girl a drink and dance with her, not uttering a single word in the process. It seems Stacy is pretty damn easy to please!

Sierra: Teaching young men that the best way to get laid is to keep their mouth closed.

Despite how slutty Stacy seemed, I wasn’t going to deny the girl, so answered in the affirmative. We then appeared outside her hut, where the obvious thing to do was to “kiss” her. After a couple of kisses, she asked me inside, which I once again agreed to.  I then sat next to her on the bed, and nothing happened. Kissing her again caused her to tell me that “this vacation has been beautiful for me except for one thing! I lost an earring today that is very important to me!” Then nothing happened again. I don’t know if there’s any other way to get the action on, but I was forced to type “kiss” about five times before finally the screen went black and fireworks appeared. “The excitement and romance of the evening will be forever emblazoned on your memory!”

Johnny! You could score here, just don't say anything!

So...I’d scored with Stacy! For what purpose? Obviously the earring was going to play a role somehow. When I woke up, Stacy was gone, but there was a note saying “Thanks for making my vacation so wonderful. You were sleeping so peacefully I just couldn’t bring myself to wake you. I have urgent business to tend to and must leave. I wish you the best and hope we meet again soon.” I searched the hut thoroughly, but couldn’t uncover anything of interest. Stacy had mentioned she’d had the earring when she left the hut, and had noticed it was gone when she arrived at the hotel, so it must be somewhere in between. I left the hut to go hunting.

What? No breakfast!?

It took me about twenty seconds to find the earring, but I feel like there was some luck involved. Typing “look” and “look around” didn’t result in anything useful, but while I was walking along I thought I saw something shimmer briefly. It was so brief that I actually thought I’d imagined it, but I walked over to the spot and typed “look”. “In the sand a slight glimmer catches your eye”, which of course was the earring. Did anyone have any trouble finding the earring, despite knowing its general whereabouts? Looking at the earring revealed that “the top of the earring can be opened”, so that’s exactly what I did. Inside was a tiny roll of microfilm! It must be seriously small to fit inside an earring! What was I going to do with it? I’d always expected whatever I found on the island to assist me in cracking the CIA codes, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how the microfilm was going to help!

Announcing that something is highly unlikely doesn't make it any more likely.

I left Tahiti with 51 points, which is 36 points more than I left with the first time around. From there I travelled to the Pentagon for my orders (where this time I got my ID card back from the guard), and then boarded the USS Blackhawk just as before. Once through the first submarine navigation section, Captain Hawkins and I moved into his quarters to retrieve the briefcase containing further orders. This time I was determined to figure out how to access the second compartment, which in turn I assumed would help me crack the CIA codes. I tried using every item I had on the briefcase until the captain said “John, you can fool around with that extra compartment some other time. We need to get this sub moving!”

John, you can open the second compartment later. Now let me lock this briefcase away where you can never touch it again.

That can only mean one thing really. I need to crack into the safe somehow to retrieve it later, but that doesn’t seem like a very honest thing for a second in command Navy officer to do. I tried asking the captain about the safe and even asked him directly for the code, but all I got in response was “you’ve left me responseless” and “you can’t do that”. Strangely, when I typed “look at captain”, the response was “he doesn’t look well”. At one point while I was asking him about the safe, I actually got “I’m sorry Commander, but the Captain is under medication and sleeping. The amount of pain he was experiencing from the head injury made it necessary to sedate him”. WTF? What head injury? This part of the game is clearly bugged and I had a bad feeling my reasons for not solving it were more to do with parser issues than anything else! I had to accept that the CIA code / briefcase compartment puzzle was going to remain unsolved for me, so I moved on.

What? Uummm...captain...did you hear that voice?

I decoded the Washington codes, then made my way downstairs, determined to beat the crusty old man at dice and win the rum bottle, his money, and the device, all without restoring three times. Surprisingly, I didn’t have to restore even once this time around! I took Charles’ advice and sped the game up (don’t ask me why I didn’t think of that before), meaning I didn’t have to spend so long watching the tedious animations. I definitely had more luck this time around, but I also think I genuinely got better at the game. The key is to always go for triples. So if I had two 5’s and two 6’s after my first roll, I would keep the 6’s and roll the other three dice again (did I get it right this time The Mad Gamer?). If things didn’t go my way as "boss", I would pull out rather than gamble. Eventually I won everything on offer, and left the table.

He doesn't seem that fussed about losing pretty much everything he owns.

This finally brings me back to the stage of the game I was at prior to restarting. I’ve actually ventured quite a bit further, and even written a post for it, but needed to get all of the above in the clear before continuing. I’m pretty disappointed that I still haven’t managed to crack the CIA codes through logic (only through spoiler), and have no idea how to open the safe and retrieve the briefcase to then get into the second compartment. I haven’t yet read any further hints or spoilers, as I want to make sure I don’t read anything unrelated that might assist me going forward. I have to say that playing through the starting sections of the game again has only reaffirmed my feelings toward it. Codename: ICEMAN is certainly an ambitious game, but it’s also a very poorly designed one, with numerous parser and puzzle flaws, not to mention tediously repetitious sections. The second half will have to be pretty damn gripping to make up for it.

Hmmmm...did that old guy just walk under the stairs and then disappear? I wonder if there's something under there!

Session Time: 2 hours 00 minutes

Total Time: 6 hours 30 minutes

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: I've written a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before 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!