As Emmy, Fred and Chris continue their descent, they end up in the... Hangar?



OK, underground hangars do exist in real life, but you don't even see any planes down here. Anyway, with the rats gone (and the grunts back) the difficulty gets toned down a bit, although the game does try to scare you by bringing back the robots as well as new Robot variations that actually fight back. The green robots from the city ruins can now move diagonally, the gold robots fire piddly little bullets at you, while the silver robots fire a slow-moving eight-bullet spread- it's really easy to avoid. The stage is quite long (it's essentially a bunch of long corridors punctuated by sharp turns) but you can make things easier on yourself by taking said turns as soon as you see them- only a small part of the screen will be focused on the corridor you're in, so there's less space for enemies to spawn in. Near the end, you'll start being attacked (very briefly) by purple droids which look suspiciously like the probe droids from The Empire Strikes Back- their gimmick is that they don't bother with this 'shooting' nonsense, and instead they'll just head straight towards you. Don't let them get close!



The boss is very boring here, as it's a slightly more difficult version of the Stage 1 boss. The rate and timing of the energy balls being fired is definitely different- there's less gaps between each shot, so you'll be dodging a bit more. Your main focus should be pelting the boss, not only because, well, that's how you beat the stage, but the enemies that spawn in this fight are the purple droids, and you do not want them all up in your grill, as the kids say. In fact, they seem to be faster here than they are when you encounter them during the normal stage, so it's essential to keep them off your back. Do a bit of dodging and weaving and get the job done quickly.



The enemy's factory is next, and because of its boss and choice of enemies, is probably the hardest stage in the game.



The enemy roster might seem pretty tame, as there's no rats or purple droids to get on your nerves, but the stage is absolutely teeming with purple grunts at every turn. They're not trigger-shy, either, so the screen's going to be covered in their sodding lasers, with their weird collision detection- they're easily the biggest threat on this stage. The silver robots also come back for more, in scary numbers, and there's two new enemies introduced- the green spider robots (which are actually harmless, but they're the biggest enemy type) and the manned turret, which springs from the ground but unlike the purple turrets that have been harassing you for most of the game, they can be destroyed. However, getting through this stage in one piece is less a case of taking out enemies, and more a case of ploughing through and running away like a little girl. The enemies are so slow that they won't keep up with you, so just shoot any that are directly in your way and keep moving to avoid all the laser fire heading your way- stopping for a weapon charge is really dicing with death here.



The boss of this stage is very difficult the first time you encounter it, and only gets marginally easier with practice- it requires a lot of skill, even when you know how it works. The pillars are set out much like they were in Stage 2, but this time they try to crush you between them. The basic gameplan here is to stick near the top two sets and pelt the boss with bullets, then fall back when they start closing in. At one point, the top three pillar sets will close almost all at once, so you'll have to fall back to the bottom pair to survive (this was what kept killing me the first few times I fought this boss, so it's important). It's tricky, I'm not going to lie, so just try to keep up and hope for the best. Don't even attempt the old 'die, use the mercy invincibility to get next to the boss' tactic here, by the way, because like Stage 2, they'll start chucking energy balls at you, but at a rate you won't be able to keep up with. Oh, and watch out for the turrets- when you're hitting the boss they're not a problem, but when you're not, they'll take pot-shots at you, so don't run into a pillar while avoiding them.



The final stage is ominously called the passage, which leads to the enemy base.



Amusingly, the stage is exactly as the name implies- it's just a straight passageway. The only enemeies you'll find are grunts, of all colours- they start with the soft-touch red and yellow varieites, but the purple and blue ones show up about halfway through. Unfortunately, some complete cretin on the design team thought it'd be perfectly OK to use some foreground objects- specifically a rather large walkway- to obscure your view every screen or so. This is completely unacceptable because it means that stray bullets have a good chance of catching you unawares- I didn't like it in Commando, and I sure as shit don''t appreciate it here!

It doesn't help that the game throws as many grunts as it can at you, but there's a sneaky way to get out alive. The game has a limit to how many enemies can be on-screen at once, and once it reaches that limit, it won't spawn any more until you kill some off. Because it's just a straight road and your character is faster than the grunts, what you should try to do is claw your way through the hordes at the beginning, then avoid killing any that spawn so that they're all behind you, and just keep running- if you have a life to spare, you might want to use the mercy-invincibility upon respawn to try this tactic. If you pull it off, you can out-run them, and no more enemies will spawn, which gives you a bit of breathing room. Once the purple and blue grunts start appearing, pick off the ones in your way- the horde behind you will stop them from spawning too much, making things far, far easier on you.



The final version of the chair boss is definitely the hardest, mostly because its attack pattern is essentially unpredictable. The four pillars start bouncing around the arena randomly as yellow and purple grunts start spawning from the left side of the screen. There's no secret safe spot here, no easy way out- the only minor concession you get is that you can shoot through the pillars, but that won't really help. The only advice is stay as far away from the pillars as possible as their hit detection isn't exactly 100% accurate, and make sure you hit the boss as often as possible, otherwise you'll be swarmed by grunts. You really don't want to lose too many lives here, as you're so close to the end! Don't give up on me now!



Note: The game is not over yet!

As soon as you beat the boss, the door at the top opens, and purple Grunts start streaming out of it.



The most difficult part of this very brief section is, well, starting it. There's a small army of enemies here and it seems almost impossible to get past them, so the best strategy is to let them spawn and avoid them- eventually, they'll stop spawning from the top and you can run around them. From there, it's just a short corridor with a purple Grunt battalion awaiting you, so hug either wall and storm your way through- it shouldn't pose a challenge. Eventually, that familiar boss music starts again, so get ready...



We meet the final boss at last, presumably the leader of the enemy forces.

As you start this section, you'll probably have more grunts on your tail, so either fight them off (not advised) or hit one of the four spheres encircling the boss to do away with them all at once- bear in mind, you can safely walk on the top part of the screen that looks like it might be a pit. The boss itself stays where he is and occasionally launches lasers and energy balls at you, while the spheres that rotate around him fire small bullets at you every now and then. A far easier boss than the previous boss when you know how, the best tactic is to hug one of the walls and walk up and down, avoiding the lasers/energy balls/bullets while pumping the spheres full of lead. They take a lot of hits, and you'll probably be on your basic shot by this point, but you'll know when a sphere is nearly destroyed when it turns green.



Once you destroy all four spheres, the boss dies, and the world is saved! I think.

Emmy, Fred and Chris have prooved the justice of our culture. Now go and rest our heroes!