Temple Surveillance

Joanna's found dataDyne's dig site, now the task at hand is to discover what they're so desperate to find at the base of the temple. There's just the issue of avoiding dataDyne's trigger-happy security forces and all your typical deadly booby traps common to all ancient ruins. Here's hoping Joanna's an Indiana Jones fan.

Mission Ten
Default gadget: Datathief (A) Demokit (SA) Loctopus (PA)	Other gadgets: CamSpy, X-ray goggles	Available weapons: P9P, MagSec, DW-P5, RCP-90, Laptop Gun, M60, Grenade, Multi-Mine

Plant tracking device (Primary)

With the Amazon jungle behind you, this giant ancient temple's the place to be. You'll begin at the top of the pyramidal complex, working your way down to the base where dataDyne's prize awaits. Only snag to your journey is that Mai Hem's loaded up in a cargo elevator at the top of the temple and is on her way down as we speak. You'll be racing against the clock on this one, as you've only got a few minutes in the bag to beat Mai Hem to the device and plant that tracking device.

Listen closely to what the scientists have to say in the intro cutscene, you'll get an idea of what the device is they're looking for - a power source for an ancient device called the Graal - but more on that later. Like the jungle this place is rife with vegetation, so a P90's threat detector (naturally) will come in handy. The SuperDragon paired with the P90's a good choice for Perfect Agent, as you won't have much ammo at all. The Hawk and Multi-Mine would be useful later on but things can get very tricky on PA.

Exit this first chamber via the door ahead to find the main cavernous shaft of the temple. That big red steel frame structure in the center is Mai Hem's cargo loading lift, further down you'll need to sabotage the lifting controls to slow her descent down. There's around six floors to pass through on your way down so you'd better get moving. Each floor has broken sections of the walkway around the edge of the shaft, so you'll need to crisscross through rooms off the sides to move onward. Walk around the right and watch out for a lone guard keeping an eye out for you.

See the wooden planks on the ground ahead? They're covering up a pit full of deadly spikes, so your tomb raiding days are just beginning. If you walk across the planks you'll fall through and take serious shock damage, follow the cave path to get back inside the temple. To avoid this mishap, crouch and creep across the planks to avoid breaking them.

Proceed on through the next door around the corner, and watch out for two scientists in the storage chamber beyond. One packs a Psychosis Gun, if you get close enough just whack them both. Watch out if they run off into the next corridor, inside is a shallow pond with soldiers hiding around the pillars surrounding it. Watch out for any grenades thrown at you, if you're having trouble with them just hand them a few SuperDragon grenades to play with.

Move through the corridor and grab the dropped P90 on the way. Descend the stone steps and move around the corner to the main shaft. Watch out for a single guard patrolling around here, try to sneak up behind and whack him in the back. Find the next exit out of the shaft and head through. You'll find a T-intersection here, turn right and open up the stone door in the dead-end to find a room overlooking another down below. Drop the soldier directly ahead, then turn right and deal with the second. See the wooden crate near where the second soldier stood? Grab the X-Ray goggles sitting on top (and the soldier's dropped P90s) before leaving.

Switch the goggles on to see where every soldier in the temple is waiting for you, that'll stop any attempts at an ambush. Exit the chamber and cross the narrow hallway, crouching as you cross the two wooden plank covers. The next chamber's pulled straight from an adventure movie - a number of stone dragon heads line the walls while periodically spouting deadly flames from their mouths.

The flames don't reach across the entire width of the chamber so you can often sneak through the narrow gap they leave behind, or wait for the flames to stop and run through quickly. The only grief the flames deliver is shock damage, but it'll also damage your Armor so try to avoid too much of the heat.

Clear this chamber and beyond to return to the main shaft. Deal with the lone guard watching over this section, then head for the next door nearby, looking out for one or two patrolling soldiers across the broken section of the floor (shoot the red barrels if they're standing close by).

Head through the door to find a long hallway filled with water. Cross the wooden bridge spanning the gap (don't worry, it won't break) and keep your X-Ray goggles on. You'll see a long soldier either waiting at the end of the bridge or down the corridors, this guy is the only foe you'll face who carries Multi-Mines. Take him out and watch out for any mines he throws. Make sure you swap your pistol for the mines when he drops it if you haven't scored one for the Armory yet. The mines can help you later in the mission, but stick with your current weapons on Perfect Agent.

Sabotage lifting gear (Support)

Take the left corridor beyond the water bridge and move through the narrow path. Eventually you'll find a staircase leading down, but there's also another corridor heading off to your left. Follow this corridor around to find yourself back in the main shaft. Watch out for a soldier wandering around here (you may have dealt with him earlier from across the broken floor section). Now you should spot the loading lift's control station nearby, walk over to it but quickly spin around to the door opposite - inside is another soldier wielding an M60 (although he may already be outside by the lifting controls). Drop him and grab the Armor vest inside if you need it.

Now to deal with the lift controls. There's a number of ways to disable it, you can hack it if you've got the Datathief, or use the Demokit to blow it sky-high. Seeing as you're running on a clock, try rolling the overturned red oil barrel nearby into the lift controls and put a shot into it, it'll blow and set off the other upright barrel nearby. This will heavily damage the controls, send a SuperDragon grenade or a Multi-Mine into the mix to finish the job and delay Mai Hem's descent.

Backtrack to the corridor you entered this floor via and descend the stone steps below. Flip on your X-Ray goggles and take extreme caution at the base of the stairs as there's two Laptop Gun-wielding soldiers in the shaft waiting for you. Send a SuperDragon grenade or remote Multi-Mine down to finish them quickly, as if they see you and you hesitate they'll setup their guns as sentry turrets, something you don't want to deal with. If they deploy sentry turrets disable them with the P90 or Combat roll like mad, but expect to take some serious damage.

Rescue Institute spy (Primary)

Emerge when the danger's gone and move around to the next exit. Take note that to the left of the door you entered this floor via is another leading into a chamber filled with small spikes lining the floor. You don't need to go in there on your own (either you or your buddy will need to take that path in Co-Op). By now on Perfect Agent Carrington will chime in, reporting that one of the CI's scientists acting as a mole was caught and locked up in one of the stone cells below your position. Normally further on at the base of the temple you'll walk on through an open door but on this setting you'll need the scientist alive and kicking to open up the door for you.

Descend the stairs to find yourself in a large room full of crates and sealed doors lining the walls (directly above here is where you picked up the X-Ray goggles. Use the goggles to see which cell he's locked up in and open it up via the lever beside the door.

The scientist will hastily join you outside the cell and introduce himself.... as Grimshaw!! With no beard and a receding hairline (which seems to improve over the next three years) he's smarmy as ever but with a less-irritating voice (switch on your goggles and look at his face for a laugh). Move to the exit of the room and take cover, in the water-filled chamber beyond you've got around five soldiers wielding Laptop Guns. They're positioned above the balconies around the room, go for headshots and try to take as many as you can from here. Watch out for two soldiers storming your position from around the corner ahead, keep the goggles on to spot them (and do not let them deploy sentry turrets).

Ignore Grimshaw's whining and head inside when the balconies clear up. Grab any Laptop Guns on your way through for rifle ammo, and watch out for any stragglers around the corner. Run up the stairs and exit the room ahead. Watch out for a single soldier waiting for you back in the main shaft, drop a SuperDragon grenade on him before he deploys a sentry turret. Duck into the small chamber on the right wall near the door you entered the shaft via (that other locked stone door around the corner is where the spike-floored chambers leads to).

Wait here for Grimshaw, he'll duck for cover every time the lead starts flying. Upon gracing you with his presence he'll get to work opening up the solid stone door blocking your path. Whip on your goggles again, beyond this door is a winding jungle path leading down to the ground floor, but it's also patrolled by three soldiers. If you made enough noise earlier they may have run up top and be waiting on the other side of the door.

Either way, once Grimshaw releases the door storm the path drop the soldiers quick as you can. It's incredibly tough to see them without the goggles on due to the lush vegetation (and their Psychosis Guns don't help) so duck down and take extra care. Bid farewell to Grimshaw, clear the trio of soldiers out and follow the spiraling path downward. You'll now hear Jonathan chime in over the radio with bad news - a dataDyne squad has overrun and captured himself and his team - meaning your next stop after this temple tour is saving Jonathan's day - at least you'll be even then.

At the base of the path run inside the stone tunnel and to find the ground floor of the temple, and your final bridge to cross. On Secret and Perfect Agent you've got a large gap in the floor blocking access to the temple. See that wooden bridge sitting at the bottom of the hole? You'll need to raise that up to cross (on Agent it's already raised).

Turn around, near the door you'll see a pair of panels on the floor, one near the door and the other up against the wall. You'll need to push the stone blocks sitting near the panels onto them to trigger the lock release and hold it in place. Get behind one and melee the block into position over the panel. Do the same for the other panel (on Perfect Agent) to raise the wooden bridge. As you're doing this keep an eye out for any soldiers running down to attack you from above, in your haste you may have left a few stragglers behind.

With the bridge securely raised walk on over to the temple's ground floor entrance - where a trio of laser tripwires still bars your path. At this position Carrington will not-so-gently prod you to use the CamSpy to secure the tracking device on the power source, but before you use it make sure no soldiers are taking shots at you from behind.

With your six clear load up the CamSpy (press Left or Right on the D-pad. You need to fly it over to the power source lying at the base of the cargo lift in the center of the room. But instead of flying around the edge of the room to clear the large stone column blocking your path, fly right up alongside the column and sneak around the steel girders to reach the power source device quickly. Even though Mai Hem's nowhere to be seen you can still fail the mission within seconds here, something you don't want after all that effort.

Defeat Phantoms (Primary)

You're not out of the fire just yet, as upon planting the tracking device Mai Hem turns up with her troupe and discovers the CamSpy. She'll order her troops to eliminate whoever was on the other end of the CamSpy, so it's defense time. These "Phantoms" all carry Plasma Rifles and sure know how to use the cloaking feature. On Secret and Perfect Agent Carrington will suggest you head down below to the lowest chamber of the temple and flood the floor there, apparently the water flow disrupts their cloaking abilities.

Flood foundations (Support - SA, PA)

As soon as you regain control quickly holster your weapon and run down one of the two ramps beside the loading lift. You might be wondering by now what the point of bringing along the Hawk might be, hold down the Right Bumper to activate the shrapnel shield and stand still for a few seconds. You'll find that amazingly the deadly bursts of heated plasma energy the Phantoms spit at you bounce harmlessly off your shrapnel shield, leaving you completely unscathed. So as long as you keep the shield on and stay out of melee-attack range you'll be completely safe. But on Perfect Agent you'll be better off with your P90 and SuperDragon.

Down below in the lower corridor you'll find a long empty basin with small alcoves lining the walls. Run down the basin and keep an eye out for four alcoves containing small stone dragon heads - whack each one to break them off and release the water flow (two hits on each in Secret Agent, and three in Perfect Agent will do the job). There's two dragon heads on either side of the basin, break them all to fill the area with enough water to disable your foes' cloaking fields.

Now to deal with these pests. The higher your difficulty setting the more chunks of health their Plasma Rifle blasts can steal, so you can't engage them openly. You can dance around with the Hawk's shrapnel shield activate and take quick swipes at them individually (but don't throw the blade as your shield won't work), or on Perfect Agent hide in one of the dragon-head alcoves and keep the P90's threat detector on.

Stay crouched to avoid splash damage, and fire away when you see someone close by. Without the threat detector it's a chore trying to see them, so keep it on for now. When one side of the alcove looks clear, run out and check the status of the other end of the basin. Try to pick off any remaining targets with the P90, or if there's a bunch of them together hail them with SuperDragon grenades. If you happen to have some Multi-Mines handy, run around and setup remote or proxy mines near the entrances of the basin - they're perfect choke points to take anyone wandering nearby.

You can also try to drop one of them and grab their Plasma Rifle to finish the job. Finally, you can stay down one end of the water-filled chamber and pick off any Phantoms down the other end. You can visibly see the projectiles they fire at you, so it shouldn't be too difficult to Combat roll out of the way from a distance (just watch out for a group of them storming your end of the basin).

Finish every remaining Phantom off to clear your position and complete the mission. Make sure you've got a Plasma Rifle and Multi-Mine in your inventory to score them for the Armory if you haven't already. With the tracking device secure on the power source, Joanna's off to save Jonathan from a nasty demise while Carrington tracks dataDyne's movements.

Next Mission: Outpost Rescue