Saturday 26 August 2017

Leather Goddesses of Phobos 2 - WON!

Lydia Sandler, Zeke Zarmen and Barthgub el Nikki-Nikki son of Jelgobar el Zayda-Zayda Journal Entry #3: The three of us went on our mission to Phobos to stop the Leather Goddesses' evil plans. To stop them we'll have to sabotage their plans both on their home planet and Earth. It'll be hard, but that's how we like it.

Zeke Zarmen Journal Entry Addendum: That's what she said!

In this episode we'll finally rescue the tanned annoyances from the peril they face at the thighs of the vile Leather Goddesses of Phobos

We're coming to save you. You are in great peril!

When we left off last time our heroes were in the spaceship about to land on the moon of Phobos. Due to Phobos' defenses, our landing wasn't exactly smooth


PHOBOS

The Leather Goddesses' palace reminds me of Jabba's Palace on Tatooine

At this point, there is very little difference between which character we're playing, as the game plays out exactly the same, so instead of doing Barth and Zeke's playthrough at the end, we're just going to be doing it all in one go as Lydia, with one small exception where Zeke's line was funnier. Now, back to the game!

Barth's ship is destroyed, so we'll have to find another way off the planet when we leave. There were two places we could go to: the rocket field and the palace. The rocket field looks like it might be our way out of here, so we check that out first.

I predict two puzzles here – remove guards and decipher security panel

The palace consists of five screens. The outer door, kitchen and antechamber just take us to the two rooms we can do something in: the dungeon and the harem.


THE DUNGEON

Does two constitute a legion now?

We release the legion of prisoners and Barth explains our mission. Prisoner #1 and Prisoner #2 (actual names) promise to create a diversion if we are pursued on the way to the shipyard. Looks like we may have solved the 'remove guards' part of our escape plan.


THE HAREM

The harem is the place Professor Sandler's telescope zooms into.

That guy with the lotion has been rubbing the leather goddess' thigh since the start of the game – no wonder it's getting red

Lydia noticed that the leader of the Leather Goddesses was a beauty, but with an obvious dark soul and wicked heart and that she despised her as her enemy. So naturally, I made sure she tried to kiss her.

After this, Melcinda gets jealous of any of the other goddesses I kiss

After kissing a few goddesses (or doing anything else in this room for five turns or so) Melcinda sends me to the dungeon, where they'll kill me after they get back from conquering Earth.

Thanks for spoiling one of the few puzzles in this game, Zeke! Like I couldn't have worked that out by myself!

Activating the invisibility doohickey that the Planet X council had given me, I once again went to the harem, where I could overhear the Leather Goddesses' plans. I used the Planet X recording device, which looks like a green vinyl record. I'm not sure how I was supposed to use the record, but I couldn't continue if I didn't use it, so I just waved it around clicking it on various goddesses hoping it would do something. My random waving worked though, so... yay!

At least they can't see me so they aren't deliberately telling their plans to the heroes before killing them

Balfurra also mentioned that she had changed the access codes for the invasion fleet flagship, so we also had a way past the security system for the guarded ship we'd seen earlier. Now our escape plan was on the way.

After going through their plans, Melcinda is interrupted by Lubanna, who wasn't paying attention and asks for the plan to be repeated. This is a game device that simply avoids the possible dead-end of us not correctly using the recording device the first time we hear the plan, and is used in many games to allow us to hear important conversations if we missed them the first time. Once again, I appreciated the game not allowing me to get stuck and have to reload because I did things out of order.

Attempting to talk to the goddesses while invisible doesn't get us thrown back in the dungeon, but instead has one of our companions hold us back

I'm right with you Zeke, but also agree with Barth – you're an idiot!

So, armed with a recording of their evil plans, we now need to get back to Earth to warn our people. We return to the rocket field, where the prisoners we released earlier 'made a show' which caused the guards to take chase. That's all the game tells us, so what kind of show they made is left up to us. I expect some kind of cirque de soleil thing is likely.

Inside the spaceship, which looks a lot more roomy than the outside suggests (maybe it's a TARDIS), the only thing we can do is go into a closet.

Actually I'm calling it a bathroom. Since when do broom closets contain sinks?

Soon after we enter the closet, we hear voices outside the room, and the ship takes off. From now, for the trip back to Earth, we can't do anything except listen to the goddesses talking outside the room, or turn the sink on and off for no reason.

I fail to see how pre-space-flight Earth can be in any way relevant to taking over the Cosmos, but sure, whatever you say.

UNLIMITED POWER!!!!!

This goes on for a few minutes before the ship lands on Earth. After the Goddesses have left, we leave the closet, and then the ship.


BACK ON EARTH

We're back at the caryard, where we find the angry mob is still there, and they've been joined by some Leather Goddesses.


General Wedgypoo welcomes our new leather-clad overlords as saviours, and notices Barth has returned, likely with his armies close behind.

Zeke objects and tells everyone that it's actually the Leather Goddesses who plan to invade the Earth, but nobody listens to Zeke.


I'm still unclear about how convincing the General in any way helps you conquer Earth. His army consists of four people with guns and a handful of townspeople. 

Surely with your superior technology (particularly in the anti-chafing department, one would think) one small town General laying down his weapons would make no noticeable difference to your invasion plans.

Anyway, in an effort to warn him, I tried using the recording device on the General and everybody else in the scene, with no luck.

A little bit of thought made the answer obvious to me, so I left the caryard and made my way to the radio station, where I've been previously to play various music from the game with the provided records.

A perfect fit – what a crazy random happenstance

After I started playing the recording, Zeke came in and told me that the mob had turned on the Leather Goddesses, and they had fled back to Phobos, abandoning most of their spaceships.

As for how they fled without their spaceships, I have no idea – perhaps they all crammed themselves into the same ship - I'm sure three of them would have fit in the broom closet. Anyway, we were heroes and Barth was chaired down main street like an extremely slimy sports star

Um, Doctor – after finishing work you've played a game of poker and been a part of three angry mobs – I think it's time to remove the stethoscope now, don't you.

Professor Sandler apologizes to Barth on behalf of his species, and Barth gladly predicts many future relations between our two civilizations before Lydia becomes a party-pooper and points out that with Barth's spaceship being a wrecked heap on Phobos, he has no way home.



Dealer Dan obviously subscribes to the 'Finders Keepers" law of acquisistion

The Professor then goes on and on about the future of humanity and the infinite possiblilities and how together ... ... ...


Then Zeke and Lydia kiss on the front porch as the camera zooms out from Lydia's house to end up in outer space, mirroring the beginning of the game.

After fading to black, we finally check in on the fate of the Leather Goddesses of Phobos themselves.

Well, at least they didn't come home completely empty-handed from their trip to Earth

The game then hints at a third and final chapter of the series, which never got made, and based on the last shot would probably have involved them discovering a new fabric and becoming the Woolen Goddesses of Phobos

Time played: 1 hour 15 minutes
Total time: 8 hours 50 minutes

Considering it took me less than 9 hours to complete the game three times, this has been a very short game that certainly didn't overstay its welcome (Barth's child-shooting puzzle notwithstanding).

Thus ends the only full game I've played for this blog without asking for assistance. I enjoyed the game, though I would never call it 'great' or even 'good'. It's ... 'fun enough'.

Stay tuned in a week or so for the Final Rating. I for one am extremely interested to see how this game fares.

3 comments:

  1. wow, that was much weirder and shorter than I thought, I remember playing 5 minutes of this back in the day. Good job !

    ReplyDelete
  2. So did we ever figure out the descendants-from-the-first-game thing? Was Lydia or Zeke the descendant of Trent? Or was either the descendant of the first game's player character? Apologies if I just missed the answer(s) somewhere along the way.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yep.

      Zeke is the son of the protagonist from the first game.

      When Lydia asks Zeke about the gas station he says “My pop built it in the late thirties... He was a crazy old coot from Upper Sandusky, Ohio. 'Til his dying day he claimed he'd been kidnapped by babes from Mars!”

      Seeing as the player character starts the first game in Upper Sandusky, Ohio and Trent came from Alaska, Zeke must be first game guy's son!

      The game also assumes the first game was played as a man, as there's no mention of a woman encountering the Leather Goddesses before.

      Delete