In which we visit the Hall of Heroes, shoot at Mr. Washington and get drafted into the resistance.

Remember when I said that Elisabeth was introduced as some kind of universal genius with code-cracking amongst her skills? Well…
Our way to the Hall of Heroes leads through a plaza with some shooty-time. Exploring it afterwards leads us into a restaurant, where a secret message is scribbled on the wall.
“Can you break the code?” – “I need the codebook. It has to be here somewhere.”
Seriously? To break a code you need the manual telling you how to decrypt the message? Alright… I see the need for another plot device here, otherwise the message could be written in plaintext. But our decrypting sidekick was shown working on a difficult-looking blackboard, specifically noted as codebreaking. Or maybe this seem perfectly logical for someone without a clue about crypto (not that I have much).

One more skyride, again without any freight train the front, and we’re in front of the Hall of Heroes. Hello there, Ms. Sniper-Rifle, how have you been?
And that’s the point were I started writing things up. From now on it should be a little more coherent. Let’s go inside and get the plasmid vigor god-dammit.
As we have heard on our way here, a certain Mr. Slate has barricaded himself here, and he knows DeWitt. He has the vigor we need, and he wants us to kill all of his men – to give them a soldier’s death instead of getting gunned down by Comstock’s tin men. Also, we learn that Comstock takes credit for victories in battles he never fought (Slate did), and find some history.

We have to gun down Slate’s men in the exhibitions about the Battle at Wounded Knee (Comstock claims to have led the 7th Cav. Regiment) and the Boxer-Rebellion (where Columbia set Peking aflame). The animatronics in both halls are of a rather clear propagandist nature, and on both tracks we have a Mecha-Washington rhyming about the historical background. To be immediately contradicted by Slate. We also learn that DeWitt fought at under Slate at Wounded Knee.
After killing Slate’s men we follow him through the “The First Lady”-Exihibition, learning the official story of Elisabeth – being Comstock’s daughter, her mother killed by the anarchist Fitzroy, she being brought into the monument by Comstock… the whole section is extremely beautiful, even on my not-that-high setting. Great usage of light and ambient music.

We push on towards Slate and get introduced to a new game mechanic. It has already been established that Elisabeth can open windows to other worlds, places and times. From now on we can use this to our advantage by telling her which nearby tear she should tear open, giving us access to weapons, ammunition, health kits, cover, gun-turrets… It’s one tear at a time, some of which are one shots, some of which can be turned on and off. It’s an interesting mechanic, and it fits the feel of the world much better than the vigors.

We also get introduced to a new kind of enemy: the Mecha-Washingtons now leave their place, armed with gatling guns. I’m tempted to make a Mecha-Hitler-joke here. The Motorised Patriots are the tin men Slate fears to be turned into – just a pawn in Comstock’s narrative, stripped of all his accomplishments.
We grab the vigor and can now hurl lightning from our fingers. Nice. We also can use it to restart broken down machines by… lightning a new wobbly power-thingy into them. Okay. If you say so. Back at Soldiers’ Field, we can now fix the Plot Door and move on towards Comstock’s Airship.
At the aerodrome, we find an ad for the Murder of Crows-vigor, which sends a murder of crows on its way to rip apart our target. “Excellent against Hooligans”. I should have made a screenshot. This is once again a vain attempt to ground the vigors in the world. Doesn’t work, nobody ever uses those. Mind you, we have a still functioning society, so showing a casual use of a vigor one time or the other would help a lot. Never happens. I also begin to wonder why there are Salt-machines (Salt is the local Unobtainium powering the vigors) around town and vending machines sell Salt. Can’t be a great business…

We enter the airship, DeWitt sets course for New York and Elisabeth starts asking questions – DeWitt told her Paris would be the town-to-go. He tells her that there is someone in NY who will wipe away his gambling debt after he hands her over – she doesn’t take it too well. We take a wrench in the face, Elisabeth starts running and the airship get taken over by Fitzroy and the Vox Populi. Oh, and we work for the Vox now, if we want to get back our airship. The dialogue here takes place miles away from the Uncanny Valley, even though it’s a close up conversation.
We get kicked out at the Finkton Docks, with orders to find a chinese gunsmith to gather weapons for the Vox Populi. I’m wrapping things up here to start the next installment in Mr. Fink’s very own workers’ hell.