Level 19: Dam
Go to the Volcano Laboratory
Again, CryTek is blameless in the matter of the inclusion of a level in which the hero of the game is stripped of all of his hard-earned weaponry and set to defend himself with nary but his wits and a sharp stick. This level archetype is legislated into the FPS genre; it’s a matter of jurisprudence.
Give them credit for sticking it to the man, though: Jack actually gets a token M4 to begin the level. It has all of ten rounds in it, though, rendering it decent for killing the Tridgen near your starting point and not much else. (Cool part: if you kill the Tridgen in the middle of the stream, the water’s flow will pick up the body and send it over the nearby waterfall.) With any luck, you may have two or three bullets remaining to you after your fight, but it won’t matter much; three bullets isn’t going to put a dent into the forces of the mutants lying in wait at the bottom of the waterfall. Well, maybe it’ll dent them, but all that’ll accomplish is alerting them to your presence and speeding up your death.
The trick here, if it can indeed be called a trick, is to just run like hell and hope you don’t attract the attention of any Tridgens on the way. There are plenty of Fat Boys in the area, but they’re of the unarmed variety, thus making them not a danger. There are a few armed mutants and Tridgens in the area, though, and if any of these guys spot you, you’re probably dead.
Before you go off the waterfall, take a moment and note the position of the downed helicopter near the water’s edge below. This is your first goal; inside of it are two miniguns, a suit of armor, and a clip for your M4. Getting there is the hard part, of course, and you’ll likely need a few tries before you can make the journey and actually survive. Your best bet is to jump off of the waterfall before you attract the attention of any of the mutants below; they can see you from down there, and will swarm around the pool at the bottom of the falls if your stealth meter hits the red.
After you hit the pools, try to swim along the bottom of the river for a bit before standing up and running to the right. Stick close to the right side of the river here; the deeper sections of the forest are where the Tridgens await. If you spot any mutants with guns, though, you should obviously attempt to avoid making contact with them. Try to save your sprinting juice by only running when a real threat is on your tail; the Fat Boys shouldn’t be able to catch up with you after you put a bit of distance between yourself and them. If you can avoid any other mutants, you should be able to get to the helicopter in one piece.
Once there, a short cutscene ensues before you get to unload the miniguns on the mutants. Aim at the mutants on the northeast side of the chopper first; the baddies across the water are the ones with the guns, so take down anyone who’s armed before moving on to the Fat Boys. If you spot a Fat Boy with a rocket launcher, make him your priority, even if he’s firing at the fortifications up the hill; he’ll eventually start firing at you, and the tight quarters make dodging rockets a risky proposition. Don’t neglect the southwestern side of the equation, though; there are still plenty of mutants in the jungle, and any of them that are nearby will be attracted by all the gunfire. If you’re having trouble spotting targets, get out of the minigun and use your M4’s zoom feature. It isn’t fantastic, but should work.
When you’re ready to head up the hill, grab one of the AG36’s from the Locusts on the beach and check to make sure that it’s fully loaded. By the time you reach the top of the hill, the fighting between the Fat Boys and the mercenaries here should’ve ended, which probably means that you’ll have anywhere from one to four Fat Boys to worry about, and perhaps another Locust. You’re still underpowered, and probably don’t have much ammo, so do your best to dodge the Fat Boys’ rockets, dash through the hole in the gate, and take the stairwell to your right, picking up the rocket launcher on the way. The Fat Boys will likely follow you up the stairs, so pick the second minigun here, the one further from the stairwell, and start getting your headshots. Depending on your difficulty level, the FBs’ rockets will likely be off-target at this range, but you’ll be close enough to get headshots consistently.
The armory below contains a veritable cornucopia of weaponry, although it does lack a machinegun and sniper rifle. Grab everything that you desire before heading through the gate nearby and into the buggy. Now that you have a pair of binoculars, use it to scout the path ahead; this will trigger the "apocalypse of gore" to which we referred earlier. It’s difficult to count the combatants due to all of the chaos, but there appears to be at least half a dozen Fat Boys pounding away on perhaps as many as two dozen mercs scattered throughout the hills. It’s a nice scene, but unfortunately doesn’t make for very safe travel.
The first thing to realize about this scenario is that passing through the battlefield will require a little patience. Not in the actual passing part, though; you’re going to have to wait for some of the Fat Boys to die off before you can safely make the journey. You can help speed the process along by sniping with your OICW from long distance; focus on the leftmost Fat Boys and attempt to put bullets in their heads, two or three at a time. You can easily run through a full load of 340 bullets doing this, but in the process, you’ll hopefully be able to take down at least two of the Fat Boys that block the leftmost side of the battlefield, which is where you’ll be headed. Alternately, you can use the buggy’s minigun to blast the Fat Boys from long distance, but this seems to be more likely to actually draw their attention and provoke them into firing at you. Run back to the armory and grab any ammo that you left behind before proceeding.
If you’ve managed to clear a bit of a path for your buggy, you can take it and drive it along the path until you reach the spot where the grass disappears and all the ground is gray. This is where you should ditch your vehicle. Don’t bother attempting to fire at any of the Fat Boys in the area with the mounted minigun; your mobility is the only thing that’ll keep you alive through the next few minutes, and you obviously can’t dodge rockets very well if you’re stuck inside a car. If there are any Fat Boys in the area, circle-strafe around them while pegging them with Jackhammer shells or the P90 until they die. Some may attempt to cross the lava to reach you; get up on the small hill before the tree as they cross, and you should be able to peg away with zero risk of injury, due to the fact that their rockets will be flying off into space if they don’t hit you directly.
When you cross the fallen tree (and make sure you jump over the branch that sticks out; if you attempt to walk around it you’ll wind up in the drink), head east towards the tree on the hill, grabbing any armor or ammo left by fallen mercs on the way. This path leads up to a smallish tower, but you’ll have to make a somewhat dangerous jump over a lava river before you can get there. You’ll need to have a running start, so make sure you have enough stamina to run for a bit and complete the jump.
You’ll arrive at a welcome save point, with a sniper rifle and a medkit nearby. Use the sniper rifle to kill off the rocket launcher merc near the entrance to Krieger’s laboratory, as well as anyone who looks like they may be waiting to man one of the minigun positions. When you’re out of bullets, grab whatever weapon you dropped and take the grey path immediately next to the small little shack where the health was; this will take you near a small valleyish entry towards Krieger’s lab, where you can kill off any mercs who happen to be coming your way. From there, hit the armory and complete the trip to the lab by walking up the steps towards the door, being sure to grab the rocket ammo from the gentleman you sniped earlier. If you’ve been playing through without having a rocket launcher in your loadout, drop something - anything - and pick this one up. Possessing one will be somewhat critical in a moment.