The Pfhor have changed intentions. Before they wanted to take over the Marathon, now they’re pushing into main engineering intent on blowing the reactor.

Shake Before Using brings back memories of Defend This! There’s massive machinery all around and the environment is full of hazard stripes. Naturally you sling lead at Pfhor soldiery as is your custom, but the bigger story development here is with our domestic IT issues, as Leela does her best to inform you:

Mental instability now wracks both Durandal and Leela. For one, it’s the signature of dissolution. Leela is falling apart, and her glitchy, fragmented communication is the outward symptom. A great digital mind is being torn open at the seams, pulled in every direction until its substance scatters, all coherence lost to entropy. For the other, madness is the source of his power. Durandal frolicks and cavorts through his insanity and is so empowered by it that his growing threat may well be why the Pfhor are now trying to blow up the ship. In both cases, bonds are being broken. The bonds that reined Durandal in, and the bonds that kept Leela whole.

The most interesting physical element of Shake Before Using is a sequence of big, dark chambers spanned by narrow bridges. Defend THIS! had a similar design element, but this level takes it further. The rooms are bigger, the chasm deeper, and the bridges narrower.

In some ways, Shake Before Using is back to basics. Some of the adventurous steps taken by prior levels, while never straying far from the formula, added a bit more innovation to your journey through a dying ship’s guts. Still, SBU’s design is interesting to navigate and creates some unique flash points, especially those bridges. It also marks an important story beat as Leela’s last fingers begin to lose purchase on the cliff edge and Durandal nears full control of the situation - or at least, of your situation.

***End Message***

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