Disaster Report Diaries (SOS: The Final Escape) Part Eight

This is my exploration of the Disaster Report series where I will chronicle my playthrough like a text-based Let’s Play. Now let’s finish SOS: The Final Escape…

After handing Terry Stiver the revelation that his “friend” had murdered his family, Keith Helm, Karen Morris, and Greg were making a discreet exit…

Greg told us to board a motorboat and we took off along the ruined waterways. We were almost immediately chased by the black helicopter, firing rockets at us! As we raced for our lives, a breaking news report told us that a tsunami, caused by the earthquake, had formed and was expected to reach 200 feet (60 metres)!

A building fell in front of us, making Greg steer the boat into a road and ground us, but on the plus side, the helicopter had stopped chasing us… Since the road was only mostly flooded, we were able to cross the knee-high water — but then the water level dropped suddenly. If you’re at the beach and the tide goes out rapidly, you need to run for cover immediately, because that means a tsunami is headed your way. That goes doubly for if you’re on an artificial island that’s sinking due to an earthquake!

We were hurrying down a street when the water returned, this time waist-deep, and in the distance we could see a big wave coming our way! Greg rushed into a nearby building and we followed, going up some stairs just in time before the tsunami slammed into the building, shattering every single window. We ran up 12 flights of stairs, the water chasing us as we went — or was the building sinking?!

We reached a gap in the stairs which I leapt across and helped Karen get across, and we finally reached the roof. Greg was already on the other side, and directed us to jump down to a capsized ship — but we were interrupted by the black helicopter dropping off Mr Sniper! I told Karen to run and she reached Greg while under fire. He threw himself in the path of the next bullet, getting hit in the back! He turned and said “Ah, crap… leave me alone.”

After such a badass moment, of course, he was shot again and fell off of the roof! I made a break for it and the roof began falling apart as the building sank rapidly! Mr Sniper continued to fire even as his section plunged into the ocean, and even after he was completely submerged?

Joining Greg on the capsized vessel, he had enough strength to tell us that he didn’t care about us, but that I had an article to file, so we should go. There was a tremor and he fell into the water, so we hurried across the side of the ship and into one of the only remaining buildings of Capital City. We made our way to the roof up several flights of stairs, and were met by the black helicopter, and Albert Sims aiming a revolver at us. He ranted that he hated people who knew too much, and then someone shot me in the arm. I say someone, as Terry Stiver approached from the helicopter holding a pistol, and was clearly interrupting Albert’s flow.

Terry said that he wanted to take Karen with them, as she was his niece. Albert agreed, all he wanted was to kill me. Oh, Terry asked, by the way, did Albert kill his family? Albert laughed and shot Terry, then trained his weapon back on me — but Terry wasn’t dead, he shot Albert! He struggled to walk towards his “friend”, wanting to “thank” him, only for the retreating Albert to shoot him in the leg. But Terry carried on, getting shot in the shoulder! Terry embraced Albert as they reached the side of the rooftop, then took him over the side with him!

The black helicopter flew off, leaving the blood-soaked rooftop, and Karen ran to the side to try and see her uncle. It began to rain, but we heard another helicopter and, looking up, saw that it was a rescue chopper! They descended towards us and lowered the rope ladder…

Game Ending 1, Rank B, with a playtime of 4h 49m, 32 Saves, 17 Game Overs, 19 Falls, and 15.8 miles Distance Traveled. Also, 7.4l of Water Consumed, and 11/35 Compasses Found.

FINAL THOUGHTS

SOS: The Final Escape was so much more fun than I thought it would be, to be completely honest. It’s aged beautifully, except for the camera, but even that can be forgiven because some of the fixed angles keep things feeling cinematic. It’s not fixed all the time, but when you can move it you have to use L2 which just swings the camera behind you, so it’s cumbersome.

I wasn’t expecting things to go from “survive a disaster” to “escape from an attack chopper”, so uncovering the game’s big conspiracy was a nice surprise. Though I wonder how things would have changed if I’d made different choices. I’m so curious about what happens in the other five endings that I didn’t unlock, and since this playthrough with “the Karen ending” took less than five hours I’m severely tempted to give them a try. But then it would delay my move on to Raw Danger!, the second game in the Disaster Report series…

On the whole, I definitely recommend people check out SOS: The Final Escape AKA Disaster Report AKA Zettai Zetsumei Toshi. I was constantly caught off-guard by things crumbling around me, the game is really engaging, especially in that respect. At a moment’s notice you might have to run away from a falling building, or retreat from a collapsing floor. Don’t let the graphics and audio quality put you off of this, because there’s a lot of fun to be had, and it will make you nervous about earth tremors in other videogames going forward.

Join me next time when I start Raw Danger! AKA Zettai Zetsumei Toshi 2: Itetsuita Kiokutachi…