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"Xidia Gold" Walkthrough: Black Widow

The Escape

Map Author: Will "Mister Prophet" Drekker
Weapons: Shock Rifle, Flak Cannon, Eightball Gun.
Creatures: Pupae.
Bosses: Skaarj Queen.
Difficulty:

After taking a trip in the portal found in the icy Skaarj base, Spencer finds himself in some kind of alien lair. The size of the place is unimaginable and weird sounds can be heard. You're just in the Skaarj Queen's home, and it's going to be hard taking down the lady.

The map starts on a platform found in the middle of this bizarre place. As usual, near your starting point, there's a lone Eightball. In this arena there's no one, but a hole in the middle. Stay away from it and be sure to check all the boxes around the place for some cool stuff:

1) At the start, turn left. You'll find an opened crate with a pair of Thigh Pads.
2) Go in the section which surrounds the centre pod. Start on the right side. You'll find an Eightball Gun and four cans of Eightballs.
3) Continue going anti-clockwise. The next pile of crates has a Shock Rifle and three Shock Cores.
4) Again, proceed anti-clockwise. Near the next boxes you'll find a Flak Cannon and two Flak Ammo.

When you have got everything, go near the hole and Spencer will be automatically taken to its bottom in a Source Antechamber style way. You end up in some large, enclosed area.

"Black Widow"

If you ever played Xidia on lower difficulties, here there was always an available pair of AntiGravity Boots. On Unreal difficulty, they're absent, and this changes the upcoming boss battle somewhat.

Now look around you. Hidden in the mist, and aside opened eggs, there are 11 Pupae hidden in various positions. They ignore you, unless you shoot one of them. Now shoot one of them and start a run, going clockwise or anti-clockwise around the arena. Pupae are chasing you, and during the run, you'll encounter the rest in front of you. Just stay away from them and continue to run.
Do various laps around the place and if you don't see anymore Pupae that appear in front of you, turn 180� (face the Pupae that are chasing you) and kill everyone with the Dispersion Pistol (DP). Run backward as always if they come near you.
Once they are all dead, you have to press four buttons. They are found on the pillars that end with a green light. Go near one of those kind of pillars and you should see a button. Press it and do the same for the other three.
In the middle a lightning-like portal has been activated. Go into it.

You're in the Queen's main lair. A cutscene with a weird FOV shows you the place and the position of the alien mother.

Once you regain the control of Spencer, you can check the place out. It's similar to The Source's last arena in the original Unreal: a ledge, attached to the wall, which surrounds the entire place, a pod in the middle of the chamber which has the sleeping Queen and a pit between the ledge and the platform which leads to some angry Pupae. Be sure not to fall in the pit below, and save the game.

What you have to do here is fight the Queen. Sounds easy. Not really.

Boss Battle: Skaarj Queen
Health: 3625
Difficulty: Attacks:
1) Queen Projectiles (16 health per hit): the Queen's most common ranged attack. Eight star-like orbs. Avoided by an intelligent use of strafing. Luck is useful too.
2) Claw Attack (65 health): Queen's weak melee attack. I highly recommend to stay away from the Queen. Dodge backward when she's near you.
3) Stab Attack (500 health): Queen's melee attack made with those two claws near the belly. Just like above, but this one should be absolutely avoided. Look at the damage.
4) Defensive Shield: the Queen does this when you use certain weapons/types of attack. The shield is impenetrable, but unlike the Skaarj Troopers, you can still do full damage on the Queen when you hit any part of her body.
5) Scream: a different sound this time. Does an annoying earthquakes that ruin your accuracy for a few seconds.
6) Teleport: what Queens always do. Teleport insta-kill you if you are in the position where the boss appears, and those are only certain points, no random destination. Be sure to stay always in the middle of a ledge section. She likes a lot teleporting on your right side.
Description:
Skaarj Queen found in the depths of Xidia. Her role is creating new warriors for the Skaarj forces that invaded Xidia. The lady is highly aggressive.

In my opinion, this is Xidia's hardest battle (unless you count fighting Spencer's last boss without using a Chaingun). She's only a Queen, but her speed, the absence of Jumpboots and the small amount of health and armor available (in comparison to the Unreal version) makes this one a real bruiser.
There are two rules that you may want to know before the battle:

a) The ledge going around the place is your personal arena. It's divided in four section (the pillars separate them) and you should always stay near the middle. In Unreal difficulty there are no Jumpboots here. So, falling down in the pit means that you're STUCK forever and you have to load the game.
b) Before beginning the battle, stay always near the pod found on your ledge section.

Ready? Ok. In the pit there are Pupae. They annoy you only if you go down. But you should never jump in that pit. Shooting a Pupae will awake the Queen, but you aren't facing the Queen at the moment. So shoot a DP bolt at the boss and equip the Sniper Rifle immediately. Zoom to the max and aim at the boss.
The Skaarj Queen will awake and the cocoon will be destroyed. Now one of these two things may happen:

1) The Queen will still remain on her platform instead of teleporting near you. When she's over the pod, she shoots or she just screams (the latter is better has you don't need to move at all). If she uses the projectiles, be calm and strafe (intelligent strafe. The Queen shoots her stuff in various directions and you have to move through them). In the meantime, shoot her head (from her eyes to the possible top) with the Sniper Rifle. Do this until she teleports to you. It's also possible that she'll use the Defensive Shield, but you can easily hit her visible head. In this way you can already deal a good amount of damage to the Queen.
2) She'll just teleport directly to you.

Here the battle becomes hard. The Queen likes to run to you at awesome speed and melee you with her awesome strength or just stay in a position and shoot her so-frickin-hard-to-avoid projectiles.
What you must learn first of all, is the positions that the Queen use as destination for her teleports. If you stay on the ledge (obviously you should always do this), she'll teleport on THAT ledge. Or more clearly, ledge section.
Yes, you must take profit of these ledge sections. There are four of them and you must stay near the middle. The Queen likes to teleport near the ends of the sections (near those pillars) and then run at you. There are eight spots, two for every section: one found near the pillar on the left and the second one is obvious, near the pillar on the right.
The Queen tends to teleport a lot near the pillar on the right side (my personal experience). So if there's a side that you should face the 95% of the time is the right one. If you stay near the pillar on the left, she'll use the destination on the left of the ledge section. Which should be 75% of the time always on your right because that spot has been already passed.
The Queen firstly teleports to the opposite ledge and then returns to yours, mostly on your right side. If you don't see her for a few seconds, this means that she's on your left. This happens more rarely though. Try to practice around her mad teleporting.

Now there's another problem: how to defeat her. To avoid her run and then melee: run backward and when she's near you, dodge backward. I should say that you're forced to do it unless you want to avopid losing 65 points of health, not to mention 500 of them. This attack can be hard to avoid when the Queen does the teleport joke (appearing behind you/Left side). Her projectiles are also another, royal annoyance. Dodge isn't good. Intelligent strafe still works. It's up to your skill. The Queen's style of attack is just chosen randomly, but there's also the Defensive Shield, with the help of which you're going to defeat the Queen.

The best weapons for this battle are the Sniper Rifle and the Flak Cannon. Here's a list of when these two toys need to be used during the fight.

Sniper Rifle:
1) Damage her head (headshots are possible, just shoot the middle of her brain) during the part when she's still on top of the platform (the optional intro to the fight that she may use before the real nightmare). THIS IS THE ONLY POINT ABOUT FIGHTING THE BOSS WHEN SHE'S STILL ON THE MIDDLE POD.
2) Force her to use the Defensive Shield. Headshots are optional.
3) Bypass her shield defences by shooting her in the visible head.

Flak Cannon:
1) Your personal weapon for damaging the Queen (Flak Shells when you're far from her). But tricks are better than senseless shooting.
2) The Primary fire can be used when the boss accidentally jumps when she go over the teleport thingy (later on this).
3) Primary fire forces her to use the Shield.
4) Flak Shells to bomb the Queen when she's losing time with the shield.

About the teleport thingy, is found in the first ledge section, when you enter the Queen's lair. Stay on that ledge section and awake the Queen. She'll probably teleport to your right side (immediately or after Point 1). Run backwards while facing at her, staying near the middle. The Queen may accidentally step on that raised pod and her AI will make her do a big jump. Be sure to land on her lots of Flak primary fire until she lands. Bonus damage...

Now the main trick is making her use the defensive shield. When she uses it, she'll remain stood in one position for some seconds and you have all the time to damage her. The best way to activate the shield is by using the Sniper Rifle if the Queen is far from you (damaging her head if possible) or the Flak Cannon's primary fire if she's running like a mad towards you (she also stops in this way).
Now she's using the shield and you have some free seconds to damage her. If the distance between you and her is neither particularly big nor particularly small, then the situation is easier. Flak Shells do more damage than the Sniper Rifle (which is more useful if the distance is big). If you're too near the Queen retreat or if you want to be a hero, side-dodge to see her body for a while and shoot her with a Flak Shell. With the shield trick you can easily damage her and you can also lower her chances of attacking. After deactivating the shield she'll most likely run towards you (melee are easier to avoid). If you are too far away, then you'll have to deal with the projectiles. Remember that she can scream if she has the shield activated (after a while though, as always). If that happens, use Flak Shells plus good accuracy.

Be sure to use a good quantity of ammo for each weapon (I used 26 Sniper Rifle bullets and 20 or more Flak Shells). The rest is up to your skills. Maybe after various deaths and game reloads, you'll get the hang of taking her down. I even managed to beat her without being damaged, so don't be afraid of this seemingly omnipotent Skaarj Queen.

Last note is: WATCH OUT AT HER TELEFRAGS AND NEVER DROP INTO THE PIT!!!!


When the lady is finally dead, save the game. If you want, you can kill all the Pupae in the pit, by shooting them from your ledge obviously. Shoot one, do a lap around the arena to make everyone see you and after a while enjoy the show below your face. DP's secondary fire is fun here, just watch that you don't shoot your feet.

After everyone is dead, plant some Seeds if you need health and go in the green pod. Spencer will scream inside a green vortex and the map will finally end.

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The Genome Warriors
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Beacon
"Xidia Gold" Walkthrough