The Siege

Chapter 25

"Everyone thought the Governor went overboard when he built a manson fit for European royalty. Then again, there's not much for a millionaire to buy out here."

You start off in front of the water fountain in the center of the courtyard. There are a number of enemy soldiers on the ground level, behind the bushes, however your primary target is Oswald Cornet up on the balcony straight ahead.

A health bar is displayed for Oswald on the right of the screen but you'll also have two health bars on the left for Jack and Annie, and it's important you protect those two as if either of them are killed you'll fail the mission.

Switch to your rifle, if you have one, to make things easier and zoom in on the balcony up ahead. Oswald will duck down and pop up to fire off shots at you, so when he does is your perfect opportunity to fill his face full of lead.

It should take 4 or 5 headshots to take him down and you'll probably have to wait for him to disappear and reappear on alternate sides of the balcony a few times.

While you're waiting for him to reappear, you can kill the other enemies around the area for cash, ammo and Deadeye, but in order to progress the level you need to kill Oswald.

Deadeye can help you target him, but when he's standing up and shooting at you, there's a good 2-3 seconds where he's standing still so you can shoot him repeatedly in the head.

Once you eventually take his health bar down, he'll collapse to the floor of the balcony.

Things aren't over though because the second he's down, more enemies will approach at ground level from the left side, including another mini-boss called Randy whose health bar you'll now see stuck to the top right of the screen.

He'll run towards the fountain and stay at the opposite side to you, making it hard to see or shoot him, but you can actually shoot him quite a few times before he even reaches it if you know where he's coming from. After killing Oswald, move to the left side of the fountain and Randy will run behind the large bush towards you. Target him with Deadeye and you can take a chunk of his health away before he can get into position.

Once he's at the fountain you can keep running around and chasing him until you can get a shot off to hit his arm or whatever you can see, or you can stand at the opposite end to Annie and Jack (so you're closest to the mansion) and while he's facing you through the fountain, Jack and Annie can shoot him in the back.

Again, you don't need to take out any of the other soldiers, moving onto the next part of the level is fully dependent on taking Randy down. You only need 2 kills to move onto the next part of the level, Oswald on the balcony and Randy at the fountain. That said, you need to protect Annie and Jack so the more enemies you take down the better, plus you'll probably be able to pick up ammo and potentially new weapons like the Zwei Fasser shotgun which is very useful for the close quarters combat you'll experience soon.

Jack and Annie are actually useful here and can deal the final blow to take Randy down if you don't get there first.

Make your way past the hedges to your right by following the main path away from the fountain and you'll spot an enemy hiding behind a bush just to the right of the next garden area. Take him down, then move to his position and another enemy is further back at the right side near the back wall.

Once they're both dead, head immediately towards the lower door of the mansion nearby where two enemies will appear from inside and take cover against the pillars at the front of the building.

When you've taken care of those, two more enemies will approach from around the fountain area, essentially coming up behind the three of you, so quickly move down to the other end of the building, towards the fountain, to take them down before they cause any damage to Jack or Annie.

Three final enemies will then attack, coming from the right of the door so prepare to engage them.

Once they're dealt with, Annie will try to get inside the lower door, but unfortunately it's locked.

She suggests you try upstairs, so while she's doing this, you should already be on your way up to the higher floor via the stairs in the far right corner.

Annie and Jack will head upstairs too, and as soon as they do, three enemies will appear on the balcony with you. One comes out of the door and two others will appear further down from around the corner. Take them down as quickly as you can to save Annie and Jack's health.

As soon as they're dead, immediately look up. There are two more enemies on the roof above, one at the left and one at the right, and they can deal a lot of damage quickly so run around and kill them as quickly as possible.

This part of the level is notoriously difficult and is probably the hardest part of the whole game. Luckily, the cutscene you just watched also operates as a checkpoint, so if you die or fail the mission at any point from now, you'll be able to continue from here. What's more, Annie and Jack's health will be fully restored if you do continue making it slightly easier the second time. That said, this doesn't really help if you're playing Bounty Hunter mode as you'll have to restart the whole level if Jack's health drops below 50% or Annie is killed.

I tried numerous techniques to get through this level including staying on the balcony with Annie, or running around the gardens to fight enemies, but the best technique seems to be heading downstairs with Jack and standing right in front of him, between the pillars. If you stay there, many of the enemies will target you rather than Jack, but you have some cover from the sides due to the pillars. In order to protect Jack's health you need to become a human shield.

As soon as Jack reaches the door and starts trying to pick the lock, a 3 minute countdown timer will appear on the screen. You need to keep him and Annie alive for the duration. Technically you don't need to kill anyone as long as you can keep them alive, but as you'll soon discover, you're in for a huge fight, so it'll practically be impossible to get through these 3 minutes of hell without blasting away on everything that moves.

As you stand at the top of the steps, between the pillars, you'll have to take out numerous enemies who will enter the area. Annie will generally take care of anyone who heads up to her balcony to the left, but enemies will stand on the level below her, and also at the lower and higher level on the right.

More importantly, enemies will constantly run towards the fountain and then approach you directly. You'll also encounter a number of mini-bosses during the three minute countdown so the sooner you can clear them out, the better.

The first mini boss is Bryan who will usually enter the battle with 2:40 remaining on the clock. All of the mini-bosses essentially do the same thing. They'll dodge-roll all over the place making them harder to hit and usually end up to the left or right of the main doorway where Jack is lockpicking.

The mini-bosses have a lot more health than regular soldiers so you'll need to pull off quite a few headshots to take them down, however given their erratic movements and dodge-rolling, any shots you can hit them with will help. Use Deadeye when you have some, but don't waste it by firing shots while they're rolling or they won't hit.

While the mini-bosses are attacking, don't forget to clear out some of the other enemies, particularly on the upper balcony to the right. The guy who will respawn up there has a good view of Jack so you want to take him out whenever he reappears.

Once you've killed Bryan, a few more regular soldiers will appear before another mini-boss arrives - Brendon, usually at around 2:15 remaining. As already discussed, all of the mini-bosses are exactly the same, they're just annoying as they take a lot more damage to kill and you'll waste a lot more ammo and time trying to hit them as they dive around all over the place.

A short time after Brendon is killed, you'll encounter two mini-bosses at the same time - Jay and Terry, and they usually arrive with around 1:45 remaining. Run around and collect ammo if you need it, but don't leave Jack for long or he'll take major damage. If you acquired a Zwei Fasser shotgun, they deal huge damage from close range and are great for combining with Deadeye to quickly take down the mini-boss health.

With around 1:00 remaining, two more mini-bosses will arrive - Jerome and Kirk. It's usually around this time that Annie may come down to join you by the door, which is quite annoying as she doesn't have as much cover as before and will therefore take a lot more damage. You'll probably need to adjust your position to ensure you're keeping her covered as well as Jack because if she is killed now, you'll still fail the mission.

It's possible to kill all of the mini-bosses, and if you do, no more will arrive, but it'll pretty much take you until the full 3 minutes are up before you're able to take down all 6 of them.

It doesn't matter if enemies or mini-bosses are still alive when the timer ends, all you need to do is keep Jack and Annie alive. If you managed to get through it, a cutscene will kick in!

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