Freeway Fighter - Attempt 4

So far every single try that I've had at Freeway Fighter has ended the same way: with my Dodge Interceptor running out of petrol, and me left to find my way back to New Hope on foot.  It's not the most exciting way to end an adventure, but it's good to know exactly what my goal is at all times.  It just means that at the end of every game I'm going to be annoyed that the people of San Anglo aren't the ones making the journey.  You know, the people with a whole tanker full of petrol, not the people with enough to fill a car and one spare canister.

Anyway, for this game my dice were on fire.  I rolled a Skill of 12, a Stamina of 35, a Luck of 12, a Firepower of 8 and an Armour score of 28.  Well, they were on fire for my physical stats anyway. Those car stats could be a problem.

I began my journey by ignoring the first few encounters, and blowing the Red Chevvy off the road with a rocket.  At the first junction I turned west, because I knew from previous games I could find petrol that way.  Plus my Skill was super-high, so I was in no danger from jumping the bridge.  Continuing west, I drove right past a motorcyclist who tried to flag me down.  It's a pointless combat encounter, and I was hoping that the throwing-knife it provides wasn't vital to my mission.  Soon I came to a car pile-up, where I found a crowbar and a can of petrol before continuing south.

I came to a junction and turned east (trying to cover as many paths as possible that I hadn't been down in earlier games).  I drove a long way east, ignoring two roads from the north, before eventually turning south, where I had to refill my petrol tank.  I spent the night sleeping in my car before moving on.  (Don't ask me how sleeping in a car restores Stamina.  I've done it more than a few times, and restful it ain't.)

As I was driving, I spotted an armoured car coming up behind me in my rear-view mirror.  It fired a shell at me which exploded to my left.  I responded by spraying an oil slick onto the road, and laughed as the armoured car went skidding off the road.  (This required a roll on one die, with only a roll of 6 resulting in the car staying on the road.)

Nice dutch angle. Must be a Batman villain
in that armoured car.

At the next junction I turned west, and drove a long way before finding a road heading south again.  Soon I spotted a rough road to my right, with lots of fresh tyre tracks.  I decided to investigate, and what I found was a barbed wire gate guarded by a bare-chested man with a machine-gun.  He asked me what gang I was from, and I quickly replied "Black Rats".  He informed me that there was a blitz race going on, with some heavy bets being laid.  I played along, and drove my car through the gate to check it out.

The post-apocalypse has been kind to
Chuck Norris.

As I pulled up, a small man with a scarred face challenged me to a race.  I'd have to stake 200 credits, but the prize was a can of petrol.  I couldn't pass that up, so I accepted the challenge, and handed over all of my money.  He explained the rules of the race: we had to drive 8 km to a white house and back, and anything was legal except for bullets and rockets.  I noted with chagrin that his Ford was armed with a grenade launcher.

The race started, and I pulled ahead (with a successful Skill check).  The Ford, with its supercharged engine, accelerated to ram me, but I was able to keep my car under control (with a Luck test that reduced my score to 11).  I decided to race away rather than let him overtake me, but the other driver anticipated, and fired a grenade in front of my car.  I hit the gas, hoping I could drive past before it exploded.  Again I was lucky (reducing my Luck score to 10), and the grenade failed to explode.  I was fifty metres ahead of the Ford.

It was time for me to use my own weapons, but I decided against the oil spray, as I was pretty sure it would soak harmlessly into the dirt road.  Instead I released some iron spikes, but the canister they were contained in failed to open (because I failed a Luck test, reducing my score to 9).  The Ford fired another grenade at me, and this time it exploded underneath me, heavily damaging the Interceptor (reducing my Armour from 28 to 21).

I reached the white house and turned around, and the Ford did likewise.  It caught up to me, and we engaged in a ramming duel (it was Skill 8, Stamina 16, and I had to survive four rounds of ramming).  The Ford was no match for my Interceptor, and I managed to get through its ramming onslaught with just a little damage (reducing my Armour to 19).

With one kilometre to go, the road narrowed to a single lane over a bridge.  I accelerated to cross first, and the Ford stayed with me: we were in a game of chicken.  At the last second his nerve broke, and I crossed the bridge first.  (This was done by rolling a die, and adding to each of our Skill scores.  With my Skill of 12 and his of 8, it was not much of a contest.)

As we neared the finish line, the Ford's super-charged acceleration became obvious, and I knew that it would pull out of my slipstream and overtake me at the last second.  I took a guess and swerved left.  Luck was with me, and I blocked his pass.  I had won the race, and was grudgingly gifted with a can of petrol.  (And my Luck was restored to 10.)

(This is the best encounter in the book so far, but it kind of sucks that after everything it all comes down to a left-or-right guessing game.  Also, do I get my credits back?  If it was placed as a wager I should, but the book makes no mention of it.  I'll assume I don't have them anymore.)

After the race, the man from the gate approached me, and asked me to remind him what gang I was from.  I remembered that I had earlier told him "Black Rats", and he accepted my answer and left.  I took my petrol and headed back down the road, turning south again.

Further down the road, I passed a sign that said "Pete Makes Engines Sweet."  Soon I came to a place called Spark Plug Pete's, where Pete offered to modify my engine for 150 credits and a couple of packs from my med-kit.  I no longer had the credits he wanted, so I had to reluctantly decline.

Pete makes engines sweet!

Coming to a junction, I turned east, and drove a long way before turning south again.  Once again I had to refill my fuel-hungry car with petrol before continuing on.

After an hour of driving, I noticed two trails of dust on either side of the road.  They were two dune buggies, headed right for me and obviously hostile.  I blew one up with a rocket, and engaged the other in battle with my machine guns.  The Dune Buggy (Firepower 7, Armour 10) was no match for my Interceptor, and I shot it to pieces without taking any fire in return.  (This would have been a battle with two cars at once, and I didn't believe my Firepower was high enough to get through that without a lot of damage, so I took out the first buggy as quickly as possible.)

It's hard to feel all that threatened by a
dune buggy.

The road soon ended at a range of flat-topped hills, and I was faced with the choice of turning east or west.  I decided to head east, but I didn't get far finding that the road was blocked.  Someone had piled up a barricade of logs across the road, and there was an ominous gun barrel protruding from the pile.  I tried to negotiate with the person behind the barricade, but he told me that this was a car-free zone, and that I should go back.  I didn't like the look of his gun, so I heeded his advice and drove west.

I'm not taking this thing on.

After a while driving through the desert my engine started to misfire.  Checking it out, I discovered that there was sand in the carburettor. Just as I was finishing the job, I heard an engine overhead, and looked up to see an armed helicopter hovering above. The pilot told me to empty all of the rockets from my car.  I told him to go screw, and jumped back inside my car, which was still immobile.  Since he wanted my rockets so badly, I let him have one right in the face, and watched in satisfaction as the helicopter exploded in a ball of fire.  (My Firepower would have been reduced by 2 for this fight, because my car couldn't move.  I thought it better to use a rocket rather than risk such a disadvantage.)

I'm still wondering how this thing
snuck up on me.

I continued west until reaching a junction and turning south.  I passed an abandoned police car, and decided to stop and investigate.  The boot was locked, but I was able to pry it open with my crowbar.  Inside I found a bullet-proof vest, and happily took it with me. (This restored my Luck to 11, and gave me a +1 Skill bonus. I go back on forth on applying Skill bonuses from items that would take me over my Initial total.  In this instance, I decided not to apply it.)

As I drove on, I was confronted by an odd sight: a pick-up truck converted to look like a Roman chariot, complete with a helmed gladiator in the back.  I engaged the Chariot (Firepower 9, Armour 15) in battle, but after it hit me once (reducing my Armour to 13) I decided to end thing quickly with a rocket.  I had none left now, and would be forced in the future to rely on my machine guns.

I wish I could play as this guy.

I soon drove past a sign that said "engine and body repairs", pointing down a road to the east.  I turned that way, but was disheartened when the mechanic asked for 200 credits to fix my car.  I had no choice but to continue east.

Ahead I saw a range of hills, and the road soon passed under them through a tunnel.  Blocking the tunnel was an abandoned bus.  I got out to see if I could start the bus and move it, but a masked man jumped out of the bus and held me at gunpoint.  He said that I would either have to pay him 200 credits to pass, or engage him in a pistol duel.  I had no money, so the duel was my only way forward.

This guy is way too happy for someone who's
about to be shot at.

The man pulled out a mahogany box with two pistols inside, and we stood back to back.  We each took ten paces, turned, and fired.  The Duellist (Skill 9, Stamina 9) missed his shot, and I hit him dead center (I rolled a 6 for my damage).  He survived the wound, and graciously moved his bus out of the way.

I drove through a canyon, and the road turned gradually south.  There was a landslide, but I was able to stop my car and wait for it to finish before proceeding.  (This landslide is just described in the text, and doesn't appear to be any sort of danger. I'm not sure what the point of it is.)  I soon drove out of the canyon, only to find that the road was blocked by two cars.  Two men in uniforms approached and told me that I'd only be able to pass if I took on their champion in a drag race.  The champion was a former baseball player named Leonardi, who pulled up in an E-type Jaguar.  I'm not sure why I couldn't just drive around these chumps and keep going, but for some reason I found myself racing against Leonardi.  Without no supercharger on my engine, the Interceptor was too slow, and I lost the drag race.

Piss off Leonardi.

(This wasn't an automatic loss, I had to race Leonardi by rolling a die for each of us in turn, and adding the results until one of us got to 24.  He got the first roll, and so had an advantage.  I started well by rolling a 4 and two 6's, but after a slow start he rolled a 4, a 5, a 6, and a 5, and blitzed past me.)

I decided to honour the result of the race rather than drive past everyone, so I headed back through the canyon.  Luckily the duellist didn't accost me again this time, and I was able to drive all the way back to the main road and turn south.  The road soon ended, apparently having not been finished before the virus wiped out civilisation (a fact which reduced my Luck to 10).  There was nothing to the south but sand, so I drove east across some rocky terrain.  Along the way one of my tyres was punctured, but I was able to change it with a spare.

Eventually I reached a north-south road (presumably the same one that Leonardi and his fellow chuckleheads were blocking).  I turned south, and came to an overturned truck.  I decided to stop and examine the truck, and was delighted to find that its tank was full of petrol.  Unfortunately, the tank was made from reinforced steel, and I would need a length of tube to siphon it out.  I didn't have one, so I had no choice but to leave, with the feeling that my mission was now doomed.  Sure enough, a bit further down the road my car ran out of petrol, and I had to get out and try my best to walk back to New Hope.  (At this point, wouldn't I be closer to San Anglo?  Why don't I try going there to complete the mission? I'd appreciate the option, even if it was an instant failure.)

THE POST-GAME

Predictably, I once again failed due to lack of petrol.  I know where to find that length of tube though, so I should be good for my next attempt.  I suspect that this might be the last petrol can I need, but I'm not certain about that.  Still, I'm confident that I can get past that petrol barrier next time around.