1-12: Up in the Air

District Location (Old Factory, Little Tokyo, Harbor, or Downtown)

Walter might be ready for another escape attempt. Meet up with him at the overpass from “A Way Out,” on the broken highway just west of Sasquatch and Friends. The glider is almost ready to go, but Scabs have made off with a crucial part, the glide wheel. They’ve taken it northeast, but still within Old Factory District. After catching up with Walter, retrieving the glide wheel is your first task.

The group of thieving Scabs who made off with Walter’s glide wheel can be found along the waterfront on a stage to the northeast, before north bridge. It’s a minor group of only a half-dozen Scabs, so it should be no problem by now. Swoop onto the stage and grab the glide wheel then head back to Walter on the overpass.

That group of Scabs might have been diversionary, since you return to find Walter under assault by a much larger Scab force. Help Walter defend the glider by wiping them out, then meet him at the base of his contraption again.

Scabs weren’t the only thing incoming. A squad of Fizzco Rifle Bots (or “Fizzbots”) drops in, laying waste to Scab stragglers and attacking you and Walter. This will be a tough fight; you don’t really have a good anti-Fizzbot weapon yet. At least they’re susceptible to electricity, so a weapon equipped with the Stun Rounds Amp will be very helpful. Weapons with high raw damage and knockback power are very helpful too—Dirty Harry and Captain Ahab fit the bill. Naturally, Freeze Bomb can be effective for crowd control. Otherwise, your most devastating anti-Fizzbot weapon at this point is a Style level-2 Dive Bomb when equipped with Seismic Smash. If you keep a Combo going, with high Style, you can grind around and then super bounce above each bot to Dive Bomb them, then just jump and start grinding again. You’ll get electric-based weapons soon enough to make Fizzco encounters less painful in the future.

With the glider repaired, its parts retrieved, and the assaulting Scabs and Fizzbots thwarted, it’s time to take to the skies. Your hero and Walter board the glider and launch. Your initial path, suggested by Walter, leads northwest to a smokestack by the brewery, where Walter hopes the huge updraft will give you enough loft to clear the wall and escape the city.

But when you arrive near the brewery, you find trouble: a Fizzco patrol craft is hovering just behind the brewery as part of Fizzco’s lockdown operation. Updrafts or no updrafts, you won’t survive making it over the wall with Fizzco craft in pursuit. Tail the Fizzco blimp while avoiding the floating mines it deploys. Your missile shots won’t hurt the blimp while it’s shielded, but they will clear mines in your path, and there’s also nothing stopping you from strafing Fizzco Bots and Turrets on the rooftops below. You can still collect health, Cash, and Overcharge, and even Fizzie Balloons while piloting the glider. Flying near health icons to pick them up may be vital if you run into floating mines; you can only sustain a collision or two before the glider crashes. Steer wide of mines, fire missiles liberally even when you don’t have an immediate target, and be ready to barrel roll left or right away from a mine you don’t see until the last moment.

With Fizzco’s air patrol destroyed, you can again find a place to loft above the perimeter wall. From this trajectory, Walter suggests the power plant in the southwest. Fly that way while keeping up power through minor updrafts while homing in on the big one.

Rewards

Completing “Up in the Air” ends Act 1 while unlocking the Quest “Big Brother Sam” and Weapon Challenge: The Dude.

Completing “Up in the Air” ends Act 1 while unlocking the Quest “Big Brother Sam” and Weapon Challenge: The Dude.