14: Stairway to Heaven Part II

Chapter 14: Stairway to Heaven Part II
  

Vito to the Rescue

We need to have $27,500 for our half of what we need to pay Bruno -- presumably Joe is getting together his half.  Right now we have a little over $25,000 so getting the rest should be cake!  Let's do that now by heading over to the Junk Yard and chopping a few cars, shall we?  It kinda sucks that Derek is dead since we cannot sell him cars anymore, as that would have been a bit faster...

WARNING:  The game description for this mission suggests that you rob stores to get the money -- DO NOT do that.  If you get a Wanted Level from robbing stores it bugs the mission, and you cannot complete it.  Instead sell cars to the Chop Shop as that is proven bug-free!

Do yourself a favor, when you are earning the money for this make sure you get $29K or so, because you need to hit Harry's and restock on ammunition, and you may still need money for Body Shop and Clothes Store stops as well.  Being broke in this game sucks, so don't be broke!

When you have the money drive to Joe's place (the destination marker), and run inside to see if he is there -- but he is not!  You get a CS of you ringing the bell, but no Joe.  You come back in a few hours after grabbing a bite, and still no Joe!  Clearly something is wrong -- so we go to look for him at the bar, but nope, no Joe there either!  You do get an ominous CS with Eddie that clearly indicates that you are still in deep shit whether you pay Bruno back or not...  I just cannot see how this is going to work out well.

Our next stop is Giuseppe,  who is usually a good source for information, and you learn that Joe was there today.  According to Giuseppe he was there looking for a job when Vinci's goons grabbed him!  Clearly Joe is in trouble, and he needs us to rescue him!  While you are there stock up on .45 ammo, and Molotov's -- you never know when you will need them!

-- Rescue Joe --

Drive to the restaurant for a CS of Vinci's boys pointing their guns at you.  You are able to learn what happened to Joe, but sadly not in a healthy way...  When you come to you are hung from a beam at a construction site.  Vinci is here, and he is not happy.  Despite not really having any proof that you are involved, he has a pretty good idea that you are involved somehow.  You deny all, and Vinci's boys tune up on you.  Eventually they leave you alone again and you get loose!

Before you get too far into the whole escape thing, head along the floor past the stairs, taking out the gangsters there, and then cross the wooden walkway and bang a right, and grab the magazine there (Playboy 44 of 50).  Continue back along the path, taking care not to get shot, and you will go down a flight of stairs, move to the far side of the building, and go down a long set of stairs.  There is a guy beyond the flames to the right so make sure that you kill him quickly, then look on the nearby pallet for a magazine (Playboy 45 of 50) and grab that before you follow Joe over scaffolding here.

There are a bunch of guys on the other side so take cover and pick them off, then continue along the path. You probably died a lot, and you also likely noticed that the people who created this game got chicken-shit here with their code, giving the enemy an advantage of being able to shoot through the walls at you, where you cannot do the same to them.  Yeah, it sucks, but clearly the programmers wanted this to take longer -- which means force you to replay the stairs section over and over -- because programmers do not know the difference between the words "tedious" and "challenge" and so constantly confuse the two!  It is lazy, it is insulting, but it is also what you have to deal with here.

After you deal with the half-dozen guys laying in wait for you move past the burning doorway to the stud wall and grab the magazine (Playboy 46 of 50) that is laying here -- nice puppy!  Right, now continue along the path and pick up weapons and ammunition from the guys you just killed -- there should be a Grease Gun, both types of Thompson, a Shotgun, and a Garand as well as a Magnum Pistol for you to grab.  Ahead on a stack of bricks are some grenades, do not forget to grab those!

Take the stairs down to the next level and you will get danger music to warn you that it is time again to fight it out!  Take cover and begin picking off the bad guys as they expose themselves -- do not worry too much as there was a checkpoint save when the music started to play.  Mind the stars at the end of this section as several of the bad guys will come up it and if you are paying attention to the guys on the other side of the building they will easily flank you and kill you!

Once you get out of the building you need to take Joe to the Doctor, so get a car and do that.  When you reach the Doc's open the gate for a CS in which Joe gives you his half of the money for Bruno -- and then you learn that Balls is in the Doc's as well, crippled for reasons you do not know.  Now that this is taken care of, head for the meeting with Bruno and pay him the money to get him off your back!

Bruno shares the gossip with you, and then you learn that it was Bruno who lent your father the $2k.  Small world that.  After the CS ends so does the Chapter.  Don't panic if the Achievement does not unlock when the Chapter ends -- it will unlock when the cut scene for Chapter 15 finishes and you wake up in your bed!