I'm on to mission 4 of Alien Shooter 2 Reloaded and I'm wondering what to do when I go into the water. If I take things VERY slowly, I can fight my way into the second room, but something runs out (I guess it was the drone) and I drop dead. Even then, it takes an age and is boring, and I don't think a game would have been written that way.

I watched a video walkthrough where the player happily progressed, but I think he must have been using a more girly difficult level. Can someone please tell me how to go about this? My weapons are a Fly-2 rocket launcher and a Vikhr SR-4 sub-machine gun. The Beretta L5 does more damage, but I wonder if the lower rate of fire would leave me worse off and I wouldn't be able to afford a rocket launcher.

No, that level is pretty boring, with a few triggered rushes mixed in.

I use chokepoints - in the water, the level is divided into large rooms connected by short and narrow hallways. Lure some through the chokepoint and pick them off. Takes a while and is boring.

One alternative is to get your grenade launcher and just start lobbing kabooms all over the place. Really, there isn't much use for the rocket launcher on this level and a good grenade launcher oughta be quite a bit cheaper.

Thanks for the tip to not bother with a rocket launcher. What advice do you have about other weapons? One pistol, the Beretta, has fearsome power, but I wonder if the rate of fire is less than a sub-machine gun.

Is the strategy to kill absolutely everything rather than try to make a run for it at some point?

My strategy was to kill everything (but that was because I wanted to get 100% completion). Also, trying to rush to the next objective usually got me killed. :) Since there's no time limit, just take your time when dealing with enemies. Backtrack as needed, lure them into chokepoints, circle around them, put barriers between you and them, and so on. As for which weapons to use, they are balanced enough that it's mostly a matter of personal preference, but you could have something in each category to switch to, like shotguns for close range and machine guns for medium range, weapons with splash damage for groups, and so on.

I think a strategy of kill 'em all is the way to go, boring as it is. I've seen three rooms chock full of baddies, so it'll take an age. How do you place barriers?

I don't have enough money for a weapon of each category. The plan currently is to mostly stick with grenades.

By barriers, I mean you should maneuver your character behind any walls, pillars, fences, etc. to force enemies to go around them, so that you can create chokepoints that way. You don't have to kill every enemy, but at least all the ones that get in the way of accomplishing your objective. Even on the easiest setting, as much as I would like it, your character can't be death incarnate and take out so many enemies easily until later missions when you've leveled up your character enough and when you are able to purchase (or find) much better weapons and armor.

Shotgun Slibert DM5 then DM50 are the great weapons(they'll devestate a lot of things in a couple shots). the flame thrower is pretty effective in the water area too. Give those a try. (Shotgun Slibert DM50 is an upgraded version of the DM5). As the other guy said, you may safely ignore all rocket launchers in the game except for the final one, which is REALLY good. Don't bother with the grenade launcher, which is never useful at any time in any level of the game except maybe level 1.

The grenade launchers aren't the best weapon but they're fun, especially the later versions with high RoF. Would be nice if you could bounce them around corners, which would seem to be a natural porperty for that weapon.

I had been using a grenade launcher for everything except one kind of monster, when I switched to the submachine gun. I'm now trying shotgun Slibert. I don't see a flame thrower. I note that nobody recommended buying boosters.

I can now get up to the third water-filled room. God, this mission is boring.

I rather enjoyed that level, but mostly because it is mindless blasting. The flame thrower should be in with the energy weapons. You can save your money and not buy implants for now. They aren't too important yet but will be soon.

Shotgun Slibert is a good choice since it rips through a lot of the bigger enemies pretty quick. That includes the quick hopping guys that rush at you. Machine guns are surprisingly weak vs most things.

The water guys can shoot at you but they have a relatively short range, blasting them while backing up worked fine when I played through that mission each time.

Putting skill points in accuracy makes you do more damage, it's really the most valuable skill. Health and Strength are important too. Speed, only just.

I like to put points in Speed. Works well for my "run away like a little girl" strategy.

But seriously, Speed was a more useful upgrade in the first game since those aliens were generally faster. I'll agree that Accuracy is the better upgrade for this game.

Speed is handy for faster map exploration, but overall, not very important in this game. You are right about faster in AS1. It's somewhat helpful in Zombie Shooter 2(a drastically inferior game to this one), as you have to run away from the pink ball shooting zombie and rocket shooting zombie(and that's it) a lot.

Intelligence can be useful in AS2, but not enough to worry about. It just gives a little bonus to implants. You need a fair amount of points in intelligence to get much bonus from them so it nearly negates the value. In ZS2, Intelligence has some value in that it increases experience gained so you actually go up levels faster.