Krazy Ivan FAQ 1.1 by Wendell Martin Created 5/25/96 Revised 7/11/96 NEW/REVISED ITEM: Added "CHEATS" section. INTRODUCTION Krazy Ivan is a Psygnosis game for the Sony PlayStation. It has a look somewhat similar to giant robot/mech games, and resembles them in a few ways, but is more of a 3D shooter. Actually, it plays rather like an improved (*much* improved ) version of Cyber Sled. Viewed from this perspective, Krazy Ivan succeeds well. You are Ivan Popovich, commander of a Steel Cossack powersuit, who is fighting to free Earth from alien domination. Your psychotic hatred for aliens makes you perfect for the job. "Ivan" is pronounced "ee-VAHN" in most of the game (since that's the correct Russian pronunciation), but the American in a cut scene does pronounce it "EYE-van." BTW, the Russian word appearing sideways on many pages of the manual and on the CD is OPASNO (in Latin letters) and means "dangerous." The game has well-done FMV introduction and cut scenes (especially if you like heavy Russian accents ), and the in-game graphics are beautiful. The controls can be reconfigured into one of several useful presets, so they're pretty easy to get used to, regardless of how you prefer them. One odd aspect is that side-stepping/strafing is not continuous; you must repeatedly press the button to repeatedly side-step (unless your controller has a turbo option). There are five zones in the game, each with several "sentients" (bosses) and several types of drones (20 sentients and 10 drone types total). You are free to engage the sentients in any order, but it's probably wisest to take out the toughest one first, while you're at full capacity. Once you engage a sentient, you must defeat it before going on. Destroying sentients and drones releases prisoners, which you can pick up for points, and various pickups which are usually, but not always, helpful to pick up. You can destroy drones in order to gather prisoners and pickups, but if you take too long between engaging sentients, Black Knight will appear, and you must defeat him before going on. Once you've defeated all sentients on a level, you must destroy the zonal shield generator to complete the zone and get to the upgrade section. After each upgrade, you may save your game to a memory card before continuing. You also need to save your configuration if you want to keep your high scores and audio and control settings, but don't save your configuration onto a saved game or you'll lose your progress in that game. The game has three difficulty levels, and it's simple to beat it on Easy. It's correspondingly more difficult at Medium and Hard, but is a fairly quick game at any level (each zone takes about 10-20 minutes to play, depending on how much time you spend on the drones). CHEATS This is one of the easier games available for PlayStation, and seems to have no cheat codes (if I learn of any, I'll post them). If you're having trouble winning, try the Easy setting (it's *really* easy). If Easy gives you trouble, try circling your enemies (side-stepping while turning to bring your guns to bear). Fire quickly and repeatedly, and use your heaviest (missile/special) weapon against the toughest enemy on the level. PICKUPS Guns Rearm (vertical bullet) - rearms all guns Missiles Rearm (angled missile) - rearms your missiles Special Rearm (five small yellow balls) - rearms your special weapon Energia Mode (yellow lightning bolt) - brief invincibility plus speed boost Zombie Mode (skull) - brief invincibility plus speed reduction Schizo Mode (light/dark circle) - brief invincibility plus reversed controls Air Strike (large yellow ball) - Arrow drones appear and attack you Energy Core (red sphere) - repairs your shields and provides a variable number of energy cores which are used to "buy" post-mission upgrades. ZONE INFORMATION (sentient strengths are the initial levels on your HUD) Available in any zone Arrow - flying dark green drone, summoned by Air Strike pickup Black Knight - black powersuit sentient - strength 7 Zone: Russia - 50% difficulty - 154 prisoners Trilobite - tracked black land drone that lays mines Bane - flying green drone with four jet engine pods Manta - flying red drone with flapping wings Transona - flying green drone with three jet engine pods Dedlok - gray and brown, ape-like sentient - strength 5.5 Dwarf - gray and red bipedal walker with huge launchers - strength 5.5 Raptor - green bipedal walker sentient, toughest in zone - strength 5.5 Zone: Saudi Arabia/Middle East - 70% difficulty - 187 prisoners Manta, Trilobite Hovertank - green land drone with turret on top Demonseed - floating brown drone with two engine pods Prowl - orange tiger sentient, toughest in zone - strength 5 Qualm - light blue humanoid sentient - strength 5 Sentinel - floating brown squid sentient - strength 6.5 Zone: France/Europe - 80% difficulty - 416 prisoners Bane, Hovertank, Trilobite Contrail - flying dark blue/gray and red drone with hang-down turret Wasp - flying brown wasp-like drone Arachan - tall, white, four-legged spider sentient - strength 8 Behemoth - gray and red "Empire Strikes Back AT-AT" walker - strength 8 Buzzsaw - flying green and yellow insectoid sentient - strength 5 Carapace - flying brown insectoid sentient with jet engines - strength 6.5 Scorch - dark green snake sentient - strength 6 Zone: North America/USA - 90% difficulty - 362 prisoners Arrow, Bane, Contrail, Demonseed, Transona, Trilobite, Wasp Reaper - red and white land drone with helicopter blades Roach - brown roach-like land drone that lays mines Fireball - purple and yellow bipedal walker sentient - strength 7 Granite - green, domed, quadrupedal sentient - strength 7.5 Reflex - flying red "Empire Strikes Back probe droid" sentient - strength 5 Thunderfoot - red and gray humanoid sentient - strength 8 Zone: Japan - 100% difficulty - 408 prisoners (Runnning into the shield generator as is explodes will take you to the "real" last zone, facing Black Knight.) Arrow, Contrail, Demonseed, Reaper, Roach, Transona, Wasp Arclight - gray and yellow tripedal sentient - strength 9 Claw - yellow and red crab-like sentient - strength 8 Colossus - tan bipedal walker sentient - strength 9 Flamefront - light blue humanoid sentient - strength 9 POWERSUIT SYSTEMS (Energy core "prices" are for Easy/Medium/Hard) Armor - 1/2/2 energy core per 10% (up to 100%) Guns (up to five) 2 x 30mm Rotary Cannon - infinite ammo - initial equipment 2 x 50mm Rotary Cannon - 300 rounds each - initial equipment 2 x Laser Cannon - 250 rounds each - 10/12/14 energy cores 2 x Plasma Cannon - 60 rounds each - 14/16/18 energy cores 2 x Z Beam Cannon - 70 rounds each - 20/24/30 energy cores Missile Weapons (one at a time) 2 x Wolf Rocket Launcher - 10 rockets each - initial equipment Hyena Missile Launcher - 10 missiles - 10/12/14 energy cores 2 x Hyena Missile Launcher - 10 missiles each - 5/7/9 energy cores Cerberus Missile Launcher - 10 missiles - 12/14/6 energy cores 2 x Cerberus Missile Launcher - 10 missiles each - 6/8/10 energy cores 4 x Cerberus Missile Launcher - 10 missiles each - 10/12/14 energy cores Special Weapons (one at a time) Scythe Beam - 5 charges - initial equipment Vortex Bomb - 3 charges - 10/12/14 energy cores ULF Pulse - 1 charge - 12/14/16 energy cores EM Pulse - 1 charge - 15/17/19 energy cores Kraken - 1 charge - 18/20/22 energy cores Medusa - 1? charge - 23/25/27? energy cores If you have corrections or additions to this FAQ, please e-mail me and I'll implement them with credit. The latest version of this FAQ can be found via my home page. wendell@bham.net http://www.bham.net/users/wendell