abbath81: Resident Evil – Back to R. P. D.
Notes:
You are free to save at any time. Ammo, on the other hand, while technically sufficient, is limited for all weapons. Use your Hand Gun (replaces the pistols) on spiders and for shattering some items; it’s useless for anything else. Other items require grenades to shatter.
Try not to waste grenades on single zombies; they’re easy to avoid. If there’s more of them, it’s usually possible to round them up and take all of them out with a single grenade.
A few items can be picked up from shelves as regular pickups, but no shelf is searchable, and no cupboard can be opened, so don’t waste your time standing in front of them and pressing CTRL.
Possible bug note: One player reported that if any of the fuseboxes gets destroyed during an explosion, a crucial door may not open, and you’re stuck. I have not been able to confirm this, but if you want to play it safe, take care to destroy each of the fuseboxes with your Hand Gun.
You start in the sumptuous premises of the RPD, with a green keyhole next to a door on your right. Opening this door is your ultimate objective in Level 1.
Go down the stairs and shoot the fusebox (1/4) mounted on the right-hand wall. Nothing seems to happen, but your reason for doing so will become clear later. The only other thing to do here is pick up a box with 15 H(and) Gun bullets next to a potted plant on the floor at the far side of the hall. Despite a teasing ladder that doesn’t reach all the way to the floor, the upper story can’t be accessed.
Open the double doors and ignore the pedestal in the middle of the next room (it serves no gameplay purposes), but do take the Grenade Launcher from a case on the floor in a corner, as you won’t be able to finish the level without it. You get a box of shotgun shells and a can of First-Aid Spray (big medipack) to go with it.
Continue past the room divider, kick the kickdoor, and enter blood-splattered hallway with a stack of cardboard boxes that won’t shatter. Proceed straight ahead and before you follow the right turn, use your Hand Gun to destroy another fusebox (2/4) mounted on the wall. As you approach a nearby corpse, or half of one, a message pops up that’s not relevant for gameplay; to make these messages go away, press ESC. Take note of the closed door immediately past the corpse for later.
Further on are two more stacks of cardboard boxes that won’t shatter, but the two small crates will (use the Hand Gun), and one of them contains Hand Gun bullets. Past the two crates is a different kind of technical thingy mounted on the wall; it glows red and looks important, but it’s just there for decorative purposes.
Continue towards another kickdoor leading to another corridor. Pick up the shotgun near another corpse just past the door. As you turn the next corner, you’ll hear some moaning. That’s a zombie. Run past him and open the double doors on your right. A pop-up message in this room informs you that bullets won’t kill zombies (omitting that grenades will), and also, incidentally, that the door to the file room in the west hallway will open if you short-circuit it—two heterogenous pieces of information, on the face of it. Which one is the ‘west’ hallway? And what would you want with files anyway? Nevermind; the door in question is the one near the half-a-corpse you came across just before, and in order to short-circuit it you’ve been shooting at those fuseboxes. (If you haven’t, it’s not necessary to backtrack at this point, as you will be circling back shortly anyway.) There are four of them, all in all.
Another fusebox (3/4) is in the small adjoining room, immediately behind the door (whose collision may get in the way when you try to shoot it). There is also a small crate containing shotgun shells in this room.
In order to blow up everything at once, stand at the far end of the room and wait for the zombie to come near the door, then blast it with a grenade. The fusebox and the small crate should be destroyed as well—and, surprise, the particular stack of cardboard boxes in this room shatters too (if you use explosives), revealing a Red Stone (1/3), a secret item.
Return to the corridor, turn right and continue, ignoring the next zombie, towards the door at the top of the slanted floor to enter the next corridor. On your right, there’s a closed door that requires a red key. Turn left, and you arrive at a flight of stairs, greeted by another zombie.
Before you go up the stairs, open the kickdoor. It leads to a room with a case on the floor containing Green Herb (small medipack) and Hand Gun bullets; the shelf can’t be searched, and the adjoining darkroom (photography, not gay sex) contains nothing of interest.
Go behind the (non-shatterable) stack of cardboard boxes under the stairs to pick up another secret Red Stone (2/3).
Now go upstairs, follow the corridor past a barred doorway and arrive at a switch puzzle. In one corner of the room, a pop-up message gives you a clue to its solution. It reads: “Claws…Beak…Wings | Clockwise from the NORTH second go BACK last one AGAIN shall show you the path”. You may be forgiven if you think that this clue is cryptic at best. If deciphered as the builder intended, it instructs you as follows:
1) Face north (i. e. so that the compass needle points upwards), count the switches clockwise from 1 to 6 (number of visible claws on the gargoyle), and press the sixth switch.
2) From there, ‘go back’ (counter-clockwise) one switch (number of beaks), so press the switch to the left of the one you used first as well.
3) Then go further counterclockwise (‘again’) by two (number of wings). You should be arriving at the switch to the right of the gargoyle.
Using these three switches—the two on the western wall and the one to the right of the gargoyle—raises the bars that blocked the doorway you passed just before, thus clearing the way for the pushable to be pushed on its designated tile, which is located in the small room behind that doorway. (If you have difficulties getting between the pushable and a wall, keep CTRL pressed, and Lara will squeeze in.) There is also grenade launcher ammo in that room. [Note: The preceding passage was edited on 18 April 2022 to conform with the builder’s updated level file. Previously this walkthrough stated that you should “click every second switch, beginning with the one on the left of Piega’s gargoyle”, which worked back then but doesn’t anymore and wasn’t at any rate the intended solution.]
What do you know, the pushable triggers a Red Key into existence! Wrest it from the gargoyle’s claws and backtrack to the red keyhole.
Enter what looks like a generator room, run past another zombie (this one will likely get stuck sooner or later anyway) and pick up Uzi ammo from a shelf behind the generator. (The stack of cardboard boxes in here is another one that won’t shatter.) Open the door to the next room, which is lined with book shelves. The last fusebox (4/4) is just past the door on your right.
Enter a small adjoining room with a desk and an as yet unresponsive zombie on the floor. Press the switch behind the desk. You’ll hear a door opening just before some very loud music starts, and oh my! the zombie awakens and is joined by another one. Ignore both. The door you heard opened the exit of the room lined with book shelves. It leads back to the initial area. Leave through that door and retrace your steps back to the door near the half-a-corpse you came across earlier, shooting any fuseboxes you may have left intact the first time through. If you destroyed all four fuseboxes, the door near the corpse should be open.
The room behind it is full of shelves with file folders. There’s Uzi ammo on one of the smaller shelves next to a very large pushable, and grenades on the floor elsewhere. As you pick up the latter, a couple of zombie dogs come running (shotgun recommended). Move the pushable near the spot where you picked up the grenades, so you can pick up the green key (East Side Key) as well. Return to initial area and use the key there. Make sure you got all the pickups, as you can’t return once you go through the door.
Level 2: East Building / Basement
Another level, another corridor. Ignore the double doors on your right for the time being, pick up some flares next to the couch and spot another stack of cardboard boxes at the far end of the corridor. This is another shatterable one; the grenades you can pick up in fromt of it may have been intended as a hint. So use your grenade launcher on it and pick up the crowbar. As you do so, an SAS is triggered in your back (takes four shotgun hits, so start firing early). He drops the Uzis.
Now go back to the double doors. The office behind it contains three zombies (if they get in the way, you can easily take out all three with a single grenade; otherwise ignore) and nothing of interest except for a Hand Gun bullets pickup in the sergeant’s office. Step out into the next corridor and take note of the red keyhole on your right. There’s another zombie lying on the floor in front of it, but he won’t rise now or later (however, there’s a shotgun ammo pickup underneath, so if you’re going to blow up the zombies, you might want to do it in this corridor).
Open the door on your left and step out into another corridor, this one with yellow wallpaper. Pick up some Green Herb from the floor in the corner ahead and follow the corridor past another zombie to a stairway that leads down to the basement. Three zombie dogs attack when you’re about halfway down the corridor.
Proceed to the T-intersection. Turning left, you’ll find a blue keyhole, another stack of cardboard boxes (shatterable, but empty; an unreachable valve switch on the pipes at the ceiling shatters as well) and further on, a dead end with Uzi clips to pick up.
Now go in the other direction, past two kickdoors on your right until you arrive at another dead end, where two spiders attack (use the Hand Gun). Blow up the stack of carboard boxes and barrels to pick up some grenade gun ammo.
Behind one of the kickdoors (the one on the left as you’re facing them) is a small room with the Desert Eagle on a pedestal, a can of First Aid Spray in the corner next to a bucket and a broom, a stack of cardboard boxes (shatterable, but empty) and two small crates, one of which contains Desert Eagle ammo. As you pick up the Desert Eagle, two SAS appear in your back (2 grenades or 6 Desert Eagle bullets). One of them drops Uzi clips.
Behind the other kickdoor is the blue key (Morgue Room Key), guarded by a flame trap. There are also some more flares underneath a big pushblock.
Return to the blue key hole and use the key. The red key (Backyard Door Key) is lying on the floor in the far left corner. Picking it up stirs the zombies, and another one pops out of one of the freezers.
Inside the freezer is a crawlspace with a secret Red Stone (3/3).
Leave the basement and backtrack to the red keyhole. Use the key and go outside. The barrels on your left are empty. Go up the stairs, jump across the slanted part of the railing on your right to pick up some Uzi clips, then open the kickdoor at top of the stairs. If you go straight ahead, two spiders emerge from a non-shatterable stack of cardboard boxes; if you squeeze behind it, you can pick up some shotgun ammo. Then go the other way, past a jump scare and towards another kickdoor.
Ahead is a crashed helicopter. If you go very close and squint, you can just about make out a keycard you’ll be needing shortly. Sideflip across the low railings which fence in an assemblage of shatterables, all of them empty except for the small crate, which contains Desert Eagle ammo. Go down the stairs. As you pass another dead body (with nothing underneath this time), three SAS come round the corner. Try to keep your distance; the Desert Eagle works best here. One of the SAS drops Uzi clips, another a T-Virus Sample (it’s tiny and may be difficult to spot, but it’s not a required pickup anyway).
Behind the next kickdoor is another door with a keycard slot. Pick up Uzi clips near the ladder and use the crowbar on the valve switch (Round Handle) near the entrance, then return to the helicopter. Place the valve switch on the thingy that sticks out of the wall next to the pipes. A waterfall douses the flames; you can now pick up the blue keycard (Blue Card Key) from amid the rubble, although you need to crouch to do so.
Backtrack once more to the keycard slot. It turns out that, surprisingly, the keycard still works. The door it opens closes behind you; and as you pick up the grenade ammo in the middle of the small parking lot, a big scorpion busts on in. Hopefully you’ll have retained enough ammo to deal with it. When you’re finished, pick up the red keycard (Red Card Key) in the room where it came from and use it to gain access to the Police Car Keys. Either of the two vehicles will do. Crash through the wooden barrier to end the level.