Wrecking Crew: I'm gonna wreck it

Almost there! Another dozen levels complete, less than ten to go.

Level 83

 

Opening this session is one of its more difficult levels. Even though there are only three wrenches, you don't have a lot of options for evading them, and Spike just loves to break ladders out from under you.

The first challenge here is leaving the bottom floor, which is only possible to do by wrapping around, smashing the support to make the first ladder rung drop - do not let Spike break it - and climb it over the barrel. If the wrenches let you.

Crap.

With very good timing, you can slip through the wrenches and work your way up, smashing supports to drop ladders, leaving Spike and two of the three wrenches in the dust.

Demolishing the upper levels is fairly logical and not too reliant on Wrecking Crew's usual bullshit, though there's zero room for error - break any ladder or support before you're meant to and you make the level unwinnable. But eventually you'll have to return to the bottom floors to finish the job, and this is where the level gets luck dependent - one or more wrenches might have gotten trapped in doors opened by Spike or by your own dynamite, and the more of them are trapped this way, the easier a time you'll have. But Spike is just as dispositioned to free the wrenches as he is to trap them for you. Not to mention how much he likes breaking key ladders just when you're about to climb them.

Level 88

 

Timing is everything here - you don't have many avenues of escape from the wrenches (and fireballs) and pretty much have to do everything perfectly to survive.

Right away, you can drop a barrel on the first wrench's head, forcing the rest to wrap around left-to-right, buying you a few seconds.

Two floors down, and you'll need to demolish the row of walls here without getting surrounded. Easier said than done - you've got one approaching from ahead and two from behind. But it's doable if you understand how the wrenches behave - and once you're done here, you can strategically drop the barrels to trap them on this floor.

Gotcha, wrenches.

The last wrench can be taken out with a barrel near the bottom.

That leaves the bottom row of walls free for you to smash, without any threats. Except fireballs. So don't stay on that floor too long - there's no escape from a fireball that comes in from the right!

 

Level 90

 

This one's pretty chaotic, with six enemies, Spike, and a lot of tall, smashable ladders. But if you do nothing, two enemies will, within a few seconds, trap themselves on top of the upper floor barrels.

Then you can climb down, breaking ladders along the way, but take care not to let Spike break any of the tall ladders.

The hardest part is breaking the last set of ladders, because the eggplant men will concentrate in that area.

This part went badly for me many times.

Level 91

 

What a downright evil way to begin a level. Sandwiched right between two eggplants walking to the left, they move fast, but you move just a bit faster. Walk left, and you touch the one in front of you and die. Don't walk left, and you touch the one behind you and die. I can't tell you how many times I stopped to avoid bumping into the left one, only to have the right one bump into me, but a hundred isn't out of the question.

If you can shuffle forward at just the right clip and wrap around to the ladder, the eggplants will climb it and you can keep moving left, where you will want to smash the rightmost support, keeping them trapped on top of the barrel it drops.

You've still got wrenches to deal with - the middle floor is really the only place where they can't trap you in a dead end. The doors just above that are probably the best way to get them out of the picture, but it can be a crapshoot, especially with Spike around.

It worked. This time.

If you can lure both wrenches into the door, you still have four challenges - getting to the top floor without touching the eggplant men climbing up and down the only ladder, clearing the top floor without getting zapped by a fireball, getting down the ladder, and demolishing all the dark gray walls without getting zapped by a fireball.

I'm on level 95 now, and I expect the next post on the game will be my final completion, but it won't be my next post. First, we'll be interrupting this unexpectedly lengthy series for a multiplayer after-action report and review.