History YMMV / MadnessProjectNexus2

* Hard Sell in Arena Mode is a contract mission where you have to defend a Core from N51 soldiers, and became infamous in the community for its sudden difficulty curve. Almost every enemy is a heavily-armed elite, the Core has three buttons that saboteurs can simultaneously interact with to open its shielding (as an aside, the Core only has four points before it opens up), and up to dozens of saboteurs swarm the buttons while you're already under assault by commandos and snipers. Any lock being undone decreases your pay if you win, and you basically lose the mission if the Core's shielding opens up, since the enemies then transition to just shooting it until it explodes.

** Elves in Slaugter Time. They teleport when shot at, and if they successfully grab you, they'll explode, resulting in heavy damage. If you're playing on Tough or Madness diffculty, then the Elves become more annoying since every explosion will mean loss of a corpus block and potentially a game over. The only means of properly dealing with them is to hit them with a melee attack or get them with a sneak attack. If one attempts the sneak attack, then they must do so the moment the Elf spawns or else the Elf will just teleport away.

** An Offering is basically what happens when you give a FragileSpeedster an very easy way to mitigate their vulnerability. Offerings have the ability to recover a Corpus block through non-stealth takedowns, and can be ''easily'' be abused through throwing flashbangs, which dizzies the enemies and leaves them vulnerable to a takedown. Furthermore, with every enemy they kill, there's a chance that they will be revived as a ghost that can assist them, including ''"[=GO3LMs=]"''. Also, since they're an Acrobatic character, they can zip around the battlefield like crazy, with the ability to have their throwable weapons pass through enemies being a nice bonus.
** The Massive. In theory, they're supposed to be a MightyGlacier taken to extreme levels (they only level in Strength and Endurance, alongside having the most Corpus blocks of all the origins). In practice, the charge attacks more or less make up for their lack of speed, with a MegatonPunch that is capable of crossing over various rooms, and a gigantic leap to go to greater heights. Furthermore, with the enormous amount of Strength and Endurance, this means that they can equip the heaviest armor in the game and dual-wield even the heaviest guns, which make up for their accuracy penalty, and that isn't even counting the mods they can equip to their guns. The Massive is so overpowered that they can easily sweep a horde of [[DemonicSpiders Vampires]] ''without losing a corpus''.
** As far as weapons go, the Nevadean Dozer Model E is undeniably the most powerful firearm you can buy. While it's up to chance whether or not it shows up in Chef's inventory and it's on the pricier range, once you get it there's very little that can stand up to it. It's a fast-firing automatic weapon with a sizable magazine size that fires blasts of electricity that takes down most enemies in one hit and with sufficient skills and equipment you can carry several magazines that can last you for quite a while.

** One of the patients' death quotes has them saying "No more voice! No... more... voice..." while crying. Although patients can be rather annoying enemies, it's heartbreaking to hear them like this.

* ThatOneAttack: While Half-Mags aren't necessarily that hard to deal with, one annoying attack comes in the form of the Zip Punch, which has them punch across a ''huge'' distance that can not only potentially drain a Corpus block, but also dizzies you as well, leaving you vulnerable to a takedown by them. Consequently, when you finally get your hands on it as The Massive, [[GameBreaker it's that powerful]].

* ThatOnePuzzle: [[spoiler:While the final boss fight isn't hard, one of the sections of the boss fight is incredibly annoying. You have to toss plugs into their power outlets so that Christoff can direct the Divergence Engine towards Gestalt, and Gestalt has to be in a specific position for it to work. The problem is tossing the plugs to the outlets in the first place, since the positions to throw the plugs are very wonky, and as a result, can potentially bounce back even if the mouse cursor is directly on the outlet. Have fun doing this while Gestalt is targeting you!]]

* ThatOnePuzzle: While the final boss fight isn't hard, one of the sections of the boss fight is incredibly annoying. You have to toss plugs into their power outlets so that Christoff can direct the Divergence Engine towards Gestalt, and Gestalt has to be in a specific position for it to work. The problem is tossing the plugs to the outlets in the first place, since the positions to throw the plugs are very wonky, and as a result, can potentially bounce back even if the mouse cursor is directly on the outlet. Have fun doing this while Gestalt is targeting you!

* ThatOneBoss: Tricky's "Murder Time" gameshow at the end of Sleeper Labs. Hank and Christoff must survive 3 rounds of different enemies, each round lasting a minute and 30 seconds. The enemies in question are Patients, Orderlies, Harmacists, Sleepwalker [=G03LM's=], and exclusive to the area, the Honk Zeds. All of these enemies can mess with the player in one way or another, and there's also random hazards such as tiles dropping, burner tiles, laser turrets, and drones (Although the drones weren't meant to be part of the gameshow). As if that wasn't enough, for the third and final round, many of the tiles drop, reducing the overall ground that the player can walk on. Needless to say, it may take a while to get the hang of all the different hazards and survive the gameshow.

* ThatOneLevel: Chasms is a massive brutal wake-up call, even on Tourist. For starters, this is the mission that introduces [[DemonicSpiders Abominations]], and it gets worse from there: for those who [[PlayTheGameSkipTheStory prefer playing the game and skipping dialogue]], they will miss out on an conversation on how to temporarily despawn the Abominations in certain sections (which is useful, since [[GuideDangIt it never tells you that there's an Infinite Combat Wave occuring]]). Next, you have the beat Dr. Crackpot, but only after you defeat his guards first, since he'll take no damage until he teleports to the arena, and even then he can be a nuisance with his ranged attacks, not to mention he's frightening at close range. Finally, just when the level is about to end, Project Gestalt [[spoiler:crushes Dr. Crackpot]] and you're forced into a 2-minute and 10-sec EscapeSequence, which aside from avoiding a rampaging Gestalt, has you dodge walls with a ''very'' limited time window. Oh, and if it's combined with a knockout from the carts, it's usually an instant Corpus loss. If you fail during this sequence, you have to fight Dr. Crackpot again!

* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: The Hive, a MechanicalAbomination that Christoff and Deimos fight at the end of Shakedown. There never was any indication that this thing was coming, it's role in Project Nexus is unknown, as well as why the Nexus Core even guard this thing, and it's sole purpose in the story seems to just be a boss fight.

** Nexus Core's Riot Guards are a massive pain to deal with. To start, their shields can absorb just about any attack short of explosives and it'll block any shots if they are in front of other enemies leading to you potentially wasting your ammo. The only way to deal with them normally is to attack when they are raising their shock baton to strike but not only is this window fairly small, even then their healthpool is massive as you need to peel off their armor first to the point they can take multiple Sweet Spot shots or heavy melee strikes to fall. Compounding that is the fact their own attacks deal high damage and come out fairly fast which can destroy your Corpus block surprisingly quickly especially if you are swarmed by them which is the most likely case as they spawn semi-frequently.

* ThatOneLevel: Depths is a massive brutal wake-up call, even on Tourist. For starters, this is the mission that introduces [[DemonicSpiders Abominations]], and it gets worse from there: for those who [[PlayTheGameSkipTheStory prefer playing the game and skipping dialogue]], they will miss out on an conversation on how to temporarily despawn the Abominations in certain sections (which is useful, since [[GuideDangIt it never tells you that there's an Infinite Combat Wave occuring]]). Next, you have the beat Dr. Crackpot, but only after you defeat his guards first, since he'll take no damage until he teleports to the arena, and even then he can be a nuisance with his ranged attacks, not to mention he's frightening at close range. Finally, just when the level is about to end, Project Gestalt [[spoiler:crushes Dr. Crackpot]] and you're forced into a 2-minute and 10-sec EscapeSequence, which aside from avoiding a rampaging Gestalt, has you dodge walls with a ''very'' limited time window. Oh, and if it's combined with a knockout from the carts, it's usually an instant Corpus loss. If you fail during this sequence, you have to fight Dr. Crackpot again!

** Phobos crossed it in the past by trying to use Project Nexus and Project Gestalt to achieve godhood, even though it would likely destroy the world.

* CompleteMonster: [[BigBad Director Phobos]] is the corrupt ruler of Nexus City and the head of Project Nexus, a scientific program aimed to do good for Nevada. Distancing himself from the Project's good intentions, Phobos tries to use it to [[GodhoodSeeker achieve godhood for himself]]. When Dr. Christoff tries to warn him that this could lead to the world being destroyed, Phobos fires him under threats of sending him to [[{{Hell}} the Other Place]]. Phobos is eventually killed by Christoff, [[spoiler:but his [[OurSoulsAreDifferent S-3LF]] returns, taking control of [[SoulJar Project Gestalt]] and trying to reach the Other Place to obtain godhood while attempting to kill the protagonists, resulting in the deaths of most of his minions. Phobos finally declares that he would destroy the world, revealing that he's fully aware of the cost of him becoming a god.]]

** Phobos crossed it in the past by trying to use Project Nexus and Project Gestalt to achieve godhood, even though it would likely destroy the world. [[spoiler:Worst part is that, just before his boss battle, he reveals that he was fully aware of it.]]

** We already know that Hank isn't exactly the most heroic protagonist out there, but he definitely crosses the line when he [[spoiler:intends to destroy Project Nexus even though Jebediah could have taken care of it without ending the world and gleefully takes the chance to kill Sanford and Deimos when the two refuse to let him do that, revealing he was "hoping it would come to this".]]

* CompleteMonster: [[BigBad Director Phobos]] is the corrupt ruler of Nexus City and the head of Project Nexus, a scientific program aimed to do good for Nevada. Distancing himself from the Project's good intentions, Phobos tries to use it to [[GodhoodSeeker achieve godhood for himself]]. When Dr. Christoff tries to warn him that this could lead to the world being destroyed, Phobos fires him under threats of sending him to [[{{Hell}} the Other Place]]. Phobos is eventually killed by Christoff, [[spoiler:but his [[OurSoulsAreDifferent S3LF]] returns, taking control of [[SoulJar Project Gestalt]] and trying to reach the Other Place to obtain godhood while attempting to kill the protagonists, resulting in the deaths of most of his minions. Phobos finally declares that he would destroy the world, revealing that he's fully aware of the cost of him becoming a god.]]

** Nexus Core Riot Guards are a massive pain to deal with. To start, their shields can absorb just about any attack short of explosives and it'll block any shots if they are in front of other enemies leading to you potentially wasting your ammo. The only way to deal with them normally is to attack when they are raising their shock baton to strike but not only is this window fairly small, even then their healthpool is massive as you need to peel off their armor first to the point they can take multiple Sweet Spot shots or heavy melee strikes to fall. Compounding that is the fact their own attacks deal high damage and come out fairly fast which can destroy your Corpus block surprisingly quickly especially if you are swarmed by them which is the most likely case as they spawn semi-frequently.

** One of the patients' death quotes has them saying "No more voice! N-no more... voice...!" while crying. Although patients can be rather annoying enemies, it's heartbreaking to hear them like this.

** Poor Burger Gil. The guy was ao devoted to his job that he keeps cooking even after becoming a Zed.

* NightmareFuel: Seeing a lot of the character designs in full 3D in all their gritty, blood-soaked glory can be disheartening on its own, but special mention goes to the loading screen portraits of all the primary characters. Lit only by a passing red light, they're all very realistically detailed renditions of the main sextet of characters... and then you get to Hank, who is ''not'' wearing his mask, and so you get to see his mangled, jawless face in full detail framing those piercing red goggles, revealing that he's also missing his nose.

* TearJerker: One of the patients' death quotes has them saying "No more voice! N-no more... voice...!" while crying. Although patients can be rather annoying enemies, it's heartbreaking to hear them like this.

** Phobos crossed it in the past by trying to use Project Nexus to achieve godhood, even though it would likely destroy the world. [[spoiler:Worst part is that, just before his boss battle, he reveals that he was fully aware of it.]]

** Zed Gil's introduction, in contrast to the bright and colorful bloods you find during gameplay, is a distressingly muted butcher shop of skinned and mutilated corpses that he's been using as mincemeat to make his burgers.

** Phobos crossed it in the past by using Project Gestalt to achieve godhood, even though it would likely destroy the world. [[spoiler:Worst part is that he reveals in the end that he was fully aware of it.]]

** Phobos crosses it by [[spoiler:attempting to reach godhood, something which would bring the end of the world. Worst part is that he's fully aware of it.]]

*** A less common but no less threatening danger is when Night Punks get killed by their bite attack. They will resurrect as Vampire Punks or Bruisers depending on who killed them. Fortunately, the Vampires have one weakness in fire. The Night Punks drop burning torches or stakes. Destroyed torches also become stakes. If you've unlocked the Improvised Weapon skill, you can drive a stake into a Vampire.