Act 2 Missions

Building an Empire

Welcome to the second act of the mod! If you're following this guide, chances are you've read the spoilers and you're reading this ahead of actually finishing the preceding missions because you've decided to handle this part of the game in advance. If you haven't, then... well, yeah, the cat's out of the bag: the big spoiler was that some missions are made harder or more obnoxious if you are in the game state of the Portland-Staunton bridge being destroyed and some of the gangs being hostile towards you on sight. Either way, you'll have to build a criminal empire of your own from the ground up in order to continue with the main plot. Luckily we don't do old-fashioned gang warfare to bring down the estate prices anymore, we just show up and buy the properties to turn them into our money makers. It's a retread of the second half of Vice City, but y'know, imitation is not inherently bad...

...as long as you improve upon the concepts you're borrowing. Unfortunately, Frosted Winter handles its city takeover in a downright atrocious manner. Vice City was already guilty of only telling you twice how to progress the storyline and it expected you to roam around the map in search of buyable properties in hopes that you're buying a business and not a safehouse (since they use the same pickup model). In FW, you are only told once in a cutscene at the end of "In the Shadow of the Don" that you should "increase your power" by buying properties, without the game even giving you a single hint as to what exactly you're looking for, how many properties there are for you to buy, or how they all have their own mission strands that need to be finished before more missions are unlocked.

To proceed past mission #27, you have to buy 6 properties all around Liberty City (2 on each island) and finish each property's mission strand. All of them boast 3 missions, meaning that you will have to finish 18 more missions to get past this progress gate. The properties are as follows:

• Head Radio in Portland — cost: $30,000;
• Mean Street Taxis in Portland — cost: $50,000;
• Liberty City Cocks Stadium on Staunton Island — cost: $70,000;
• Kenji's Casino on Staunton Island — cost: $250,000;
• Airport Parking Lot in Shoreside Vale — cost: $10,000;
• Cochrane Dam in Shoreside Vale — cost: $300,000

The missions will be numbered in accordance to the mission list. However, you do not necessarily have to do the missions in this order; you can buy the properties in any order and tackle their mission strands in whatever fashion you choose.

#28 — Spread the Word

You'd be forgiven for thinking there is no reason behind us doing missions for Head Radio because it sure doesn't seem like we're the boss of that place. This mission's intro cutscene has us introducing ourselves as the new owner of the place, only to be told off by the guy at the front door that we ought to make ourselves useful and spread flyers around town. Guess it must be true that you can't buy respect.

What I like about this mission strand is that all of its mission names follow the theme of doing something with "the word" since it fits the radio station theme so well. What I don't like about it is that its missions are uninspired. This one is really just a basic one person checkpoint time trial. Only really challenging if the Mafia is hostile against you since the checkpoints take you through Saint Mark's or if you are going for the AMO — a time limit of 3 minutes starting before you even enter the car. This is one of the tighter AMOs in the mod as it pretty much requires good driving and minimal traffic, and the reward for it isn't that much more impressive compared to the regular one.

Reward: $2,000
AMO: "Make it in time for a bigger reward." (3 minute time limit) = an additional $3,000

#29 — And Now for a Word

We meet up with the Head Radio guy on the roof of the building (as one does when talking to their employees) and we are told that the radio station is planning an interview with a band, but they still need to be picked up from the airport. Our mission is to pick up the band and drive them to the Head Radio HQ.

That's... it. No dialogue during the mission, we just drive back and forth across the map, these guys are just two generic NPCs who are not important to the plot in any way and this band never comes up again.

By the way, after the mission you might notice a prompt to start the "limo missions". That's pretty much where the taxi sidemission went, though the standard version with an actual taxi is still in the game. Kinda.

AMO: "The less damage the car takes, the greater the reward will be. Try not to attract cops."
Reward: Up to $5,000, depending on car damage.

#30 — Seize the Word

In different circumstances this would be an ironic joke about how media itself is censoring information, but this mission is pretty much just Head Radio throwing a hissy fit about criticism. We learn that an unfavourable review of our radio station has been published by a local newspaper, so we have 3 minutes and 30 seconds to do the only logical thing and destroy newspaper boxes around the city so that people can't read the review.

These boxes operate on a similar basis to III's bodycast from the mission "Plaster Blaster". Simple bullets won't seem to do the trick, crashing the car into it is random, and just about the only consistent method seems to be using explosives against them. Do this, and Head Radio will finally decide that maybe it's actually a good idea to give its owner some profit.

Reward: $3,500 and Head Radio starts producing revenue, which can be collected using a pick-up in front of the building.

#31 — Taxi Driver

As I've noted in the description for mission #29, the taxi driver sidemission is still in the game, just removed from its usual place in the gameplay loop and tied to ownership of a property. Can't really say anything inventive about this one: it's Taxi in snow. Your objective... I'm not sure what it is, honestly. In one playthrough I've had to complete 10 fares; in another, it was 20. Go figure.

Reward: $1,000

#32 — Deadly Rivalry

Right off the bat Joey hits us with some insightful internal monologue and the thesis statement for this mission: his personal belief that there are too many Cabbies in Liberty City. Just that car specifically. Maybe he doesn't like the looks of it. Anywho, this mission unfortunately follows the trend of uninspired tasks for the player to check off the list. It's just a rampage where you have to destroy at least 5 Cabbies within 5 minutes. The progress seems to carry over between attempts, which is either a bug or a bit of mercy on the developer's behalf in case you get screwed over by car spawns.

Reward: $5,000

#33 — What's Yours is Mine

Well, technically the title is "What's Yours — That's Mines", but I'm fairly sure that's just the language barrier doing its thing here since the mission doesn't involve any mines that would point towards it being a pun. Regardless, this is the first asset/property mission that actually does something at least somewhat new. Your task is to hijack a moving Borgnine, a new addition to some rival company's fleet. The car itself is being escorted by two regular Cabbies who will get aggro'd by your attempts to seize the target car. The Borgnine in question will not actually stop when you block the road (as an armored van would in III's Van Heist), so your best bet is to gently push it from the side so that the car will slow down enough for you to hijack it. Once this mission is completed, Mean Street Taxis will start generating passive income for us... and we'll be one step closer to being able to continue with the plot.

AMO: "The less damage the car takes, the bigger reward you will get."

Rewards:
— Up to $5,000, depending on car damage;
— New outfit available at the Portland safehouse;
— Mean Street Taxis starts producing revenue, which can be collected using a pick-up in front of the building.

#34 — After the Match

The first mission for the Liberty Memorial Coliseum is a Law-Abiding Citizen Simulator. Our job is to drive a bus full of football fans back to the airport. Since these are just regular civilians who came to watch a match and just wanna go home, we need to ensure safe travel for them. This means no attracting police attention or leaving the bus for whatever reason. This mission is what it is — and unfortunately it ain't much.

One thing to note: Starting this mission does not clear existing wanted stars. If you enter the bus with a wanted level carried over from freeroam, you instantly fail the mission.

Reward: $3,000

#35 — Total Winner

An unhinged mission as a palate cleanser after the last one! Well, to be fair, it's yet another mission that's not mechanically intricate, but hey, after being a bus driver I'll take a change of pace. Joey apparently doesn't own just the stadium, but also the Liberty City Cocks football team — and he knows their limits. Apparently our team doesn't stand a chance against some unknown rival team in the upcoming match, so obviously the best solution to that problem is to destroy their bus, killing the entire team on board. It's batshit insane reasoning, but honestly we're at the point where this is more than welcome.

The bus is driving on the lower road along the west edge of Staunton Island. Destroying it will instantly yield a 3 star wanted level, and the final objective of the mission is losing the tail by dropping your wanted level back to 0. It's just a matter of picking up bribe stars or making it to the Pay'N'Spray. Passing the mission will also come with a weird realization that not only you made money from an assassination that you contracted your own self to do, you even made less money from it than from just working a regular bus driver job.

Reward: $2,000

#36 — Homework

"Payday for Ray" without a time limit. That is all. I will not be dignifying this mission with any more of a description.

Reward: $4,000, and the Stadium starts producing revenue, which can be collected using a pick-up in front of the building.

#37 — Plan 1

Tip for people who want to get into writing: acknowledging the stupidity of a premise doesn't automatically make it funny. As the new owner of Kenji's Casino (or should it be Joey's Casino now?) we are informed that business is not actually going so great. Somehow the casino is running out of money, which is like the number one thing that should not be possible for a casino, but sure. Anyway, the... floor manager, I presume? ...informs us that he's got a plan, and it's to steal a gold transfer as it passes through Liberty City. The only person who knows more details is under FBI protection, but apparently the Yakuza has connections within the FBI and they've arranged for the guy to appear at a meeting. Instead of passing over the hard drive with all the info to the Yakuza guy, the informant will give it to us so we can fork it over to the Yakuza hacker. It makes sense if you don't think about it too much.

One more thing before we get to the actual gameplay section: the casino missions are significantly harder compared to all other asset missions, with only really the dam missions coming remotely close in terms of difficulty.

The game points us towards a compound on the east edge of Staunton - a shipping yard next to Wu Long's condo because that's not suspicious. You don't actually have to walk in from that direction - it's equally possible to drop down from the road above, or waltz right in from the south, closer to the casino, passing by a hidden package on your way there. The game displays an AMO inviting you to the mod's first official stealth mission! The guards seem to have a field of view of 180 degrees, 90 degrees to both sides from the direction they're facing. If you get spotted, you get an instant 5 star wanted level. The objective is to walk up to a guy talking to a Yakuza goon, preferably unnoticed. Once that's done, you need to get to the Hyaku Dojo located in Bedford Point and hand over the hard drive.

Reward: $5,000
AMO: "Remain unseen by the FBI for a bigger reward." = an additional $5,000

#38 — Plan 2

The hacker from the Yakuza has cracked the hard drive and now we know how the gold transfer is planned out. A specific Securicar with a specific numberplate is authorized to take the cargo, and it is currently being guarded by SWAT forces in the docks in Portland. Our job is to steal it without bringing a cop tail after us. If you're doing this with the bridge still intact, this won't be that much more difficult or longer. If you're doing this after the bridge got blown up, I'm sorry, you have to take the tunnel.

The Securicar is parked next to the Portland crane where you normally drop off big emergency vehicles, with a SWAT officer patrolling the area and four SWAT officers guarding each corner of the car. They are scripted to shoot you on sight and killing any one of them will instantly trigger a 4 star wanted level, which can quickly escalate into a 5 or even 6 stars as you fight back regular cop spawns. My best advice is to just get rid of the SWAT patrollers armed with AKs, then leave to lose the wanted level and come back afterwards to drive the Securicar back to the casino without any worries. Luckily you do not fail the mission if you leave the car after you'd already entered it.

And no, don't ask me why stealing that specific Securicar with those specific plates doesn't immediately deauthorize that license plate.

Reward: $8,000

#39 — Plan 3

Time for the grand finale of our plan. The third act. The conclusion to the trilogy.

In order to secure funding for the casino, we need to show up at the airport in the authorized Securicar and pick up the gold, trying to pass ourselves off as legitimate transporters. As we exit the Casino's driveway we are informed that the Cartel has somehow caught wind of our scheme and wants a piece of it for themselves. The Cartel Cruiser might look intimidating, but it's scripted purely to ram into our car. It only has one Cartel member in it and he doesn't even have guns, meaning if you hijack his car, he simply runs away. Once that's dealt with and we arrive at the airport to pick up the shipment of gold, a couple of scripted cop cars show up, including a SWAT Enforcer. We are given a 4 star wanted level right off the bat and our new objective becomes delivering the Securicar to the casino in one piece without a wanted level. For added flavour, the exit road is blocked by a Cartel Cruiser with two AK-wielding goons. If you didn't anticipate that, you're almost guaranteed to get pushed into the crossfire by pursuing cops and explode within seconds.

Thankfully, this mission concludes the casino strand and we - once more - make sure that the house always wins. Or something.

Rewards:
— $15,000;
— New outfit available at the Staunton Island safehouse;
— Kenji's Casino starts producing revenue, which can be collected using a pick-up in front of the building.

#40 — The Power of Toys

If you found the casino missions exciting and dynamic, I'm happy to inform you we're going back to bland and uninspired ones. We learn that someone somehow used our parking lot without paying, so we do the logical thing and murder them with an RC car bomb. Basically "Toyminator" with only one target that's just a few metres away.

Reward: $1,000

#41 — Your Car, Sir

Our parking lot comes with additional valet services. The job here is to deliver a car to a driveway in Cedar Grove. There's an AMO connected to car damage here. Hope the Cartel's not hostile towards you yet! Yeah, I don't really know what I can say about the uninspired missions. Sorry.

Reward: Up to $2,000, depending on car damage

#42 — Stretched

For whatever reason, the Mayor of Liberty City (who I presume is a character) uses our parking lot to park his limo there... and it's been stolen!

The limo has been taken by the Colombian Cartel to the same lot where the Yakuza had set up a death trap for them a year before. You need to get rid of the four Cartel goons with AKs to get the car out and then bring it back to the parking lot in order to wrap up all the adventures that the parking lot life had in store for us. So long, our concrete friend!

Reward: $4,000 and the Parking Lot starts producing revenue, which can be collected using a pick-up in front of the lot.

#43 — No Dry Run

The last property we need to take care of is the Cochrane Dam, apparently maintained by a homeless guy before we took over. He explains that he's been trying to get the police to pay more attention to possible terrorist attacks to no avail. Our goal is to get the cops to care about the dam by making it look like it's being targeted by terrorists... so we're going to detonate a bunch of explosives on it just for show. Or something. Oh, by the way, the truck with the explosives got stolen, but we have a GPS tracker, so we need to find the truck first. Does "no dry" rhyme with "contrived"?

The mod expects you to find the truck by using a proximity tracker. The thing is, the range on the thing is laughably short, and the hint of "somewhere in Shoreside Vale" really doesn't narrow it down in any meaningful way. I'll spare you the hunting and tell you up front that the truck is in the backyard of the westmost mansion in Cedar Grove, on the lot with a diagonally placed mansion with a hidden package on the roof. Once you get there, be careful as the car is guarded by two goons with AKs, with an additional third one waiting on the lower ground.

With the truck in our possession, we need to start the bombing run. Our first destination is the lower level of the dam, where the final mission of III takes place. Make sure you have all the speed you can get because the explosives detonate very shortly after getting dropped, so if you are not going fast enough, you might get caught in the blast. After you drive through all the checkpoints, you need to do the same thing on the upper level of the dam. Each detonation gives us one wanted star, so the cops that arrive as a result of the first bombing run might make the uphill drive a fair bit more annoying.

Once we finish both bombing runs, we get one last objective to get rid of the truck and an accidental bit of poetry telling us to drown the car in the ocean for a bigger reward. However, it's not that much bigger, so you'd be better off just destroying the car in whatever way to finish the mission and conveniently cleanse your wanted level. I suppose we simply make the cops understand that it was all a social experiment and we proved their unwillingness to help us out. Maybe.

Reward: $5,000
AMO: "The truck in the ocean leads to a greater reward." = an additional $2,000

#44 — Hot Situation

Whoever was trying to cook a simple mission failed by adding too much oil and now there's an oil shortage and a truck on fire. (Contextually we're talking about petrol.) Our task is to fetch a firetruck to extinguish the burning truck located on the dam. Keep in mind we're starting from perhaps the most distant point of Shoreside Vale. Unless you can conjure a firetruck out of thin air with molotovs or something, the nearest fixed spawn is next to our beloved parking lot.

Once the fires are extinguished, we need to grab a new batch of petrol from that one place in Shoreside Vale used as a garage for "Escort Service" and "Decoy". During the cutscene we are ambushed by a cop raid on the illegal petrol dealing point despite the building openly presenting itself as being owned by a petroleum company. Anyway, we get a 2 star wanted level and our final objective is to get the barrels back to the dam. We don't have to lose the cops though, they won't mind the deal once they know where the stuff is going. Probably.

Reward: $5,000
AMO: "Lose the cops and the reward will be bigger." = an additional $3,000

#45 — The Last Request

The hobo running the dam, who I presume is our assistant at this point, is asking us for one last thing. He sold some illegal machinery to a friend of his and hid it in a garbage truck. Our job is to deliver the goods to the buyer's garage without letting the truck get destroyed. We are warned about the buyer being in hot shit with the Colombian Cartel, but the more immediate danger for us is the 4 star wanted level we immediately get upon exiting the dam's front gate. If you decided to collect all the hidden packages, your best shot is to actually keep going straight ahead after exiting the gate and grab the bribe stars from your safehouse. You can safely leave the truck without failing the mission, if need be.

Your destination is the garage used in III's "Bullion Run", with all entrances to the compound being guarded by Colombian Cartel goons with AKs and Cartel Cruisers blocking the path. There are two guys on vantage points: one on the roof of the south entrance and one at the stairs in the middle. If you have a rocket launcher, destroying the roadblocks will take care of the surrounding guards, and the goons with a height advantage can be picked off from a distance. Once that is done, we conclude the dam missions - and if you've been playing them in the same order as the guide, this was the final asset/property mission!

Rewards:
— $5,000;
— New outfit available at the Shoreside Vale safehouse;
— Cochrane Dam starts producing revenue, which can be collected using a pick-up in front of the building.

#46 — End of the War

Mickey has recovered from his torture since the last time we've seen him, no doubt thanks to the magical invisible criminal surgeon that lives in this group housing project. The speed of his recovery is even funnier if you've already finished all property missions before the one where he gets tortured. Anyway, he wastes no time telling us that the Yakuza called — it's never made clear how the twins got Mickey's number – and they want to meet Joey in person. Given how our last meeting ended with them telling us to get lost, Joey is understandably questioning why the twins want to see him again... but he decides to meet them anyway.

Once we arrive at Wu's condo, the Long brothers tell Joey they're glad to see him as he sarcastically comments that he thought he was no longer welcome. The twins cut that trail of thought by saying that they've been observing our little empire building scheme and would like to ask us for one last favor. How fast they've had this change of heart about further cooperation is funnier the less time you take between mission #26 and this one in your playthrough. Luckily enough, the favor they're asking for is our assistance with taking out the Cartel. Joey for some reason questions the idea as if he hadn't been having issues with the Cartel himself, but ultimately agrees to help after the twins say that the Yakuza has already sent its forces to the Cartel mansion in Cedar Grove. I guess it tracks with that one bank heist they did without a getaway driver. (And honestly, this entire meeting could've been an e-mail a pager message.)

Once we get to the mansion, we are thrown into a full-on shootout between the Yakuza and the Cartel (by which I mean everyone just kinda stands in place and takes potshots at one another). Nothing that your typical right-to-left sweep with an AK won't solve. By this point you probably already have a whole bunch of ammo scavenged from enemies killed during missions, or from the hidden package rewards if you went for that 1 million dollar bonus. Clearing out the front will open the door to the mansion; the Yakuza goons will guard the entrance to the lot, but clearing the inside is your job.

As pretty as this interior is, its walls are paper thin. You don't even have to step inside the mansion – the Cartel members can easily die to splash damage from RPGs if you have some spare rockets... or to the fire from a flamethrower. Finally a use for that one!

Once you've taken care of all the remaining enemies, you'll be treated to a cutscene of the twins having arrived at the mansion to congratulate you in person and express that you've officially regained their respect and destroyed the "main forces" of the Cartel. Yay for us, I guess!

AMO: "The more of your men survive, the greater the reward will be."

Rewards:
— $5,000 (AMO: +$500 for every surviving Yakuza member, up to +$5,000 for all 10);
— "New" outfit available at the Yakuza Condo;
— Yakuza replaces the Cartel as the gang spawning in Cedar Grove.

#47 — Battle for the Casino

As we pay Mickey a visit, he informs us that Toni has learned of our empire and has decided to strike at our casino, with Leo having sent his men to our property. Obviously it's down to us to teach the Leone goons that no one fucks with the Leone Fam... no wait, we're gonna need a better way to distinguish the sides here.

We make our way to the casino only to find out that it's already swarming with Mafia goons. No real strategy to this one except your usual careful gameplay. All of these guys are packing heavy heat, so be on the lookout for any enemies that may have a height advantage over you. Don't drive in head first or you'll get decimated by the bunch of goons waiting at ground level.

Once you clear out the casino, that's the end of the mission... and of Act 2. Congratulations, you are now entering the third act of the game! Not that much left — in fact, you're long past the halfway point if we're talking numbers!

Reward: Our pursuit of revenge gets reinvigorated.

It might be a bit hard to notice in the mess of icons on the radar, but your next missions will take you... back to Portland. It's time to take the fight directly to Toni's turf. And also do a bit of diplomacy all over the city because of the power of friendship. We're gonna need all the hands we can get for this one! On to Act 3!

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