Michael And Jung, More Of A Hinder Than Help
I really want to start this post off with an incoherent string of curse words, for Michael and Jung – the accompanying squad mates in Rainbow Six Vegas - really know how to piss a lady off.
I’ve ranted about them many times before, be it on Twitter or on my blog. When Ubisoft made the original Vegas, they blatantly didn’t put much emphasis on A.I., resulting in an infuriating single player campaign where, really, you’d have been much better off without Mung (as they will now be collectively called).
I’ve only played the original Vegas once prior to the run-through I’m playing now, both times on the Realistic difficulty setting. As the name implies, it’s not an easy campaign to beat, and with checkpoints sparsely scattered around, you’ll find yourself re-playing certain parts of the story for ridiculous amounts of time.
What really accounts for the campaign being so tough, however, is the burden of Mung. While you have complete control over your squad mates, in that you can position them whereabouts on the map you wish, instruct them to clear or frag rooms etc, they almost certainly fuck it up.
So, instead of the attack on enemy A.I. panning out as you intended, Mung will enter a room, face some slot machines, proceed to be under “heavy fire”, then both will fall injured, leaving you to clear an entire room of terrorists alone, with the game ending if you don’t heal either of your fallen team mates on time.
Cue myself cursing aggressively at the television.
I now find myself appointing Mung to a corner of the room where they won’t hassle myself and will be firmly out of the line of fire, so I’m now progressing through the story at a quicker pace, even though it’s now one (wo)man against a whole wave of terrorists.
Having said that, they still manage to mess things up for me. Tonight I was clearing out a room with various different entrance points. I commanded Mung to hang back where the middle entrance was; this way they would be well out of the line of fire, but if an enemy tried to flank me, Mung could take them out (I had set them to Assault, i.e. ‘weapon’s free’). An enemy did flank me, casually walking past Mung and shooting me in the back while I was at the left entrance. At that point I had pretty much given up on all tactics and got through solely with sheer persistence.
Returning to the original Vegas after playing the sequel, I can now see this issue was addressed to an extent with Vegas 2. Mung aren’t as much of a hinder as they are in the original, though they seem to not be completely void of their stupidity. The best thing to do if you’re wanting to progress through the campaign with minimal fuss, is to point those two idiots towards a quiet corner of the room and get on with clearing Vegas of terrorists alone. Ugh!
Tags: Mung, Rainbow Six Vegas 2, Rainbow Six: Vegas
This is where I, Ashley Baxter, blog about gaming. At the moment my primary console is the Xbox 360, so expect the topic of conversation to revolve around that.
July 17th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Don’t get me started on Mung! They were the bane of my RSV solo campaign, in *exactly* the way you’ve described. Seriously, RSV should have had another option lining up alongside ‘Breach and Clear’ and ‘Frag and Clear’, and that’s ‘Open the door, fanny about, and don’t bother clearing the room because you’ll be down and needing urgent medical attention within a couple of seconds.’
Several times I’ve ordered Mung to cross a room using the Move order, only to see them turn around and leave by the door behind me, set upon some scenic route to the next piece of cover that usually involved them coming in through another door and being shot while fully exposed.
I can feel my blood pressure rising just thinking about it! There really should be a ‘Please, Just GO HOME!’ command.
July 17th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
Haha! Whilst I cannot relate directly to Rainbox Six Vegas, I have had plenty of games in the past where you’ve either got to rescue a hostage (and they die or f*** your mission up) or rely on an AI team mate (and they die or f*** things up)and it just drives me mad. To sum up- yes, I do feel your pain! Bad AI can really ruin a game or at least frustrates things!
July 18th, 2008 at 9:06 am
Yeah I’ve had the same problem. I couldn’t continue playing the original Vegas. =/
July 18th, 2008 at 9:30 am
Loud78, your comment actually made me laugh out loud. I don’t know how many times I’ve wished they would ‘go home’, where ever that may be. Definitely hoping the AI is drastically improved for the third Vegas, assuming there is one… Or that Mung are dropped all together.
Los Havros, Rainbow is the best example I can give of this, but I was also infuriated with the AI in Medal of Honor. It ruined the game for me, which was disappointing considering I quite liked the MoH series. Have given up on it now.
Alexander, aww I’m sorry it prevented you from finishing the original Vegas, as it is a great game, but I can definitely see why it interfered with your enjoyment. I’ve never been so mad in my life while playing a game :p
July 18th, 2008 at 10:50 am
Talking of AI you can’t beat the ‘radiant AI’ of (sorry in advance Ash) Oblivion! There was some fucked up shit going on there if you stopped to pay attention to what the locals were up to.
July 18th, 2008 at 10:53 am
Loud78, like what? I only got as far as stealing a horse then declaring Oblivion boring.
July 18th, 2008 at 11:08 am
Well, I’m no expert on radiant AI but they kind of wandered around and interacted with each other, and often it had unexpected results. It was just funny to hear them meet and talk about game world related things, like mud crabs. Completely incidental to the game, but it made it seem like a living enviroment.
Like, in what other game would you be riding along a random road and come across a patroling guard fighting a daedra (think demon) that had spawned out of a nearby gate? That was nothing to do with what I was doing, it just happened to be taking place as I was passing.
Oblivion is such a great game, I’m saddened that you didn’t get into it Ashy, especially given your usual fine taste in games :p (except MoH and the Creed. Oh and skating games. And King Kong) *runs off*
July 18th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
It’s not just the whole “Jung is down, you must save him” every 3 seconds that gets annoying, but also when you tell them to follow, or regroup, and they just sit there and don’t do anything. Or when they both stand in your way so you can’t move out of the way of enemy fire/grenades.
At one point during Vegas 2 I had them both go down in the same doorway, but in such a way that I couldn’t get into a position to actually heal them or get through the doorway myself.
Also the fact that you can empty close to an entire clip into an enemy before they go down compared to them firing a few shots into you before you’re dead makes matters even more infuriating.
Oh, and one more thing. The vegas games are the only ones where I regularly experience huge amounts of lag in online games.
July 18th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
Loud78, have a look through the games I’ve played and there’s not one game I’m ashamed to have played! Skating games are amazing <3
Andy, or when you’re trying to peep round a corner to get a kill but Mung are conveniently preventing you from doing so by clogging up the door way. Argh! Vegas is awful for lag, but there are some good games - we should know, we’ve had some great ones! Presidio springing to mind when we were leading our team on kills. Oh, what a rarity! When there’s no lag it is definitely my favourite online game.
July 18th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Haha, running around Kill House with shotguns was pretty fun too.
Was that Presidio game the one where we had lost every single game before that and then kicked everyone’s arse in that game? Virtually the entire round was played outside in the alleyways rather than in the main part of the map too.
July 18th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Andy, yeah! We had the worst team ever but managed to lead them to victory! It was a great game. The shotgun whoring was fun, too. We have to get the rest of the G’s, so we should make a date to whore the other guns. That is assuming you’re back on Gold subscription.
July 18th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
I’m still only on Silver at the minute but I have a stack of 48 hour trial cards I’m working my way through. I’m up for whoring pistols, LMGs, sniper rifles and sub-machine guns at some point though. Message me on LIVE whenever you’re on.
July 18th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
‘At one point during Vegas 2 I had them both go down in the same doorway’
LOLZ!