I Suck At Special Ops

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 at 3:03 pm in General Gaming · Comments

Juggernauts

As I lay nestled on the floor, my feet firmly planted in mud, head safely tucked behind a dismembered plane wing, my AK47 barrel stealthily creeps out from within cover; a feeble attempt to catch a glimpse of whoever is responsible for spraying bullets in my direction. Just as I do that, I see a pair of legs whizzing by me as they unknowingly evade my hiding spot. It’s only my mate, Rick, charging towards the enemy in question, emptying his clip and leaving the bastard in a spasm on the ground, giving me the opportunity to safely reveal myself from the wrecked plane I was taking solace behind. You see, my roots are firmly planted in Rainbow Six: Vegas, a tactical shooter that requires you to take it slow and plan your advance, and this game I am talking about, is of course Modern Warfare 2.

There are indeed many differences between Modern Warfare and Rainbow Six: Vegas, but the most notable difference is in the style of gameplay. Vegas encourages you to play it safe, to utilise cover and pick enemies off at a steady pace. It’s tactical. Modern Warfare has a fast and frenzied pace further emphasized by sprinting and your melee weapon. It’s a run and gun. Even after playing the storymode through twice, I still can’t shake my tactical roots.

This week I spent a considerable amount of time playing Snatch & Grab on Veteran (with little success… Damn Juggernauts). Aside from the fact this mission is notoriously tough, thanks to the handful of Juggernauts mulling about in already overly populated enemy terrain, I don’t think my playing style is helping matters. Call me a coward, but my natural reaction to spotting an enemy is to ninja dive into cover before lining a headshot up in my crosshairs. Of course, Modern Warfare doesn’t exactly encourage this behaviour; there isn’t a ‘cover’ button, unlike Rainbow Six: Vegas. Even so, I can’t quite seem to embrace the run and gun nature.

I guess it doesn’t help that, on top of investing a ridiculous amount of hours into my quest for Elite in Sin City, I’ve only ever played the Call of Duty games on Veteran. And with that particular level of difficulty being so, well, bloody hard, it’s crucial you advance steadily, taking cover where possible, and leaving your brass balls at the door while you work with your allies. But I’ve ruined it for myself, right? Because if I ever do get around to joining the ranks of idiots Modern Warfare addicts on Xbox Live, I’m going to be shit. Just as shit as I am, if not worse, at Special Ops.

If anybody has any tips for rewiring the part of your brain that tells you how to play shooters, hit me with them. Meanwhile I’ll be here. Hiding behind some cover. Waiting…

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3 Responses to “I Suck At Special Ops”

Christoffer Radsby

# February 3rd, 2010 at 5:47 pm

Well, tactical gameplay on Modern Warfare 2 is hard to find. I play as tactical as I can in Search & Destroy, and I play tactical in Team Deathmatch when I’m with friends. It’s kind of hard when your teammates always runs around like idiots getting killed.

I just wish that everyone could play a bit more realistic, like not throwing frags over the level, or using a grenade launcher randomly. In real life there would have been a possibility to hit friendlies, or you just don’t want to waste your ammo. I actually completed Spec Ops and the campaign on Veteran in under 24 hours together with a friends, those juggernauts are ridiculous , I don’t know why IW chose to have them in-game. IW wants MW2 to be realistic then they put something like that in the game, it’s just plain bad.

Together with heartbeat sensors, no-scopers, boosters, random naders and noobtubers it makes MW2 a really hard game to play tactical on. It makes me miss Rainbow Six Vegas 2, I really love that game.

Los Havros

# February 3rd, 2010 at 8:58 pm

To be fair, playing Modern Warfare 2 on veteran is hard, full stop. Regardless of whether you’re playing tactically or not. It doesn’t help that some of the special ops are dubious at best, with the AI being broken in some instances.

So I wouldn’t go beating yourself up about it, as MW2 is a tough game. I’d like to point out though to all those who have completed everything 100% and totally ‘r0xx0rz’ online- try doing it for real in a stressful situation where your life is at stake. I’m sorry for using your comments area to have a bit of a rant Ash, but there are far too many armchair ’soldiers’ with illusions of grandeur. Rant over!

As for those Juggernauts, they are very scary! Possibly one of the most terrifying enemies I have encountered in a game so far. E.g. in the Estate Takedown, no sooner do you hear the impending music then they’re in the same room as you- just spawning from nowhere! I’ve noticed that claymores have no efffect on them. Scary! *Goes away to hide*

Arnold Sideways

# February 4th, 2010 at 10:51 am

The only thing I could suggest to break your cautious habit is to have a dive into Free-For-All Deathmatch in the multiplayer. First of all, you don’t have to worry about friendly fire, because you kill everyone that moves, but also, you MUST go into the game with a “it doesn’t matter if I die” mentality… because you will die, a LOT, and you just have to treat each death as a very minor setback. All that matters is you take down as many other people as you can before you do die.

The other tactic I use is this: never stop moving. The aim of the game is to kill lots, not stay alive. By moving around constantly you’ll encounter other players often and rack up the kills faster. Also don’t waste time lining up perfect headshots, with a decent assault rifle it only takes a few shots in the body to take someone down anyway. If you take your time, you’re giving them time too, if you shoot early and hit them in a low damage area, it still screws up their aim and makes it hard for them to get you back.

And get used to that knife. It’s instant kill, and silent, so you don’t even show up on radar if you use it.

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