What single player FPS campaign are you playing?

[Exhuminator]

I haven't gotten to play GRAW since Monday.

Don't go AWOL on us soldier.

[Ack]

I haven't gotten to play GRAW since Monday.

Don't go AWOL on us soldier.

I'm not, but because I can't guarantee when checkpoints are, I can't easily sit down for five minutes and make progress. Plus, I have a pretty full schedule. I likely won't get to play much tonight either, if at all. Maybe Saturday, hopefully.

[Ack]

OK...I played more GRAW. I had a busy weekend. Expect a big post now.

LEVEL 4: I had to take out a couple of bunkers, a power station, a roadblock, and three artillery units. The bunkers...actually, I didn't find them that district to take out. I scrubbed a couple of times figuring out the best route and experimenting, eventually realizing that the best route was to take the far side to destroy bunker 2, then move my team through the small town dividing the two to get to and take out bunker 1. After this came the power station, which proved to be the biggest challenge for me in this level due to the number of snipers in this section located in different portions of the map. Eventually I just swept the whole town to take out everyone before finally pushing up around the far side and coming at the power station from a different angle. The roadblock proved not to be too difficult since I was given access to an artillery bombardment that didn't care what I told it to shoot. Finally, I got to call down the thunder on one of those prick machine gun emplacements. After that, taking out the enemy's artillery wasn't too bad, though I had to get past a small bunker that was a slight pain. I also discovered that, so long as I can see some tiny sliver of my target, I can call down an Apache strike. This has proven obscenely useful, because now I only have to spot a small piece from far off to get the job done. I took out one artillery unit simply by spotting the tip of the barrel.

LEVEL 5: My first solo mission, which meant I took silencers on all of my weapons. Most of this was pretty easy, as I would snipe from far off using nightvision. Thanks to the silencer, most enemies never even knew I was there. There was a nasty hurdle at the end of the level where I again had to call down strikes on artillery units, this time located around some kind of palace built on a hill, but again I managed to spot slivers to call down the wrath of God and avoid most of the enemy. Getting to the extraction point involved me hiding from a few jerks in APCs, but I ran, ducked, and weaved my way through and survived.

LEVEL 6: Getting in through the front gate was perhaps the toughest part of this next mission, since it involved confronting machine gun emplacements. After that, most of this was a cakewalk. Even an assault by two enemy helicopters wasn't much of a threat, considering at least two of my squad always carry anti-armor weapons. Aerial enemies show up trying to be all bad, and I just pulled out a bazooka and launched rockets up their asses. Easy. I even got to blow up a third with another aerial strike, this time from far across the map when I discovered I could see its rotating blades over the tops of a few buildings. After that, ducking and weaving through town while guiding a couple of tanks was relatively simple. Just go up the right side, you easily avoid most of your enemies. One enemy tank goes down on the right but then vanishes into the tunnel and never returns, and one tower houses an asshat with an RPG. Beyond that, there is nothing.

LEVEL 7: OK, this one was a bit more painful, particularly a couple of checkpoints in where you have to push through a shantytown to find the downed squad. You start by having to push your way up a hill guarded by infantry and an APC while an enemy helicopter takes potshots at you. I crawled my way up and then drew most of the enemy fire so my squad could take out folks. Once beyond that initial hurdle, I inched my way through town taking out threats. Climbing into buildings for a vantage point was key here while moving through the town. The way down was a lot easier, and after a couple of passes I finally got tired of that jerk in the helicopter and popped him with my bazooka. No more helicopter, and my day improved considerably. I eventually made my way through to rescue the president and chase after the nuclear briefcase, ending the mission.

LEVEL 8: Another solo mission, though this time not at night. I pushed through city streets quicker than I should have and took a few rounds, but considering most enemies kill you so easily, I tend not to worry so much about health. The big hurdle here? Fighting through large open areas while the drone and my gear are being jammed. Enemy radar was offline, and vision was fuzzy, but the video uplink to my drone and my tactical map still worked. That was more than enough. I worked my way around the far northern edge, avoiding open areas where possible and sniping targets when the opportunity presented itself. Turns out going from the southern side would have been suicide due to machine gun emplacements on that side. I took them both out from behind and blew up the jamming antennae. That was when I again received the glorious ENDURE objective, and...nothing happened. No enemy rushes, no APCs pulling up, nothing. I ended up having to run across a trainyard and skirt a tank, but again, I carry anti-armor. I worked my way around a couple of factories and out the level.

I'm now sitting at the first checkpoint for level 9. Once again, my squad is armed with two SCAR-Ls with scopes, two anti-armor weapons, a sniper rifle, a machine gun, and a mixture of sidearms(I always carry a silenced pistol, and I always arm my sniper and machine gunner with submachine guns as a precaution). Let's see what I have to go through now. It appears to be an inner city level this time.

I told you to expect a big post.

[Exhuminator]

You've made some really impressive progress in a short amount of time. The hardest part of the game is still ahead of you, especially the final mission. (It will be very interesting to see how you handle the final mission.) I think that you will be able to succeed though, given your tactical approach thus far. The way that last Endure mission happened for you is interesting, because I don't remember it going so well for me.

So how do you feel about GRAW on PC so far? Do you think it's above average in difficulty? At least as far as a single player FPS goes?

[fastbilly1]

He always plays shooters like they are remakes of Thief.

[ExedExes]

The last part of Level 5 was the worst, getting up to that castle-like structure. I almost died on this part.

Level 6 was easy because of the strong tank support you get.

Level 7, my thoughts are here.

Level 8, no problem.

Level 9, light objectives.

Level 10, if you want to read ahead on my thoughts here.

[Ack]

Thanks for the encouragement guys, but don't worry. I got this.

LEVEL 9: This was an annoying level, not because of anything particularly challenging with the gameplay, but because I had the second checkpoint glitch out so it wouldn't spawn in enemies at one of the roadblocks. I eventually just started the level over from scratch, worked my way around on the far side, and hit that particular roadblock from above. I had previously managed to take out the other roadblock single-handed, so I followed the pattern I had established on the first go to clear it again. I knew this level was too short when I got in the helicopter, so of course, boom, more objectives. The General's not bad with a gun though, so getting him out was a piece of cake.

LEVEL 10: I hit the square from far off with silenced rifles, and once the tanks spawned in, I skirted around the edges of the map to take out the scramblers. I even knocked a gunship out of the air because I could, and my squadmates did ok with assaulting positions or providing covering fire...though I didn't need it. I've gotten really good at finding small edges and such of targets to shoot or call in artillery, so I didn't even have to fight many of the soldiers patrolling around. Once it came time to assault the square, I relied on the tanks...and the game glitched again. My tactical map kept thinking that each tank was the opposite, so I would click on one to give orders to the other. Both also kept disappearing from my list of controllable squadmates, so I had to keep closing the map and reopening it to fix things. I eventually managed to take out both enemy tanks and then parked one of my tanks literally on the doorstep of the big governmental building so I could easily sneak around it and take out the machine gun emplacement with a grenade. I then moved through the small open-air plazas, relying on the tactical map to locate enemies and directing my squad to take them out accordingly. Once that was done, I bailed.

Oh wait. What's this...?

LEVEL 11: ?

Nah, just playing. I totally kicked this one's ass too! If anything, I found the hardest part of this to be getting out of the first alley at the very beginning. Thankfully after some terrible scrubbed assaults, I managed to make the push to the first checkpoint and then alternate lines of fire to wipe out an assaulting enemy squad. I admit it, I cheesed the enemy machine gun emplacements by sneaking into a spot behind a burned-out minivan that was apparently outside of their range and then popping them through its windows. Those pricks never saw me coming. You know that satisfying pop when a big, fat bug slams into the windshield of a bus? Yeah, it was like that.

Here's a fun fact: you can actually kill Ontiveros relatively early on in the level, but the game won't count it! As soon as he boarded his helicopter to escape mid-way through the level, I pulled out a bazooka and blew it apart. Unfortunately this had no effect, and I still had to continue on through the rest of the level. I call bullshit. But I made it to the resupply point with relative ease and got myself a new bazooka for the final push...

...I totally didn't need it. The final battle is all infantry in an open square with little cover. That's ok though, my AI buddies suddenly made up for ever fuck up they ever committed, particularly my sniper. I had given him extra ammo at the resupply point, and he made it count. Using the tactical map, I had my machine gunner and rifleman push forward while my sniper took out any threats they identified. We made it all the way to the embassy like this, with him shooting anything that moved. I ended up setting him across the street from the embassy and letting him take out any enemies on his own while sending my rifleman first, my machine gunner second, and myself third. We got to the wall and pushed inside with little problem. I had a terrible scare once inside because I opened the menu to send my machine gunner up the stairs right as an enemy stepped around the corner. He never got off a shot, my machine gunner opened up on him and then just kept shooting as he walked forward. I didn't even get a chance to confront Ontiveros, he got chewed up by the AI once again going full Rambo. I walked in behind him and discovered the level was over. Once in the helicopter, I was treated to some crappy ending(I wasn't paying attention to the story at all) and then to a credit sequence while my airlift zoomed around like it was being driven by a five-year-old.

One and done. Nothing but net. That's how you do it, son.

Uh...I am Turok?

I'll post my overall thoughts in the Games Beaten thread tomorrow.

[Exhuminator]

I am amazed at how helpful your AI ended up being in your play of this game. I was never able to rely on the AI for anything, especially not in the final mission. I ended up clearing every section of the final mission inch by inch all by myself. Then I'd bring in the AI to hold positions I'd already cleared. The AI absolutely never could take point worth a damn when I played the game. Every time I told the AI to storm anything on their own they'd just be corpses by the time I got there. You had some pretty stellar AI luck to go along with your tactics. I'm impressed you beat this one so quickly. The only harder single player FPS I've beaten then GRAW was the original Operation Flashpoint*. It's harder than GRAW but not in a fun way. I wouldn't dare anyone to play Operation Flashpoint as I'm sure it's aged like rotten milk. Well anyway, looking forward to your overall review of this one Ack.

*Seriously, Operation Flashpoint was so hardcore it was further evolved to create VBS1, a simulator used for actual training by real world military. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VBS1 )

[ExedExes]

Well done Ack. I had a similar experience on the final mission that you had; the AI smarted up and did great on that final area! It even took out troublesome machine gun areas! Maybe you just knew how to use the squad more effectively than us. But I did find it was better to give sniper rifles to them overall, and I found that Allen was probably the most proficient with one.

I've got GRAW 2, and I hear it's not nearly as bad. But I'm still working on my double feature of Doom II on one computer and ROTT 2013 on the other, both on break while I finish Grim Fandango, and I'll resume those next month.

[Ack]

Thanks, guys. I mentioned when I first started that I didn't have much experience with tactical FPS. This is true. But I sort of left out a few other things that gave me an edge here...

Most of my family is military. As in just about every male over the age of 18 has joined up and performed some kind of military service. In fact, in four generations, there are two of us that haven't joined, and I happen to be one of them(the other is my brother who is currently an English teacher in China). I also don't mean immediate family, I mean extended family too. All of my male cousins who are of age either were or are active military, as is the husband of my oldest female cousin. Most of us end up in the Army, some have been paratroopers, and a few Army Rangers(including my father). Several have also been officers, again including my father. While I never joined up, my dad took the time during my childhood to teach me a lot of skills that most folks will never have or need. I also spent all of high school in ROTC as well as Police Explorers, where I learned SWAT tactics, and Boy Scouts. I often joke that war is the family business, but the truth is, that's actually kinda true.

So...yeah, I understand how to direct a squad, how to assault an entrenched enemy, how to use cover effectively, and how to lay down covering fire. This definitely gave me an advantage, the wonky unrealistic parts of GRAW notwithstanding. I also realize that I had a weird childhood.