Saturday, November 28, 2009 . 11:13 PM

Just finished that smokescreen level on the "The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday" mission on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, on Veteran difficulty. I tell you, that part of the level is a real bitch, for several irritating reasons.

1. You encounter smokescreen. Which means to see the enemy, you must use thermal optic scopes on your rifle to be able to see them. To use these scopes, you must make the lengthy transition of putting your eye onto the scope in the game, which is akin to using a sniper rifle. Using the scope is not an option as you can't see nuts but your enemy can see you, even though they're not looking down their bloody sights and they're IN the smoke. Using the scope severely decreases your peripheral vision, which means enemies coming at you from the side get easy kills. Moving with the scope is not an option, as you move really slow-ass with it on, making you an easy target. The conclusion? The scope, which is a necessity, severely impedes your movement and sight, and gets you killed more than anything.

2. There is no bloody cover from the sides. On the map, enemies can attack you from the front, left or right. It is up to the team of 3 to cover all 3 directions, no? No. The AI is so idiotic that they don't cover their respective directions, letting enemies run PAST them to shoot you down. Sure, my teammates are invulnerable for the purpose of the story, but I'M not.

3. For some reason the enemy ALWAYS shoots you. Even though Captain MacTavish and Ghost are nearer them, they will ALWAYS target you first. On Veteran difficulty, you can only take about 3-4 shots before dying. So you can imagine, without cover or support from your idiotic AI, what a bitch this level really is.

4. Call of Duty is notorious for having limitless spawning of enemies until you move to a certain area or reach a checkpoint. You can't just stay in your safe, covered position (relatively) and shoot enemies as they look for you, no... You have to kill as many as possible, clearing a relatively safe path yourself, while chancing it and running to the next available cover AS THE ENEMY IS SPAWNING. Naturally, as they are spawning in the smoke, and given your AI partners' ineptitude at covering you, and given that you can't move fast AND scope at the same time, you're more screwed than ever if you try to chance it.

5. You can't bloody look around corners to shoot! To shoot, you have to inch your whole body round the edge of something just to get a sight. My God. More often than not, you will suffer a few shots before you can even aim, forcing you to get behind cover again or die. Call of Duty can certainly take some tips from Call of Juarez, where the AI is so much smarter and helpful and you can look round corners to shoot.

YEEEEARRGGGGGGHHHHHH

"You'll Never Walk Alone"

Archangel