Weapons and Scripting
Once again, the scripting is superb, with various objectives to complete each mission and, thoughtfully, usually an objective point placed to let you view your handiwork. It has to be said, that although the objectives are easily accessible at the press of a key, the dialogue (which is subtitled) can be missed in the heat of battle, leaving you wondering just how to complete your objective.
An example is in the US missions where, after clearing Noville, you have to defend a manor house. A tank rolls up and you’re ordered to take it out. I spent a good 30 minutes and several reloads looking for a bazooka, which wasn’t easy to find whilst under artillery and sniper attack. Another mission sees you covering some engineers as they blow an obstruction. Though the engineers were clearly marked, just who I was supposed to protect them from wasn’t clear until I watched them die a couple of times. Now these aren’t major gripes and don’t make playing the game any less enjoyable, but they are a tad frustrating as you re-load again purely because you missed an instruction in the middle of a battle.
I suppose a mention for the other new weapons wouldn’t go amiss. Besides a positionable machine gun each from the US, Germany and Russia, you also get a silenced STEN gun (last seen in RTCW), a bazooka (accurate and deadly with horrendous reload times), an SVT-40 (high powered, self loading infantry rifle), a DP-28 (Russian hand held machine gun), a TT-33 and Webley Mk4 (Russian and British pistols), a G-43 (German self loading infantry rifle), a Panzerschrek (German Bazooka) and a Flammenwerfer 35 (German flame thrower).
Each weapon has it’s pros and cons and a little bit of experimenting is needed to learn how best to use each one. During many of the missions you’ll find that you will have to pick up and use weapons dropped by the enemy as ammo will be in short supply. The question is, do you hang on to your sniper rifle and take the MG34 for later, or ditch the MG34 for a MP44 and clear out rooms close up?
