In Special Ops, two is always better than one
espion4ge and I finally finished our week long quest to conquer Modern Warfare 2′s Special Ops so I figured I’d write a little bit about it. This is the last I’ll write about Modern Warfare 2 ever…maybe. Anyway, if you haven’t checked out Special Ops yet, I highly recommend you find a friend and get to it! Hit the jump to see why.
Special Ops is a collection of 23 missions that you can tackle alone or with a partner (some require two players though). Depending on how well you do in the mission, you can receive one, two, or three stars for a total of 69. Three stars are obviously the hardest to get, pitting you against the most lethal (and smartest) enemies or have more imposing time limits.
There are a variety of missions and almost all of them are fun. There are time trials on snow mobiles, sneaking missions that feel very Metal Gear Solid-esque, missions where you need to kill a certain number of enemies, and a few other types. Introduced in Special Ops mode are Juggernauts: beefed up enemies who take way more damage than their regular counterparts. You will replay a lot of the missions from both the Call of Duty 4 & Modern Warfare 2 campaigns, but with a partner and with a lot more enemies. Think airplane mission from the original Modern Warfare, although none of these missions are quite that awesome.
Overall, SpecOps is a great addition to the game, and one that I loved almost every minute of. It’s a lot of fun to play co-op with a friend, and the strategy involved with flanking, reviving downed partners, choosing the right types of guns, and so on is very compelling. I took a break from multiplayer to finish Special Ops, which is all you need to know about how I felt about it.
espion4ge and I figured out some strategies that consistently helped us 3-star each mission, so I’ll share these generic strategies here. There are play by play guides out there, but if you want to figure it out on your own, these tactics should give you the general idea.
Basic Tips and Tactics for Veteran Spec Ops
1. If you’re gonna 3-star all the missions, make sure you can 3-star The Pit first
It’s pretty obvious, but if you can’t do the 1st SpecOps mission in under 35 seconds, you probably aren’t ready to 3-star the other 22. The skills you learn from finishing The Pit that fast will be invaluable. Make sure you’re always moving while you are firing, and snap on to targets as quickly as possible. To save ammo, try to line enemies up to take out two at once (while you are moving forward). Make sure you switch weapons when you are out of ammo instead of reloading – often times the instructor will yell at you to do it as a reminder, but he won’t yell every time. The quick reflexes that get you through The Pit will serve you well in the rest of the missions.
2. Aside from The Pit and the snowmobile time trials, there is no reason to play alone
Reasons include:
a) It’s more fun with two
b) If you get downed, your partner can resurrect you
c) There is no credential, Leaderboard, or separate Achievement for playing through the missions solo, nor any possible way you can prove you soloed it so don’t attempt it alone unless you’re a masochist.
d) It’s more FUN!
3. Find a level’s chokepoints and force the enemies to come to you
Now that Infinity Ward has done away with infinitely respawning enemies, life has become a lot easier. There are almost always a finite number of enemies in a level, AND once a group of enemies see you they magically find you no matter where you run in the level. At first that might seem annoying, but use this to your advantage! Since I am good at running like a chicken with my head cut off, I would run out, draw the enemies, and then rush back to where espion4ge was camping. Then we’d both take cover and pick off the enemies as they came to us. It works in multiple levels, and we used it to great effect in the last mission, Oil Rig, where you have to kill 15 Juggernauts. Speaking of which…
4. Never engage a Juggernaut up close
He will KILL you. Juggernauts take 4 Intervention of Barrett .50 Cal shots to take down, which means each of you only needs to take two shots to take the Juggernaut down. Keep your distance, hold your breath, and fire away. Also, use flash bangs to slow the Juggernaut down if he is closing on you. They are FAST, so make sure you have a good chokepoint, because you will have to kill more than one at a time. If you are patient and have a good chokepoint, you should be able to handle Juggernauts without TOO much issue.
5. Use thermal sights when possible
They help out tremendously for killing enemies. Not much more to say about that. Anyway, that’s just the tip of the iceberg, but those 5 simple things should help you if you are having trouble with veteran difficulty. If you have any specific questions about levels or tips to share, feel free to post in the comments or PM espion4ge or me. Good luck!
nice! here are some of my tips, as cmfl3x’s partner in crime (as is evident from the first tip, i was a lot more reckless and downed more often haha):
Making use of being downed
If you take too much damage, you will be downed. However, in this mode you will be able to still fire your handgun or use your knife, and enemies frequently disregard you as soon as you are downed. Use that to your advantage and kill whoever you can. Crawl to areas that can potentially surprise enemies. There are even times when you are downed and while you don’t see yourself holding a gun indicating you can still fire, you still can fire.
Once an enemy catches onto you and shoots you when you are already downed you will be in the helpless mode where you cannot shoot anymore. While this can be a big disadvantage, there’s also one major advantage to it – enemies will no longer detect you at all. They cannot “kill you” yet you are a moving object. Use that to your advantage and have your downed body block chokepoints or doorways for your partner to prevent enemies from advancing, as they’ll get stuck against you and not know what to do. This is especially useful when confronting the fast and powerful Juggernauts.
And the final way to make use of being downed is for the partner to use your downed body as a shield. If the partner lays prone behind the downed body, he now has a makeshift shield that he can hang out behind and bring back up to life when the coast is clear.
Set up crossfire positions
With two players now on the map, think strategically and try to split up so you’re engaging enemies on two different fronts. This makes it nearly impossible for them to take cover against both of you, so while they may be behind cover against one, the other player has a clear shot at their side.
Rocket launchers do not autolock
While in the campaign (I believe) and the multiplayer the AT4 launcher locks onto helicopters, it does not in Special Ops so taking down helicopters becomes a bit more difficult. However, keep in mind that the AT4 fires straight at the crosshair, so if you can line up your shot at the helicopter when it is stationary, you can still blow it out of the sky. Aim carefully, as there’s only one round in an AT4. If you’re stuck with the other rocket launcher (forgot the name) that has piss-poor accuracy, my only advice is to get as close as you can to the chopper before firing it.
Time limits for the missions are pretty generous, even on 3-star
You don’t really need to rush through a map with a time difficulty even on the highest star count. Take your time and focus on killing as many enemies as you can to make things easier for you. Learn the map first, and if you do run out of time, you’ll be a lot faster on your subsequent attempts. Don’t be stressed about time because it will throw off your game.
If you’re caught on stealth missions, it’s not over
There are a couple “stealth” missions in Spec-Ops, and while traditionally it would be game over, in Modern Warfare 2 the finite number of enemy guards will rush you. Don’t always give up hope. It’s possible to kill all of them and move on, or simply make a run for the exit and still be ok so don’t give up.
Consider split-screen if you can’t find a friend to play with
While split-screen gives you less screen space for your game, it may be worth the trade if you have no choice but to solo the Special Ops missions. Some missions this doesn’t quite work (when one of the players is in a chopper or something), but it can be a lifesaver in others. The biggest and most important feature added with split-screen is being able to revive yourself when downed. Simply take the second controller and hide that player in a safe location, and play the mission regularly with the first controller. If the first player goes down, you can now get the second player to go revive him.
Awesome tips–both sets of them!
I’ve been playing specops with my friend at least once a week, on the weekends, and so far we’ve conquered Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie. We have one mission cleared in Delta
So, any tips for that one Juggernaut mission in which you only have knives and explosives? (And did it take you guys a long time to beat “Snatch and Grab”? We died countless times beating that level…)
although we cannot confirm or deny whether we did it with this method, if you want an easy way to do the Juggernaut mission with only knives and explosives, check out this video:
as for snatch & grab – yeah that took us a bit of time too since we weren’t sure how the enemy spawning worked. once we discovered that enemies didn’t respawn or anything, we cleared all the way to the extract point then returned back to pick up the laptop. after we got the laptop, it was a clear run straight to the end without any enemy resistance heh
Also, watch out for Juggernauts from behind, listen for a deep tone which lets you know they are coming. We spent a lot of time on the ramp to “zone 2″ picking off enemies but Juggernauts flanked us and killed us dead every once in awhile.
Sweet! Awesome tips guys.