Jamieson22

Went through normal difficulty back when game first came out, and then had played a good bit of multiplayer on Live. Came back and decided to try the hard difficulty a little while ago and must say it wasn't too much harder than normal, though that might be due to me learning a few things that made it easier.
First I have to say that the first copter mission when you come up on the people on the rooftops stumped me for awhile. Pretty much made me give up on the game due to the fact there is like a 1 minute intro and often I'd die as soon as I came up to shoot the first time. Frustrating? Hell yes. But finally decided a few days ago to give it a shot again and once I got past that, things moved a bit easier. Honestly the copter missions were the hardest part of the game. Think it is due to the fact that you can't take cover so if you miss someone it is easy for them to get you.
I think the thing that made the game MUCH easier this time around was using auto-fire. When I first played it I used the one shot firing which made it way more difficult. Switching to auto fire let me kill multiple people each time I ducked out. Also was much better with aiming with looking down the barrel vs. zooming the first time around.
Another big help was grabbing a 36k rifle from a dead enemy. This thing is great as it has 2x and 4x zoom and seems to be quite accurate.
One thing I noticed was that there were two occasions that checkpoints would not load. First instance was the level where you man the 50 caliber stationary gun while the tanks get ready (a bit after you get the tank trainers to the tanks). You are shooting waves of rebels from behind a sandbag and eventually an enemy tank comes and your tank finally is prepped and shoots it. After that the enemy waves stop but the tank would not advance and if I tried to go forward it would say I am out of mission range. Had to quit game, go back and load the save and do it over for it to advance me in the game. Second time was when you are on the rooftops and the tanks are moving below you. When you get to the end it would not let me go forward and the tanks couldn't advance or shoot the red enemy targets that popped up. Finally reloaded it and managed to get the tank to shoot the last enemies and then it let me go cross that metal bridge between buildings to get to the helicopter to end the mission. I thought the first time through the game I was on the bridge and shot the final group of enemies myself, so thought I got lucky having the tank take care of them. Never had either of these glitches first time through the game.
Oddest thing was that very last level where you move to kill Ontiveras was cake walk on normal. I remember thinking that it was just a fluff level because I got through it on the first try and wasn't even taking cover. I was just running and gunning. On hard difficulty I must have played it for over an hour and kept getting owned. Was ready to throw my controller through the plasma. But eventually I won by hiding behind that sandbags with my team on top of the monument facing the building Ontiveras pops up on top of and telling my team to destroy everyone that showed up on HUD. Then when Ontiveras showed up on top of the building I threw a smoke on my position, turned up thermal vision and unloaded on him. Hardly a blaze of glory but beats replacing a TV with a controller through it. Come to think of it on normal difficulty my team had all died and I just stood at bottom of that building in the open and never got hit. Huh.
Overall, I would have to say that Harddiffidulty is not that much harder that normal. The copter missions are, but other than those I think since you get killed so easily on normal as it is, not much changes on hard. Hopefully I can post something about beating COD2 on Veteran before the end of the year, and if not, anyone have any recommendations for a replacement plasma?
Jamie

thematahara

Please use paragraphs, that brick of words makes my eyes bleed.