Saturday, March 23, 2013

MW2 - Cliffhanger and Outpost

I can't believe I never saw it until just today, but the MW3 multiplayer map Outpost is loosely based on MW2's campaign level Cliffhanger.

I tried two different tacks here, one with Outpost placed on the other side of the runway, but after finishing I realized that doesn't make much sense because if the runway is getting any kind of traffic people who may need to cross won't be able to (not that it would matter in-game, but since this is all my imagination anyway...).  So I also placed the two large hangers in Outpost on top of the ones in Cliffhanger.




I know it looks bad on paper, but I think that's just that the two maps have a different style.  I doubt it would take much to integrate Outpost into Cliffhangers design.  It doesn't add much to the total area, especially if you take into account the rest of the map that you only cover on the snowmobile, but it almost doubles the base's facilities.

Thursday, March 21, 2013

Survival Stretegies: Carbon

I had gotten to wave 24 on Carbon a looonng time ago and didn't think much of the map so I never tried to really do well on it.  Wave 24 put me just under 40,000 on the leaderboards (out of a total of 950,000) which I decided yesterday wasn't high enough for me.  So here's the map:


I don't have much of a strategy for this map but after watching a couple of youtube videos on power spots I gave this a try:



The yellow-purple box is for normal waves, the red-blue box is for juggernaut waves, and the orange-green boxes are for helicopter waves.

Normal waves are pretty easy, just sit at the yellow-purple box crouched and all of the enemies funnel their way towards you.  You can place some C4 at the can's opening and get some good rampage/kill streak/quad kill bonuses.  Just remember that there are only 2 normal waves before you get another boss wave.  It's a good idea to pause the game (if playing solo/split-screen) when you have 1 enemy left at the end of a wave to take stock of your equipment levels and where you need to run to during the 30 second break.

Helicopter waves are somewhat difficult.  I found that in the early helo waves (6 and 15) the orange-green square at the bottom (in the picture the left side) of the map worked pretty well because all of the enemies came down the stairs to the right, none came around from the left and into the building from the side or front.
But during high helo waves I stayed up at the top of the map by the air support armory with a sentry gun and/or a riot shield squad.  During waves 24 and 30 I had a lot of money so I just bought an airstrike which took out some of the guys and one or two of the helicopters.

Juggernaut waves.  The first couple are easy, 9 and 12.  But for jugg waves 18, 21, 27 and 33 I got on top of the 2 cans side by side where the red-blue square is and if you lay down the enemies can't shoot you.  They cluster up by the cans and then just roam around them.  From there I knelt up and shot the dogs and the regular enemies first, and then got the juggernauts after.  This takes some care and you have to make sure to go prone to let your self recover from any hits you take before getting up again to take out more enemies.

This worked for me up to wave 33 where I died.  But wave 33 put me at 3167 on the leaderboards which is pretty good.  For standard maps I only rank higher on Mission and Fallen.

Helo waves: 6, 15, 24, 30, 36, 42
Jugg waves: 9, 12, 18, 21, 27, 33, 39