It plays hugely differently from the main game. You're part of a squad at long last (even if most of them are trying to fight cartoonishly, like this was Doom or Serious Sam, rather than fighting appropriately for the game); and you no longer automatically have the drop on your enemy. They know you're coming -- and they're coming as well, too.
Lurking in the shadows and the foilage works unrealistically well -- in particular, most foilage does not change at all when a player is moving through it; there are no trails of beaten grass, there's no movement of grass and leaves to catch a sharpshooter's eye, and thus it's relatively common for players to sneak all the way to the other side's starting location, through open areas with no overhead cover.
The players are weighted towards action, but I'm not sure the game is. It would be interesting to have a team, playing as a team, that concealed itself and waited for the enemy, perhaps throwing out a couple of high-skill players as infiltrators and/or flankers (flanking fire is devastating, especially against opponents foolish enough to stand out in the open when they shoot), rather than rushing the enemy as the enemy rushed them. The team that wins is the first that kills their enemies 50 times, regardless of how often they die, but I have a feeling that a team that relied on rear-facing fire (perhaps favoring the silent, flashless, bullet-track-less dart rifle instead of conventional sniper weapons) could fare pretty well. I hardly ever saw my teammates, but I achieved a lot most of the time. (Some environments, some maps, were just less friendly to this approach, though.)
Regardless, flanking fire is extremely useful in the game; an assault-rifle wielder can sometimes signal friendly snipers or other troops by his fire; coordinating artillery (Rebel class, plus the occasional emplaced mortar or mortar-equipped technical) with an infantry assault, preferably an assault from an unexpected location, would be great. And while I'm dreaming, I'd like an in-game pony. (Then again, maybe not. The only thing a vehicle is good for is making it obvious where you are...) One thing I can say is that it would play quite a bit more realistically if each player only had one life...
- Saboteur (infiltration and stealthy attacks -- silenced weapons or green-dot-sight AR-16, plus silenced pistol or unpatriotic, man-portable IEDs) is definitely my class -- I do a lot of infiltration, and the AR-16 is great for countersniper work -- it doesn't have the range of a sharpshooter's rifle, but it's more maneuverable, and it's an automatic, so there's less riding on single shots. It looks like the same dynamic as how bows beat musketry in the Total War games (and in the real world, if the musketeers are unarmored).
- Sharpshooter is always a useful specialty -- though I prefer hunting enemy sharpshooters over doing sniping of my own, and my preferred mode of action is infiltration and assault on an enemy's secure areas. I read a lot of Poole, after all... this is also why I find teamless Deathmatch games unplayable -- I never know where to sneak to! (Note, also, that you can't always predict which maps are going to favor a range of fighting styles, and which are going to be purely sniperfests; there was one, at least, that really caught me by surprise.)
- Commando, the standard infantry class, is also good at times. I'm not sure whether I prefer the AK-47 or the FN FAL -- the FAL has a longer range, but its sight is inconveniently large, and you're not really fighting at range with this class -- if you go up at long range against a sharpshooter, or a saboteur's AR-16, you'll lose. The M79 is great, though -- there was one level where I located two enemy snipers on an exposed, remote rock formation, and drove them off by shelling them, using my M79 as a mortar. I think I killed one, and the other (more skilled) one was beaten off (diving underwater). After that, and after we stopped the same more-skilled sniper when he was lurking in a treehouse (don't ask), the map ended in a sniper rush for our team, and victory in a combat that had started in our favor (with our storming their headquarters early in the game), but had turned in our enemies'.
- I haven't used the Gunner class (M249 or wire-guided Carl Gustav AT rifle, MAC-10) very much, but its loadout is great (most classes with a good main weapon have a terrible secondary -- the sniper gets his choice of the game's weakest pistol or a flare pistol for backup), and one player I was up against -- who was very good in general, in fairness -- dominated two maps with his M249 and movement at a crouch.
- I used the Guerilla class (video-gamey, very-high-spread shotguns, and the MAC-10 or the saboteur's IEDs) early on, but I think it was a mistake. You hardly ever fight at distances small enough that a shotgun gives an advantage over an assault rifle, and even if you do get to such close quarters at times, there will still be other times where you need to engage at longer ranges.
- The Rebel class is man-portable artillery -- RPGs or semi-automatic grenade launchers, plus an Uzi and real grenades (all other classes but the sharpshooter have to use Molotov cocktails). I don't think my temperment is right for it -- though having someone else providing RPG or grenade fire is always a good thing.
Tactical lessons learned from this experience:
- Move behind optical cover as far as possible -- catching a glimpse of someone is almost as good as killing him.
- Remember that movement attracts the eye.
- If you know that an enemy's in a room, grenade him if at all possible.
- If you're looking for a target for a long-ranged weapon while you're visible from actually or potentially hostile-occupied locations, you're the target. Do your target acquisition either behind cover, or from a position well above your enemy, since people tend to look out and down, not up.
- When watching for hostile forces, look up.
- And clear out as soon as you're done shooting. Once you've opened fire, it's only a matter of time until you're spotted.
- Wounding an enemy and waiting for another to arrive to help him is effective. In real-world combat, it would obviously not be something to use -- but it would be something to watch out for.
- The Persian "combined-arms squad" -- six riflemen, sharpshooter, and one or two RPG teams -- makes a lot of sense.
- Teams of troops can cover less ground, but are more survivable than individuals. It's harder to get cover from two lines of fire than from one.
- If you have a choice between fighting from behind sandbags and fighting concealed, fight concealed.
- One enemy in your rear is more dangerous than five or six coming from a direction you anticipate.
- There is such a thing as initiative on the battlefield. Take it.
- Become comfortable with all weaponry, and use the tactics best for the environment rather than shoehorning your favorite weapon into all circumstances.
- But there is such a thing as an environment best suited for jack-of-all-trades weapons.
- The enemy is harder to scare than he looks. Trying to scare him may just give away your position.
- Giving away the wrong position works, and works best against skillful adversaries. Just don't get seen as you move away, and don't bet too much on the trick working.
- Small-arms fire on the other side of hard cover is about as scary as the pitter-patter of rain on a tin roof.
- The good news about artillery fire is that it only works in massive quantities. The bad news is that that's how people use it.
- Fire the longest bursts you can.
The spooky thing about it: you can find every one of these lessons in H. John Poole's Phantom Soldier -- and in the hands of the armies he discusses there...
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