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[Property of Jumpship]

Like the game so far but I am confused on how to play it. It seems like there are lots of areas to explore and card packs to collect, but if I do those things my cost goes through the roof and I get a terrible grade at the ends of missions. So how the hell am I supposed to play this damn game, it seems counter-intuitive. Also, how do I use equipped weapons. I got the XM8 from passwords, I know I cheated, and I cant use it if I equip it. It says I need ammo, but I dont have any ammo cards, and if I get attacked, sometimes it will counter attack, but I thought it didnt have ammo!!?! (Sorry for the rambling)

Oh, I really suck at sneaking around guards, I always get caught and forced into a shoot-out with them. Which fucks up the grade at the ends of the missions. Any advice or pointers?

One more thing, sometimes I cant get to packs of cards if they are on top of vehicles and such....

Sorry for the long post.

Thanks.

 

[ChrisReid]

You need to make a judgement call on the packs around the level. Sometimes you'll be near them and it's just a quick grab. Sometimes you've set off too many alarms and can just spend the time picking them all up. Some people are much more concerned with getting the packs than getting a higher rating. It may well be you'll get more money's worth of packs in a level than you would be able to afford even if you S-ranked the stage.

An equipped weapon has enough ammo to counter a certain percenteage (REA: %) of the time, but to use proactively it must be combined with an ammo card. Ammo cards don't actually exist. You use another weapon card of the same caliber on top of the equipped weapon card to use it. The XM8 has a typo, it's 5.56 mm, not 5.45. The M4 or M4 silenced/scoped will work nicely as an ammo card for it.

Use boxes and stay out of the patrol routes to avoid detection. Or kill people before they can sound the alarm. Later on you'll get climing/hanging cards to get packs in out of the way places.

 

[bitwise]

chrisreid said it better

 

[Property of Jumpship]

Thanks for the info ChrisReid. I appreciate it. If I might trouble you for one more stupid question: Do you have to stop on the square that the card packs are located, or can you just walk over the square to pick them up.

Thnaks again.

 

[bitwise]

you got to stop on the square.

 

[ChrisReid]

Yeah, there's some devilishly placed packs (Residential area comes to mind) where you have packs, doors and laser sensors at the doors. So you have to stop on the card packs to grab them, stop in front of doors (to open them) and also crawl under the laser beams to avoid detection. It eats up a hell of a lot of time for a bunch of MGS1 packs. But if you're already taking too long, you might as well ignore the laser beams and grab all the packs you can.

Because of how out of the way some packs are, in some cases it seems that acquiring them all is just sort of like a secondary fun objective for certain people. I have a friend who is acquiring all the card packs as he goes AND doing so without being seen/getting kills. He's going slow, but he's at least a third of the way through the game so far as such.

 

[Maleficent]

You can go back and get the packs on a replay also. I'll grab if close otherwise I'll just replay and pick up the packs and some more jack for cards.

 

[mosaic]

The card packs just give out random cards, same as the ones in the shop do. May as well go back and get them during EX mission replays or just ignore them altogether.

The XM8 is an awesome weapon when paired with weapon cards that provide ammo for it, but for your first run through, I'd suggest trying to stockpile Stealth and Cost-8 cards. 4 of each in a deck, along with a couple of Action+ cards can really increase your options and get you through a level faster. Nice thing is, all those cards are available in MGS2 packs.

I spent a bunch of time my first run-through replaying Mission 4A just to rack up points to spend in the shop. Nice thing about that mission is the play area is small and the mines are easy to avoid once you learn where they are (most pesky is the one just to the right of the crates you start near).

You get to keep all the cards you've amassed on subsequent replays... I'm on my fourth go-round (second time on Extreme) and actually not finding the game much of a challenge any more. Fine by me, since the game clock says 63 hours.... I'd say my $40 investment was well spent.