Killzone 3: assassination tango

Warzone, my new favorite way to play a multiplayer shooter until Section 8: Intolerance comes out, cycles the teams through different randomized objectives. For instance, assassination missions. One team is informed that it must kill a particular enemy player whose identity and location will be revealed in thirty seconds. The other team is told immediately whom the objective will be, and they have thirty seconds to form a defense around him.

After the jump, I single-handedly determine the outcome of two assassination missions

Bilgarsk Boulevard is an elbow bend in a ruined east/west thoroughfare. The good guys (I think they’re called the ECA or the IPA or the ISO or something) spawn in the northwest corner. The bad guys spawn in the southeast corner. In the southwest and northeast corners are two spawn points. The southwestern is usually controlled by the good guys. The northeastern is usually controlled by the bad guys.

Not in this game. When the match started, as our dutifully team-oriented tactician who can capture spawn points, I made a beeline to secure the southwest spawn point. And then I worked my way around the edge of the map to grab the other spawn point in the northeast. This meant the other team would always and only spawn from their default location in southeast corner.

Part of what’s great about controlling the spawn point in the northeast corner is that it provides a perfect angle on a mounted gun emplacement the other team uses to control the street. By just peeking around a corner, it’s a simple matter to kill the guy who’s jumped onto that mounted gun, peering down the open boulevard and convinced he’s going to lock down this side of the map. Dream on, my friend. I get several kills on dudes sitting in that emplacement with my shotgun, and for good measure I always blow up the turret itself until an enemy engineer gets around to fixing it.

When an assassination mission is announced, since we control all the spawn points, I’m pretty sure the target is going to appear in the southeast corner, a two-story edifice where the enemy spawns on the second story. So having shut down the gun emplacement yet again, I dash across the street waiting until the target lights up on my team’s HUD. But before it can happen, I see the designated dude skulking around in the shadows on the ground floor, obviously unsure where he should hide. I trigger my recon skill so I can follow his red dot on my radar. He falls back to an alley along the edge of the map. By watching the direction his dot is travelling, I can rush up behind him and unload a pair of shotgun blasts into him. He goes down. A third blast ensures that he can’t be revived by a medic.

We get the lovely “objective succeeded” message before the timer has even revealed to my team this guy’s identity and location. I assassinated him before he was ever famous! I am like the Terminator. Figuring that I’m a great position to pick off enemies heading out for whatever the next mission is, I fall back into ground floor of the enemy base. This will be great. This should be good for three or four kills easily. Just a few more seconds until the next mission is announced.

Any moment now.

Here it comes.

Ooh, another assassination mission! But this time, we have to defend the target. A quick look at the display in the upper right corner reveals the target will be player tomchick.

Whoa, wait. Me? I’m about to be lit up on every Hellghast screen in the game in thirty seconds? Not me! Not now! Not here! Oh crap, I have to get to someplace else on the map. Anyplace else!

In a blind panic, I dash out into the open street just in time to realize that the gunfire killing me is coming from the mounted gun I’d been farming for kills, which has been repaired and remanned.

Objective failed.

Up next: beyond warzone
Click here for the previous Killzone 3 game diary entry.