Splinter cell 2 - training tips

[John Beaulieu]

1. Learn the maps - even though you think you have them down still search for more hidden passageways/ziplines etc. for example i thought i had warehouse pretty much sussed and yet whenever i respawned and needed to get to area 3 i went through area's 1 and 2 wasting precious time, when there are 2 access points for area 3 to the right of your respawn point (playing as spy). its good to know the routes for spies when you are playing as a merc since you know where they can come into a level/room - thus you can keep scanning those access points. As spies you should know the quickest escape routes from the area - where's the nearest airconditioning access etc. its also good to know the blind spots in each level - as a spy you can sit quietly in them and observe and as a merc you can spy trap/mine them

2. Equip yourself well - by this i mean have the right items on your quick select buttons (L and R). as a spy i always have flashbangs and smoke grenades on my quick select so if i am discovered i can drop both and either stand still (switch to thermal then stun or headlock the merc) or just bail the area.

3. Spies should never kill mercs - sounds like a boring option but when you kill the merc they get a fresh supply of mines/spy traps/grenades. keep them alive so that they are struggling (they can only resupply their bullets)

4. Patience is a virtue but speed is essential. sounds like a contradiction but its easy to explain. getting to cannisters quickly is essential to 'killing off' the game but there are times when you might be so close to a cannister that you can taste it and yet if you rush in you will get blown to **** by a dodgy mine or picked up on a spy trap. get into place and scan the area - long scan by naked eye and quick scan with thermal/night vision

5. Spies should restrict night vision and thermal to a bare minimum. once again its a case of learning the levels so you can run about in the darkness but a good merc team will have one scanning with motion whilst the other is using EM. try to quick scan with either view and always move before doing it again

6. Phosphorus grenades are good for scaring spies into moving - fire them into an area they are hiding and they will at first think they are frags - so move quickly out of the way (exposing themselves to motion detection). i haven't found them to be as useful in their actual aim (ie lighting up a spy) since their effect is very short lived.

[007]

Good tips camps.

Also, don't under estimate the importance of sticky cams.

Stick them outside a room near where you are hacking a terminal. Therefor, if someone comes, you can stop hacking, go into hiding then return a bit later. If you are killed hacking, when you come back to hack it again, you will have to start from the beginning. Where as if you pull away you can start off where you left off.

And who showed you the route to area 3 camps.

[jcee]

Some good tippage. The best piece of advice I can offer is to proxy mine the canisters as quick as you can when playing as the merc, it sounds so obvious but aids in early spy detection immensely as they make an almighty noise when destroyed by the spy.

[Soi]

Good tips them all.

As for the tip of prox mining the canisters, sure it will kill people who rush in but it won't trouble people who approach them slowly. It is very easy for a spy to creep up to a proxy mine and remove it. Same with Spy Detectors.

I have another quite obvious tip that might have been missed by some. As a spy you often crawl about above a room in the gaps between the ceiling and hte floor above. Mercs can shoot you through the thin ceiling layer, and can see you with their EM vision.

[nonny]

But there are two types of proximity mines, read the manual.

Also Mercs can listen into spy conversations provided they have the binoculars equipped and are zoomed in on a spy.. again its in the manual. I havent tried this myself yet though.

Tips for sticky cams. Well they emit gas that knocks out / kills Mercs... Tip here is to get a double team thing going for one cannister. If the mercs are covering the cannister well one fire a sticky cam down and make sure the coast is clear. The other heads down, starts hacking and then stops immediately and hides. Luring the mercs to the warning sound, then when they get close gas them.

Fire extinguishers are useful... same as the gas tip.

You can stop hacking and then re-hack and continue where you left off so hack one cannister and then stop mid-hack and move to another and repeat. Its possible to get both Mercs moving back and forth between the two and never catching you. Alternatively work co-op with your teammate and do this without ever actually leaving some areas... One hacks then hides, gives the nod to the other to start hacking... repeat process.

For Mercs... learn the map as a spy first, not having night vision means all the maps look dark and gloomy which is hard if your trying to get your bearings first. Start playing as a spy and learn the routes Mercs cant take. Then when you play as a Merc it means you already know the main entry points for a Spy so you can counter.

Already mentioned above but have one Merc go EM vision and one Motion Detection to track down spies easier. Just remember a slow moving spy wont appear on motion detection and one not using their vision modes will be invisible to EM as well.

In some levels as a Merc, dust and debris will fall from ceilings due to spies being in the air ducts etc... wondered what the hell it was as first but its a nice touch...

[John Beaulieu]

drop a mixture of prox mines - close proximity and laser - the laser ones still detonate no-matter how slow the spy approaches them and if they go with a close prox in residence then you get double the 'splashage' killing any spies who trigger them (i have survived a blast from only 1 mine quite a few times)

i didn't even know mercs had binoculars - do you mean the scope on the rifle?

[gooner]

3. Spies should never kill mercs - sounds like a boring option but when you kill the merc they get a fresh supply of mines/spy traps/grenades. keep them alive so that they are struggling (they can only resupply their bullets)

Thats a top tip, after reading that last night i didnt kill a merc and finally won my first round

My tip is to keep still when the mercs are close by, if your in the dark they can only see you if you move or use a leccy device, so keep still. running around flash baning and what not, doesnt work

[nonny]

i didn't even know mercs had binoculars - do you mean the scope on the rifle?

Yeh sorry I meant the zoom on the rifle scope. Just found out this works for both spies and mercs... you can zoom in with the binoculars or rifle scope and as long as the centre reticle is on the target you can listen to the other teams comm channel.

Another tip... if you drop down on a merc from above once you knock them out but you can re-climb to the same position and do it again to kill them... cheezy and worthless (as you want to keep them alive) but it works.

[John Beaulieu]

cheers for the one nonny - gonna be saving my spy bullets from now on

[nonny]

In the tutorials menu there is a "visit a map" option which lets you play any of the multiplayer levels offline on your own so you can get to know each one better.

Probably obvious to some but I only found that out last night!