by Reece Merryweather-Brown
So, you’ve played the game. You’ve liberated all the outposts (20 times), you’ve got all the weapons, camos and attachments. You’ve found all the drug formulas, collected all the intel, hell you’ve even managed to snag those pesky relics and are top of your game on all the Rakyat challenges. Rook Island has, for all intents and purposes, been conquered. But here’s a crazy idea. What about starting again?
So, you’ve played the game. You’ve liberated all the outposts (20 times), you’ve got all the weapons, camos and attachments. You’ve found all the drug formulas, collected all the intel, hell you’ve even managed to snag those pesky relics and are top of your game on all the Rakyat challenges. Rook Island has, for all intents and purposes, been conquered. But here’s a crazy idea. What about starting again?
I don’t know about you but I’m a massive fan of survival games, not horror, but survival. Being clever, taking cover, picking the right moment and lining up your shots perfectly. And for the first few chapters this game is exactly what you want it to be, a survival game. But soon our under-equipped American friend Jason Brody is suddenly all too equipped. He can take 20 bullets without breaking a sweat, run indefinitely and hold his breath for like 60 seconds; he’s like a superhuman. And sure, bursting into an outpost all four guns blazing, spamming 18 molotovs around you like a maniac screaming ‘WOOOOOO!’ is fun for a while, but don’t you ever get bored?
The way to play: Begin your adventure anew. Stick it onto the hardest difficulty ‘Master.’ How do you know it’s the real deal? The caption reads, ‘Worse than malaria.’ You know shit’s on when your game is making references to an annoying arse mechanic that the franchise itself created. So, you’re probably thinking ‘well, how hard can it be?’ It takes around three bullets to murder you. Yep. Three, bloody, bullets. Maybe four if you’re lucky. The enemies are crack shots and scary smart (like, Skynet or something) and come at you just when you’re at your weakest, trying to bandage your scratched arm for the fifth time that firefight. ‘But Reece’ you say, with confusion, ‘anyone can do that. That’s easy.’ Well my friends, the thing that really makes this a survival game is if you barely upgrade your character. Forget adding health-bars, unlimited sprinting and explosive resistant skin. Forget having holsters for four guns and enough pouches to carry an entire arsenal of thrown weaponry. If you do this, then the game becomes much more difficult, much scarier and above all more fun. Yeah, killing an entire group of people by stabbing one dude and tapping fire a bunch of times is cool. But imagine stabbing one guy, stealing his gun and laying waste to all his buddies. What makes the other so much more exhilarating and fun than the other? Because with the latter, you know that if you screw it up, you’re dead and this is what gives you that adrenaline rush so that when you get out of it alive, you can sit back with a content sigh of relief and a silent ‘fuck yeah.’
It’s even better if: You manage to complete the game this way. Doing all those incredibly difficult missions with barely any health or firepower makes the whole thing that much more rewarding. And at the end of it, you can reset the outposts so you can continue having your fun in ultimate, hard-core, realism mode.
Overall, by playing the game this way you turn an otherwise amazing game into something truly brilliant. Everything you do will have more of a feeling of accomplishment and triumph. Killing a tiger on a normal difficulty with four guns and 6 health slots? No biggie. Killing a tiger with 2 health slots, a machete and an M1911? Now that’s the real deal.
Overall, by playing the game this way you turn an otherwise amazing game into something truly brilliant. Everything you do will have more of a feeling of accomplishment and triumph. Killing a tiger on a normal difficulty with four guns and 6 health slots? No biggie. Killing a tiger with 2 health slots, a machete and an M1911? Now that’s the real deal.
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