3-2: Rescue The Rescuers

3-2: Rescue The Rescuers (Day 2)

More than one use for a minigun

Mission Intro

The TOC has lost contact with Neptune and Wolfpack is three mountains away.  With time running out, there is only one option -- send in the ORF.  You once again step into the boots of Ranger SPC Dante Adams and are inserted on top of Takur Ghar to gind Neptune.

Mission Start

The mission begins in the bird, with the Rangers getting ready to dismount.  The bird takes some hits, and then so do your men!  The bird lands hard -- well, maybe crashes softly is more accurate -- and although you are shaken you are mostly okay.  You are ordered to man the minigun mounted on the side of the bird, so do that, concentrating your fire on the RPG Tangos as they present a much greater threat to the crashed bird than the others do at the moment.

The optional Achievement for this Mission is called "Timber!" and to unlock it all you have to do is chop down 5 trees with the minigun.  You can easily do that while defending the bird so don't be tempted to just get that out of the way first -- that will allow you to get hit if you do.

After you take enough enemy out with the mini you will get knocked on your ass -- that is the signal that you are done using the mini and it is time to be infantry again!  Grab your socks and your... Err... Right -- exit the bird and start picking-off bad guys.  I suggest switching your weapon to single-shot mode if only because you will want to conserve ammo.

Once you have taken out all of the loose tourists your team leader will call in some fast movers of the F-16 variety to provide a little clean-up on that fixed MMG ahead that, no matter how carefully you place your shots you are not going to be able to shut down on your own. 

Once you get the radio contact from the fast mover move to the CAS position and mark the target for them and they will take out the bunker.  Continue along the path until you encounter a second bunker with an MMG -- taking out the loose change along the way.

You need to be careful here as the enemy will flank your position and set you up in a cross-fire if you are not.  Like before move to the CAS marker and light-up the bunker, then retreat to a safe firing position and continue to defend.

Once the F-16 drops in, you will advance with your team, and the FNG -- Hernandez -- will do something really stupid because that is what FNG's do, and nearly gets himself dead.  Now you have another problem you have to deal with -- a spider hole that is not empty and a wounded team member.

The Cave

After the leader pops a frag in, you might want to arm your shotgun as it is good for this type of fighting.  The spider hole turns out to be a mine or a cave -- and as you work your way in, the enemy retreats.  Take them out as best you can and carefully move from cover to cover.

As you progress you will reach a section that is pitch black, so you will need to use your NVG's.  Of course you know that the reason it is pitch black is so that you use your NVG's so that the enemy can pop a flar out and blind you, right?  Well, right, but we all have to do our part in this -- so work your way forward until you must rip your NVG's off, then start killing bad guys.

Now at this point you will actually get rushed by a sizable group -- and this is where your shotgun will come in handy, because it allows you the luxury of crowd control.  Just point it in the general direction of the bad guys and you can rip chunks out of their bodies with it!

Cave Bug Warning

At this point the mission can get a little bugged. 

Your buddy will tell you to follow him, and the checkpoint marker will center on him, but he will just crouch there in the middle of the cave and never move forward.  The mechanism that will move him is a pair of enemy that are supposed to spawn in the cave ahead -- but the thing is you have to trigger that spawn.  How you do that is you move up the wooden ramp and trigger the spawn by walking along the right side.  If you stay too far to the left side, the spawn is not triggered, and once you pass that spot you cannot come back and trigger it.

If that happens, you will have to reload the last checkpoint.  You cannot go forward on your own because when you get to the exit an invisible wall prevents you from using it, because you never killed the enemy that are supposed to be in the way, causing your buddy to advance!  If you do go ahead to the exit, you cannot go back to your buddy because you cannot climb the small drop you went down to get to the exit.  All I can say is embrace the suck, reload the checkpoint, re-fight the flare battle, and this time be sure that you properly trigger the spawn.

End of Bug

Now that you triggered it your buddy moves forward and you engage the pair, then he leads the way into the cave!  Stay with Patterson and he will give you a running commentary on the path, what you are hearing, you know, descriptive stuff -- because when he is not doing his bit in the Army National Guard he is a tour guide at Universal Studios and he just cannot stop the narrative, it comes naturally to him!

At the exit you hook up with Preacher and Voodoo -- hey!  Those are the blokes you came to rescue!  So it is good news and bad news -- they are okay but Rabbit and Mother are dead.

On the ground outside of the cave is a sniper rifle -- you may want to swap your shotgun for that now, as it may be a little more useful to you.  Follow the team do the camp and take out the bad guys.  Remember you have that nice sniper rifle so there is no reason I can think of to get closer to the enemy before you kill them, is there?

There are a lot of very easy melon shots here, and with the sniper and your  regular scoped carbine you should find this a breeze to work through.  You know as I was moving forward I found another one of the plastic patio chairs from my deck laying here.  I wondered what happened to those!

By the way you have like 16 grenades on you - and your carbine has an under-barrel grenade launcher...  I am just saying you have plenty of options here, you do not have to be pinned down if you decide you do not want to be :)

As you move towards the next camp you will see that there is a larger force waiting here.  I do not know about you but I was surprised at how many of them there were, and the fact that I heard some Russian being yelled.  Watch the area to the left of the main fly tent -- there are a pair of snipers up there who will let you get past and then open up on you.

Once you take them out you can try to flank their buddies by going to their position and shooting right.    If you fail to do that more will simply take up that position and fire down on you so you should do it.  After you take out the last group head for the hoist location -- but before you use it restock grenades and maybe swap the PKM here for your sniper rifle which is probably out of ammo anyway.

After the hoist your buddy finds Rabbit's luck rabbit foot -- not a good sign right?  Follow the team down the path here and when you get below take cover as you get attacked.  Did you grab the PKM?  Bet you are glad you did eh?  Well?  Use it!

On the ground on the ridge to the left is a sniper rifle that offers you ten chances to reach out and touch someone in a way they will not like.  After that get your PKM back and start working your way to the checkpoint marker!  Once you get close enough it will trigger an exchange of ideas that focuses upon the nearby Predator Drone...

Another Cave

After the drone takes out the bunker you move up to discover yet another cave...  And in you go!  At the back of the cave is a door -- you stack up at the door and kick it in -- and discover that Rabbit is NOT dead after all!  Excellent! 

While this CS plays out you unlock the Achievements "Eight Heroes Aboard" for completing Rescue the Rescuers, "Rangers Lead the Way" for completing Dante's Missions, "The Battle is Won..." for finishing the game, and "...But the War Rages On" if you played through on Hard difficulty.

As you carry him out your POV changes to his POV, and you hear the team calling for dust-off.  You are hurt pretty bad, and the dust-off is taking a long time.  Mother is there -- hey, Mother survived!  Cool! 

As you sit slowly bleeding to death the dust-off still has not come.  You are in and out of consciousness, but you can tell by the expressions on your buddies that this does not look good.  And then you face to black.

The last thing that we see is Rabbit's body on the floor of the dust-off.  Yeah, I said body. In the distance out the rear of the bird we see the base taking some air strikes, then the screen fades to black and you get the epilogue to the story.  Bummer about Rabbit, eh?

After the epilogue we get a peak at what might be the opening of the first mission for the sequel for this and then the credits roll.

Wrapping Things Up

The story mode of the game is now over -- unless you want to replay the game in Tier 1 Mode, which from what I gather is pretty intense...  You do have to play through once all the way in order to unlock the Tier 1 Mode though. 

You very likely have a few Achievements left from story mode that are still locked.  If your game ran like mine, that will probably include "Crowd Control" for killing 5 enemies with one grenade, "The Scalpel" for 20 knife kills, and "The Quiet Professional" for taking out 13 enemies without an alarm in Neptune's Net. 

All things being equal that is not really a bad missed-Achievement list if you stop and think about it, and fortunately if unlocking Achievements is important to you, these ones are pretty easy to go back and unlock. 

Chances are you played some multi-player in between story mode sessions, so you likely have a few Achievements unlocked from that -- those are beyond the scope of this walkthrough however, as is the Multi-Player Mode, though I do touch upon it in the next section.

While I think that the story mode here was shorter than I would have liked, all in all I rather enjoyed this game.  It did not have the same heart-thumping build-ups that were common in MW2, and it lacked the over-the-top language of Rogue Warrior, but there is certainly a place in my gaming world for a game like this, and I will be playing through it again in Tier 1 mode eventually.

I hope that you enjoyed this walkthrough and that you found it to be useful -- I know I enjoyed writing it!