Maps

Co-Op

Emerald Scorpion

Emerald Scorpion is a fairly straightforward smash-em-up mission, with five or six targets scattered around a sizable enemy compound. The entire base is open, with plenty of walkways and open-windowed buildings, so attacks can come from any direction.

You will need satchel charges to destroy the gas barges and the weapons caches, but there are a few armories in the base itself, so obtaining these are no trouble. You get all of your objectives at the beginning of the mission, so there’s no need to do them in any order. On most servers, in fact, the players will be spread throughout the base pretty thoroughly, as it’s difficult to keep a team together when everyone has their own target that they’re gunning for. Still, the timeworn strategy of keeping a tight team together and having medics revive fallen soldiers will get you through this mission a lot quicker.

If you’re looking for some solo fun, you can take one of the ATVs south past the first objective until you reach the rear of the village, near the gas barges. Approaching from this direction means that all of the enemies will be facing away from you, which will let you get off some cheap shots before they have the opportunity to return fire.

Phoenix Dawn

In this mission, your team is tasked with tracking down the pilot of a crashed Blackhawk, then escorting him to a landing zone where he’ll be evacuated by helicopter. You’ll have to proceed along the river in the inflatable boats, but your path is watched by a couple dozen rebels at various locations, so keep your eyes peeled and let your passengers do the shooting. If you have a medic on board, it’s sometimes desirable to just blast through the river until you reach objective echo, which is where the Blackhawk came to rest. You can dodge the enemy fire easily enough if you go full tilt.

After you reach the Blackhawk, you’ll discover that the pilot has, predictably enough, been hauled off to the nearby enemy base. The distance between the enemy base and your initial spawn point is fairly immense, and the fact that you need a boat to get anywhere complicates matters quite a bit; if all of them get taken out, then anyone who spawns to the rear won’t have much choice but to sit around until one respawns or the round ends. To this end, it’s best to encourage everyone on your team to use the armory near the beginning of the map to change into a medic, if only to keep your force together. You won’t need any special equipment to complete the mission, so the generic M-16s will work fine, while your medic kit will let you revive fallen soldiers before you make the assault on the compound.

When you bust the pilot out of the base, head to the next objective to reach the helicopter exfiltration point.

Ghost Harvest

The hardest thing about Ghost Harvest is actually finding the locations of the items that you’re supposed to destroy. It’s a good chance the game will be pointing you in the wrong direction on your minimap most of the time, so the best you can usually do is to pop up your commander’s screen and scroll around, looking for settlements and concentrations of buildings, which is where the comm dishes, weapons caches, and so on will be located. You’ll need satchel charges to destroy the objectives, and even if you only require one charge for each object, that still means that you’ll want to be on the lookout for armories to restock your supply.

There’s a goodly amount of running around during this mission, so try to stick close to your teammates, and follow whoever looks like he knows where he’s going. Come to think of it, you can apply this advice to all areas of your life, at no extra charge.

Street Justice

Street Justice is a pretty straightforward assault-and-exfiltrate mission, but it’s a chance for you to jaunt through the urban environments that are pretty scarce in Joint Ops. If possible, change over to a rifleman (especially if solo), or a medic. You’ll mostly be facing infantry in this level, although there is a vehicle or two, so having an AT4 is desirable. Although there is a PSP in the middle of the level, you’re going to be traveling on foot, so having a medic or two along will help prevent fallen soldiers from having to respawn all the way at the entrance to the city.

If you get turned around in a co-op map, the commander’s screen can be a big help in reorienting yourself.

Most of the enemies you face here will be snipers, who are fairly easy to spot, as their sartorial taste tends towards the black-from-head-to-toe look, which contrasts with the overcast skies. They’ll be on rooftops, so keep your weapon on semi-automatic mode and fire away when they pop up. There will be soldiers on the ground as well, though, so lean around corners if possible and stay off the main streets; it’s best to try and weave through the buildings as you move, because the sightlines will be narrow enough for you to have a pretty precise idea of where fire is coming from when the vectors pop up on your minimap.

Shortly after you take point alpha, you’ll have to deal with a vehicle or two, but after that, it’s more or less a straight jog up to where the rebel commander (wearing standard-issue evil dictator sunglasses) is holed up. Eliminate him and his men and book it north until you reach the exfil point.

White Noise

Although the game will send you far to the east when you spawn, your first objective, X-ray, is actually to the north of your infiltration point. The only catch is that the bridge leading that way is busted. You can either take the ATVs at your spawn point and bust through a couple of enemy checkpoints to the east until you’re able to circle back around, or you can just swim across the river and head to the PSP on foot. Don’t do this unless you have a few comrades at your back, though, as there are plenty of soldiers in the woods, and they’re very tough to see at night.

After you get the new spawn point, it’s a relatively easy jaunt through the nearby village and up the mountain to reach the mine. There are armories inside the mine, so don’t worry about outfitting as an engineer from the outset; you can pick up satchel mines inside the mountain.