VARSITY – Essen, Germany

So it’s time to jump into Germany. In Essen it’s your duty to locate and destroy tanks that are secured for transport on railcars, an ammo cache in the tank factory basement, the tank factory control room, a rail gun and a chemical factory. If this top shopping list wasn’t enough to ask of you, when you jump in you suddenly notice that this place is very industrial with lots of hidey holes. Unfortunately for you, those hidey holes are full of, and I mean full of snipers. The second you touch down the camping sniper losers are onto you and you desperately look for some cover. Thankfully if you remember what I said about the sniper in Husky, the snipers here are also equipped with the Roo Shooter halogen spotlight system and it’s not long before you pick them off one by one, it’s a bit detrimental to the experience I think. Completing the objectives is a slow and arduous process in this one, running in and out of factory’s full of gang walks and Germans you’re really hard pressed to make progress without losing a lot of health. As you hit the Tank Factory control room objective make sure to look out for the safe there. It’s got an explosives plant spot and blowing that safe will present you with the C96 Mauser handgun.

Once all the main objectives are complete your final task is to secure the drop zone, doing this presents you with a cut scene and I actually thought that was it, then an armoured train (Panzerzug) rocked up. Out of the train’s steam stepped one mean looking dude in a black Nazi uniform, gas mask and a shiny black helmet (endearingly named the Nazi Elite Trooper). What distinguished this guy from the rest was the fact that he was carrying an MG42 and firing it off the hip, Rambo style. Not only was this badass scary looking, he could take a lot of hits. Fire all you want, he just won’t go down until you get several good rounds into his cranium. That’s when I discovered a batch of Gammon Grenades (the tank destroying ones) in a box in the corner and I went to town on that psycho. Two Gammon grenades and the big scary guy was reduced to a sorry looking ragdoll stuck to the front of the train he rolled in on. I met two of these guys from the train, then had to pick off a few lowly soldiers before going on to destroy the train, so ending Operation Varsity.