Sound

There are only a couple sounds you need to listen for. All the rest are basically just ear candy. The sound dynamics are not as intricate as Novalogic's slogans make them out to be.
1) The ping of gunfire on the ground at your feet. This is never good. When you hear tracers lance off the ground, it's time to find where the bullets came from and fire back, or better yet, run and hide.
2) Muzzle sounds. The type of gunfire is pretty distinct and easy to discern. The SAW sounds like a chain gun, the M4 sounds like the ta-ta-ta of a tommygun, the M203 sounds like a swoosh, the M40 has the "pop" and the click of manual reloading, the Barrett has the resounding "Boom!", and the Colt .45 has a raucous "Pow! Pow! Pow!" sound. When you're getting sniped from afar or you're just over the hill from a hotspot, sounds are pretty useful to keep track of, so you know what kind of mess you're getting into. I'm going to stop at that, because the practical uses should be logical; if you hear an M4 shoot at you, you know your sniper must not be very far away. And so on.
I'll add in examples of all types of sounds if I ever figure out how to record them clearly.
3) Footsteps. This noise is rarely heard in ordinary combat as an only sign, but if you do hear them it's probably because you're a sniper holed up somewhere. Make sure on the GPS that its a teammate, otherwise it's frag grenade time.

� Copyright 1998 Stanley Lin. Duplication without author's consent is prohibited.