Open Revolution Group

A Sniper's Blues - 26 January 2003

Open both of your eyes as big as possible when you're dealing with system configurations . Last Thursday , I meddled with Madboot and guess what ? One small mistake and all the datas on my hard disk just got wiped out like that . It's just like an atomic being dropped off onto my hard drive . I don't know which button I pressed . When I reboot my PC , I can't even access my PC and confronted with the 'DISK BOOT FAILURE INSERT BOOT DISK TO CONTINUE' message .

When I checked the partition info on my hard drive with FDISK , All they showed me were nothing , nata ! No logical partition was defined . I was shocked . All the stuffs ( MP3s , webpage , Emails ) were gone forever . Luckily I still had a backup copy ... It's better to have 75% of the files than nothing . That day was on Thursday . Big deal . Two more days and I will be sitting for the economics exam . I was overwhelmed with fear and misery . I'm afraid that I can't concentrate to my studies .

When I finished my economics exam , which was yesterday , I started to fix my PC . I thought of installing XP . That baka OS had brought me much trouble . I've formatted and redefined the partition on my hard drive for more than 5 times in 2 days . Now , my hard drive started to develop some bad sectors . The big problem with XP was that , whenever I shutdown my PC , it just tend to reboot my PC . I asked the technician at the PC shop before and checked out a few websites . All they told me is to disable some sort of APM thingy . The problem is , I can't find a single word called 'APM' in the Power Management settings .

I was so frustrated and I just made my final decision : To install Windows 98 . As I just expected , there's no power issue for Win 98 . Besides , I already had some sentimental value of Win 98 , so , I just stick back to the contemporary OS . What I worried most are the bad sectors . I don't know when they will bring me troubles .

Neways , I just cleared the arcade sniper game : SOGEKI , last night . I spent 4 ringgits to clear the game . That night I was very lucky because I managed to kill the final boss which I consider the hardest boss that I ever encountered throughout the game . Actually , the story is about a sniper with his mission to wipe out a terrorist organization in 6 devastating missions . I think the sniper rifle used in this game was PSG-1 . It runs on 6 bullets and it can shoot very fast .

SOGEKI was based on one of Konami's sniper game : Silent Scope . The concepts are much alike to Silent Scope .... especially the skull icon when you got a headshot during the bosses' stage . I prefer SOGEKI than Silent Scope since it was improved in all aspects . The physics model used in this game were totally realistic ... especially in stages 5 and 6 . Graphics are superb and the handling is much easier than Silent Scope . However , in SOGEKI , you need more patience . One missed shot , and you're prone to more terrorists shooting back at you .

In the first mission of SOGEKI , you arrived at a building-hijacking scene where you have to eliminate all the terrorists before it's too late . But don't worry . All the terrorists didn't notice your presence since you'll be going to shoot them at a building opposite to the road . They just walk around like stooges . Tips : Aim for headshots and gain as much bonus life as possible . Shoot them as fast as possible because you don't want to lose any lives . Use your scope as often as possible . Frankly speaking , shooting without using the scope is RECKLESS . You're shooting at a long distance . An offset of an inch can mean between successful or failure shots . Sniper rifles are damn sensitive . When you came to the boss level , notice that all of his body parts moved except for his head . Although there is a female hostage at stake , but that doesn't mean that you can't shoot him as fast as possible . Aim for his head and you'll do just good .

For mission two , you will be given a chance to choose between the boat-hijacking scene or the plane-hijacking scene . I normally choose the latter although it's much harder than the first one . Ironically , the boss level in the first option is much harder to shoot . Believe me , it's that hard . First of all , without using the scope , just use your naked eyes and scan through the windows of the airplane . You should be able to see some moving shadow in one of the windows . Point the window and shoot the terrorist's head by referring to your scope . There will be three terrorists standing near windows to be shot at . Getting a head shot for these terrorists is much easy . So , don't miss those shots . After that , the other terrorists will run in panic looking for your location . Now , they will shoot at you . So , locate and shoot them as fast as possible . There will be three of them . After you shot them , another terrorist will appear between the hostages . For this one , shoot at his head . You should be able to shoot him without injuring the other hostages . Finally , comes the boss stage . For this one , you must have patience . Lack of patience will kill you . After all , sniping is all about patience . Align your LOS ( line-of-sight ) carefully before pulling the trigger . The trick is to wait until the boss fully showed up his head . Don't shoot his head when he didn't showed up his head . I tried out this many times and I just failed to kill the boss .

I think missions 1 and 2 is relatively easier than the later missions . So , you should aim for more head shot and get at least 90% life before moving to mission 3 . In mission 3 , it's desert shooting . More moving targets . Your hands must be steady . The enemies are getting more aggresive . They shoot and they throw grenades at you too . Again , don't shake your hands . Be careful too when you shoot down from a high altitude . The wind will offset the bullet , causing your shot to be a failure . In this mission , the boss is much harder to kill . He is sitting in the helicopter and you need to shoot at him at least 30 times to kill him . However , there's an alternative . You can shoot at his head for an instant kill . Sounds easy , but , the helicopter moves around very fast and made the alignment of shots became harder . Sometimes , instead of shooting his head , you will also shot at his teddy bear . Very funny . Here is the attacking pattern that I discover from the boss if you wanted to shoot at his head . First , his helicopter will shoot at you and moves towards you very fast . There's one time I was so lucky that I just shot his head without using the scope . But , don't depend on your luck so much . If you failed to shoot him that time , then wait and look into your scope . He will fly in front of you at a very far distance . This time , he's idle and aim for his head . His head looked a small dot although in your scope . So , aim carefully . You have at least 3 to 4 seconds before he make his move . Remember ! Only one shot is permitted . If you miss the shot , He will start moving and it will be hard for you to make another shot . If you missed this one , don't worry . You still have another chance . He will go back to that position and this time , you will have a longer time to aim , because , he'll gonna shoot missiles towards you . If you got shaky hands , just try to shoot at his cockpit as many times as possible . Sometimes , you can get a headshot . You must kill him this time , or his missiles might kill ya ! If you missed the shot again ... you must now shoot him at any parts of the helicopter until his life dropped to zero !

Tomorrow will be the final day of my semester 2 exam . I can sense freedom coming my way ....

Solid Snake - Sniping in MGS3 soon
8:45pm GMT +8