These guys pack either Magnums or SMGs, but are more dangerous because of their defensive capabilities than due to their offensive prowess. The Riot Shield wielding foes are the ones you really need to watch out for. A grenade at the feet of a mask-wearing enemy will be an instant kill. They'll eventually get knocked down, then staggar back up, but if you keep firing at them, they'll go down eventually. If you have to take them down the old-fashioned way, you can just unload on their chest area. Alternately, if you manage to land two or three headshots from the front, you'll knock the mask off, allowing you to finish off the enemy with one more shot to the head. If you manage to hit a Mask in the head from behind, they can still be vulnerable to headshots, since the mask doesn't wrap all the way around.
The Masks can be killed either with body shots or headshots, but will take nvincing before they die. They also pack shotguns, which will let them do an extreme amount of damage when they get close to you, and a buffed-up amount of body armor. Masks are buffed-up versions of normal soldiers, with metal masks on their faces to protect them from headshots. Shooting them in the chest is an effective way to take them down, but if you manage to get a headshot on them, they'll go down in one shot, accompanied by an appropriately satisfying "plink" sound as their helmets pop off.
These guys wield SMGs, assault rifles, and RPGs, by and large. Normal soldiers are pretty much just grunts, but there are around 1,500 of them in the Seventh Wave army, so you're going to have to take a bunch of them down before you complete the game. There are three basic types of foes in the game: normal soldiers, masks, and riot shields. This is obviously going to be most useful against hard targets like masked and riot shield enemies, who can take a huge amount of damage before finally going down. While you might think that a grenade would be an awfully small target to hit, the game gives you the benefit of the doubt in most cases, and so long as your crosshairs are anywhere near the grenade, it'll instantly blow up, hopefully before your target is able to run. It's pretty simple, really when you chuck a grenade, quickly bring your crosshairs back down to the area where you threw the grenade and start firing at it. Since you can't cook your grenades by holding onto them, your only real option when attempting to grenade an opponent will be to rely on the almighty shoot-the-grenade trick. They're fast, too, and will usually succeed in getting out of harm's way before the grenade detonates. When you throw a grenade at an enemy, they'll usually book it for cover in whatever direction will get them the furthest away from your payload in the shortest amount of time.
One of the tricks of the trade in Black is the fine art of shooting grenades after you've thrown them. GameSpot's Game Guide for Black features a full walkthrough, including tips on how to proceed through the game and a full fifteen videos to help you through the roughest parts of the game. On top of all this, Black also features a shadowy (and more than a little melodramatic) plot featuring back-room dealings and one seriously flawed soldier. Having been described at one point as "gun porn", Black contains some incredibly realistic renditions of real-world weapons. Although it doesn't have any multiplayer, it should satisfy your solo cravings for destructions, with its largely destructible environments and excellent animations. Luckily for you, Black is also a pretty decent shooter in its own right. With an emphasis on stylish action and huge explosions, Black is certainly a visual showcase for the systems it runs on. By: Matthew Rorie Design: Randall MontanariĮA and Criterion's Black has been turning heads for the past couple of years now, first in back-room, press-only demonstrations, then busting out in more public trailers over the past half-year or so.