CoD4 Veteran Mode: The easy way through the hard bits
This is a quick guide / walkthrough to the three hardest parts of Call Of Duty 4 on Veteran mode. I got quite frustrated with these sections because most of the time you get killed either by grenades or due to the sheer number of enemies that continually respawn, making it more luck than skill to get through. Fortunately I found some easy ways through. Watch out, here be spoilers…
1. "Charlie Don't Surf" - inside the TV station
When you make your way through the TV station, you'll pass through a server room and come out in a large open plan office. Within a few seconds the office and the balcony above it fills up with enemies firing, chucking grenades and launching RPGs at you. Normally people say you have two options here. First you could hang back and wait in the server room until your invincible teammates clear the area - I found this doesn't work at all, because the enemy forces just keep respawning (and will eventually start coming into the server area after you). The second option is to rush to the offices opposite the entrance and try and make your way through there. This is possible but it's more luck than skill because you'll usually be forced out of the offices by grenades, then instantly killed.
Here's the much easier way.
When you enter the open plan office, immediately run towards the central set of desks/monitors (marked with a 1 on the picture). As soon as you're near there, or if you hear the enemy start to shout at you, throw a flashbang at the doorway marked 2. This is where all the enemies spawn from. As soon as you've thrown the flashbang, rush into the entranceway on the right side of that far wall, marked 3. It's just a tiny dead end, but it will give you a few seconds breathing room. Be ready to throw back any grenades that get chucked in.
Wait in this dead end for about 30 seconds and your teammates will join you. Then slowly edge out of the doorway keeping your gun aimed down the wall at doorway 2. There will be some enemies standing in front of the doorway, possibly just out of your view. Throw a frag grenade and two flashbangs in front of the doorway (make sure you don't blind yourself), then rush from entranceway 3 to doorway 2. When you get in doorway 2 keep running - the corridor has a 90 degree right turn which ends in a set of closed doors. Run to the doors, stop, take a breath. You've done it! Getting to this point stops new enemies from spawning, so just slowly and carefully creep back to the main office area and kill off the remaining few enemies. Don't forget to destroy the TVs if you're doing the "Your Show Sucks" achievement!
2. "One Shot, One Kill" - in the fairground
At the end of this chapter you have to make your way to the extraction point whilst carrying MacMillan. Once there you're stuck in the mother of all firefights with grenades, snipers and machine guns firing at you. I tried hiding everywhere on the map but either the radiation killed me or the enemies found me. Fortunately I found a hiding place. You may not like this one as it's about a 50% glitch, but it's the only way I found to get through.
When you're carrying MacMillan, the game will tell you what spot to put him down at. It will be on a grassy ridge to the right of the ferris wheel, as in this first picture. Take note of the tree that's been circled.
He'll tell you to put out your claymores, and you have 30 seconds to do so. Stick them at the entrance to the park, opposite where you put MacMillan down. Save a couple. Go back to MacMillan and wait for the first wave of enemies. These guys are easy enough to kill, just snipe them.
When you're done you'll have a short break to run for more weapons, ammo etc before more enemies come in via helicopter. This is where it gets nasty. Immediately run to the ferris wheel and plant C4 on it and around it. Then plant whatever claymores you want, but the C4 is the important part. Now run back to the tree circled in the picture above. Run round the back of it and make sure you've got the right one. You'll know its the right one because it will have the main tree trunk then two smaller stems coming off the trunk and going into the ground on either side. I've outlined it in this next picture:
Stand BEHIND the tree so that MacMillan is on your left, the wheel is on your right and the open ground is in front of you. Go prone. Now crawl towards the tree, and aim at the space between the main trunk and the RIGHT HAND root/stem. If you've done it right you'll find you can crawl half into the tree! You'll need to practice this a couple of times because you can still get shot when you're in there, but the tree protects you from most attacks (including grenades).
If you're in there and getting shot just maneouvre around slightly until you're safe, staying inside the tree at all times. If you get a grenade warning just move backwards a little bit. You can also crawl "through" the tree slightly to fire at enemies and throw grenades. Just wait it out until the rescue chopper arrives. The enemy giving you the biggest problems will be to your right, on the ferris wheel. Now's the time to detonate your C4. Slide out a little bit, throw a flashbang towards the wheel and carefully check he's dead. Then run and grab MacMillan as quickly as you can - once you're holding him you're generally safe. Take him to the rescue chopper, and that's it!
3. "Mile High Club"
Although most people say this is the hardest part of the game, I found it easier than One Shot One Kill once I'd found this trick to get through it. You need to remember two things about this level. First, your teammates are invincible. Second, they will rush only to the same area as you're standing in. This means the trick is NOT to kill as many enemies as quickly as possible, but to move forward without dying as quickly as possible. Sounds stupid and obvious, right? Not exactly. There are YouTube videos showing a different way to do this, but the players are way more accurate and faster than me. My way doesn't need super accurate firing, and it also got me to the hostage with lots of time to spare. Expect to have to practice this a bit before you get the timing right.
As soon as you spawn, start running. Run straight past the toilet on your left and ignore the enemy in it. 9 times out of 10 your teammates will kill him for you, as long as you stick close to the left hand wall when running. Even if he shoots you, keep going. Run through the entrance of the meeting room then immediately lock onto the enemy in front of you and kill him.
This next part is the hardest, and it's the most important to get done quickly. Walk through the meeting room repeatedly clicking the left trigger to lock onto the enemies coming through the far doorway, and shooting them. You should mostly get headshots. Save enough ammo to kill the guy hiding through the door on the right - if you don't kill him he'll walk through the doorway and kill you when you stop moving. If you have any ammo left go back to killing the enemies coming through the door. When you need to reload, hide in the left corner of the meeting room and wait for your team to catch up. Do NOT go through the door until your team is there with you!
When your teammate turns up next to you in the doorway, run round him and hide behind the seats to the left. Pop up and kill the 2 enemies hiding in the same cabin on the left and right. The image below also shows one enemy hiding in the middle. He's actually hiding behind the wall, crouched down. You can kill him through the wall.
Once you've killed him, don't stop to recover health or reload. Run through the doorway and turn RIGHT, then run straight ahead and hide behind the wall. You will need to be the first member of your team through the doorway to do this - if anyone else goes through first the enemies on the other side are alerted and kill you instantly. Don't worry, it's easy to be first. That's it, you've done the hardest bit!
It's important you hide behind the wall and not the seats. Hiding behind the wall lets your teammates move further into the cabin and kill all the enemies in front of you much quicker. If you've done everything right so far you should have between 36 and 42 seconds left on the clock. 36 seconds is plenty, but if you have less than 30 seconds you probably won't be able to do it. Wait here for the "ding dong" noise, the stewardess to bring you a martini and the cabin to decompress - now is a good time to reload. As soon as the cabin starts decompressing AND your teammates walk past you, run forward and hide in front of the row of chairs. Your teammates MUST have walked past you otherwise you'll be killed by the guy hiding to your right and another one in front of you. This will let your team push further up the cabin while you stay safe.
3 or 4 enemies will run down the stairs, pop up and shoot them (although your teammates may have already moved forward and done it for you). Run down the RIGHT side of the seats and be careful at the last row, sometimes there's an enemy on the left crouched or on Last Stand.Surprisingly it's much easier from here - you let your teammates do all the work. As you go up the stairs prime a flashbang, then throw it at the far wall of the next cabin.
It's very important you try to hit the far wall with it but do NOT throw it through the doorway. You need the flashbang to be as far into that cabin as possible. Move back so you don't get blinded when it goes off (a teammate will run past you and start shooting), then run like hell towards the far wall in the cabin (where you just threw the flashbang). Kill the enemies in this cabin, 2 on either side. They'll be blinded so they're easy targets, and your team will help. Do NOT go through the doorway yet. As you get to the far wall, fire through it on the left hand side to kill the enemy hiding there. Crouch in the middle of the wall for a second or so to let your teammates catch up and kill anyone you missed. Reload now.Throughout all of this, don't stop to crouch down and reload. If you run out of bullets, run like buggery to the far wall. Reloading and shooting is not the way through! Running forward gets your invulnerable teammates into the cabin, and they'll protect you.
Now it's home dry. You shouldn't need to shoot anyone else. Prime another flashbang and run through the LEFT doorway (the right hand doorway exposes you to the corridor and instant long-range death). If you're unlucky there will be one enemy still alive - there's nothing you can do here except hope your teammates kill him. Throw the flashbang down the next corridor as you run through the open area - you need to do it now rather than before you run because some of the enemies in the next cabin won't have spawned yet. Don't blind yourself!
Run down the corridor and IGNORE all the enemies staggering around blind, again your team will be behind you mopping them up. As you get halfway down this cabin, throw another flashbang at the floor right at the far wall. The flashbang needs to be right at the end of the corridor to stun the 2 enemies hiding around the corner. Duck into the space on your left so you don't get blinded.
When the flashbang goes off run out of the space and around the corner. The 2 enemies should be staggering around blind. One of them might be blocking your path so knife him to put him down quick.
Now all you need to do is keep running and the end sequence will play out! A little hint for killing the terrorist holding the hostage - take your time and wait it out. When the counter gets down to 1 second the hostage normally whips his head away leaving the terrorist's head exposed on the left side.
That's it, you're done - welcome to the Mile High Club!
You'll probably have to do this quite a few times to get the hang of the timings - especially at the start when the cabin decompresses. You'll also find that 9 times out of 10 the enemies do the same thing and spawn in the same place, and your teammates kill them in the same way. The frustrating thing is the one time it doesn't happen, for example you'll find that sometimes the enemy in the toilet shoots you in the back 3 times in a row. Just accept it, ignore it, and carry on with this method. It will work for you!
Codemaster32