October 9th, 2016, 7:19am
Jack is making his way towards the drydocks, where he plans to confront Paul Serene - his former best friend, now his worst enemy.
Collectibles
Narrative Objects for the first half of Act 2 Part 2
This futuristic-looking handgun fires 3-round bursts of low-powered bullets, about as powerful as SMG rounds. It has a large 18-round magazine, allowing for 6 bursts per reload, and like the other pistols it has unlimited reserve ammunition. It’s design appears to be based on Robocop’s “Auto 9”, which was a Beretta 93R machine pistol that was modified to look larger and more high-tech. It also showed up in Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon, which I’ve also LP’d.
The Burst Fire Pistol is decent for close-combat, as Jack can score 3 headshots in a single burst, enough to kill any standard enemy. However it is tricky to use against opponents that are more than a few metres away. Although the first shot of each burst is quite accurate, the aim kicks up over the course of the burst, causing the second and third bullets to go higher. This effect is worsened by the fact that the first bullet may cause an enemy to double-over, making him a shorter target and increasing the likelihood that the subsequent two bullets will miss. Also, Jack doesn’t automatically re-adjust his aim between bursts, so getting subsequent bursts on-target requires manually compensating for the kick.
The name “Carbine Rifle” implies that this is some kind of compact assault rifle, but it is actually a semi-automatic sniper rifle. It has a reflex sight rather than a scope, so there’s no option for Jack to zoom in on distant targets. Monarch snipers will take aim at Jack using a red laser, but there’s no option for Jack to activate the Carbine Rifle’s laser sight. Despite this, Jack has no difficulty firing it with perfect accuracy and a good rate-of-fire.
It is even more powerful than the Heavy Pistol - killing standard enemies with just two or three body shots - and it has far less kick. Headshots are instantly lethal to most enemies, and do massive amounts of damage to tougher opponents such as Heavy Troopers. It is also great for destroying the weak points of high-tech enemies. It counts as a “heavy” weapon, so it is not possible to carry both a Carbine Rifle and a shotgun. The Carbine Rifle has a decent magazine-size of 10 rounds per reload, but Jack can only carry one spare magazine, giving him a total of 20 shots. Using this weapon carelessly will cause Jack to quickly run out of ammo, so it is a better idea to use sharpshooting tactics.
The Carbine Rifle’s design is mostly based on the DSR-1, a bullpup sniper rifle that is actually bolt-action rather than semi-automatic. The Carbine Rifle’s barrel looks like it may be based on the DSR-1’s larger ‘anti-materiel’ variant, the DSR-50. A real-world DSR-1 (or DSR-50) is normally fitted with telescopic sights rather than reflex sights, as it is a specialised sniper rifle. (Perhaps Remedy called it the Carbine Rifle to suggest that it was a smaller variant of a full-sized sniper rifle, intended for use at medium range rather than long distance.) The DSR-1 has an unusual two-magazine layout: there is a spare magazine holder in front of the trigger-guard, but since it is a ‘bullpup’ weapon, the rifle is actually fed by a magazine at the rear of the weapon, where the rifle’s action (mechanism) is located. The in-game Carbine Rifle lacks the rear magazine, and instead Jack loads the gun using the forward magazine holder, despite the fact that a real DSR-1 has no mechanism there.