Assassin's Creed 2 | How to Manage Monteriggioni

Use money to make money.

Consider Monteriggioni your stronghold. You technically own everything of Monteriggioni, and since you own everything, everything that is made in your property, is yours.

Overview of Monteriggioni.

Every 20 minutes that you are playing Assassin's Creed 2, money is deposited in your villa's chest. You can collect money any time you go in to the villa's chest. Know that the chest can only store up to 80 minutes worth of income, and any 20 minutes after that would be spilt milk.

Money collected should be reinvested in renovations to Monteriggioni. To start renovating, speak with the villa's architect. Firstly, restore the villa's buildings, such as the church and well. When you've completed those, continue by renovating the bank, and then the rest of the buildings. The money used to reinvest will bring in more income every 20 minutes.

You will receive an income bonus once all renovations are completed. Now continue to collect income. Money you've earned should now be used to purchase new weapons and armor. Equipment you purchase is stored in your villa, increasing Monteriggioni value, and therefore bringing even more income. Although it does increase your villa's income, it does not increase it as much as it would by renovating.

When you have an abundance of money, purchase paintings from art merchants and any remaining equipment not yet purchased. Finding codex pages, feathers, and statuettes will also increase the villa's value.

All of this will be for naught if don't remember to collect your income. Invest well to reap the rewards!

Homefront | Recon Drones Abusing Guide

The RQ-10 Parrot is an unmanned reconnaissance drone that is available to use in Homefront multiplayer. The RQ-10, in other terms, is a remote controlled flying spy drone that can fly around showing your team where the enemy is positioned. If used properly, the recon drone can benefit your team greatly by giving them enemy intel as well as battle points for yourself.

A recon drone costs 250 battle points, or 200 battle points if you’re using the penny pincher ability. It is recommended to have the penny pincher ability since it reduces the cost of all equipment by 20%. Recon drones may be used on any Homefront multiplayer map.

The recon drone can fly far behind enemy territory or on top of firefights between your team and the enemy. It is highly recommended to only mark players who are too busy occupied fighting your team than to actually go to the enemy spawn and spawn marking everyone. However, if your team has the upper hand, and is actively engaging the enemy at their spawn, you can score a lot of battle points by marking them when they spawn. When you mark a player, they get a notification saying that they’ve been marked, making them aware of you, therefore you must be very careful about where and when you mark your enemies.

Marking a player earns you 30 battle points, and you are awarded 40 additional battle points if your team-mate kills a player you’ve marked. It is possible and recommended to repeatedly mark a group of two or three players to farm battle points. Your goal is to mark enough players to earn back your battle points spent, as well as profiting enough to purchase strong ordnance.

To make a battle point farming class, you should consider equipping the following abilities: penny pincher, my buddy, and thick skin. Whatever weapon you choose is up to you, though know that you won’t really be doing any real combat with this class.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 | Understanding the Range Value of Guns

It’s one thing to have high powered gun, but it’s another thing how long that power can last.

Every gun in Modern Warfare 2 has their unique stats. Each category of guns has their own advantages and disadvantages. For example, submachine guns are used for close to medium range combat whereas sniper rifles are used for very long ranged combat.

The range stat of a gun determines an important factor of the strength of a firearm. Range is the stat that shows how much you can keep the same stopping power while firing through long distances.

Confused? Let me elaborate. Say you have a high damaging sidearm like a desert eagle. In close range, only a few shots are necessary to take down an opponent. However, if there was a person a few hundred metres away and you tried shooting this person, your desert eagle will not cause the same amount of damage. The further away a target is, the bullet’s flight time will become longer. As it flies, it loses velocity, and ultimately stopping power.

In real life, a factor of a gun’s range is its barrel length. Modern Warfare 2 does not make an exception. Obviously, the barrel length of a sniper rifle is tremendously long, which definitely gives a sniper bullet a very long range. A submachine gun, which focuses more on rapid firing than actual firing range can not do much damage at long distance.

There are attachments that can modify your gun’s range. A suppressor cuts down a gun’s range in return for silenced bullets which don’t appear on radar. Scopes would never physically increase a gun’s range in real life, but they do in Modern Warfare 2. Putting ACOG scopes on regular guns would increase the range, whereas putting ACOG scopes on sniper rifles would decrease the sniper’s range.

With all things considered, be careful which gun you bring into which map.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 | 5 Reasons Why the Grenade Launcher is Not a Good Attachment

If you can’t beat them, join them, right? No. Just because everyone uses grenade launchers in Modern Warfare 2 doesn’t mean that grenade launchers are the strongest weapon in the game. Here are 5 reasons why grenade launchers are ineffective.

1. Reloading. When you spawn, you already have a tube loaded in your underbarrel which is nice. What happens after you shoot that one grenade? It takes approximately three seconds to load another grenade launcher into your underbarrel. Figuratively, that doesn’t seem bad, but when you start adding in factors such as how many bullets an enemy can pump into you in that three seconds greatly exceeds that one grenade that takes three seconds to reload.
2. Grenade flight time. Unlike bullets which have the capability to break the sound barrier, grenades, don’t. They are nothing more but a grenade shot at a higher velocity. By the time that grenade hits its target (or something), you might find your body full of lead. This leads to reason number 3.
3. Inability to score a high kill ratio. Before you start criticizing, think about this. A grenade fired from a grenade launcher scores a kill. Somebody else could have easily killed you in between the time of firing and reloading. Now if that grenade doesn’t score a kill, it is still likely that somebody still could’ve killed you from the time wasted reloading yet another single-fire grenade into your underbarrel.
4. Safety while you want to die a hero. Say you get ambushed as you turn the corner. The enemy has a submachine gun that is about to unload at you. Being so close to the enemy, you figure the only way to save your kill ration is to shoot between us, taking both of us down together. Instead, by shooting the ground, the “safety” used to protect soldiers restricted you from salvaging a kill from an inevitable death.
5. Limited ammunition. Each soldier spawns with two grenades if they have the grenade launcher underbarrel equipped to their gun. Even if you do manage to fire two grenades, what are you going to do next? Without ammunition, you can’t do anything with the grenade launcher. Sure there’s the One Man Army perk that allows you to reselect your class, giving you full grenade launcher ammo. The time that you take changing your class, however, could have been used to score more kills with a regular weapon, and it leaves your player vulnerable to attacks as well. Scavenger is often thought of a decent alternative as well, though this is untrue due to several reasons. Firstly, you need to have your grenade launcher mode selected while you resupply, or else you will resupply bullets instead. This leaves you prone to attacks if you don’t have any grenades left. Secondly, after resupplying, you still need to reload, which is three seconds that is wasted and leaves you prone to enemies. Thirdly and finally, if there are no resupplies, then you are in trouble.

It wouldn't be surprising if you don’t agree to any of this and still believe grenade launchers are almighty. I’ll answer some very common questions about grenade launchers, and you can judge if those answers support or diminishes the strengths of grenade launchers.

Q: Well, if you don’t use a grenade launcher, what would you recommend as an attachment then?
A: Why not an underbarrel shotgun? Grenade launchers aren’t effective at close range, and a regular gun can cover long distance. Underbarrel shotguns would cover for the short-range weakness assault rifles have. You can also attach heartbeat sensors, red dot sights, or anything else that might support your gun or aim.

Q: What if I only use grenade launchers to room-clear?
A: That’s perfectly fine, as long as you switch to your primary right after so you can instantly respond to any returned fire.

Q: I get plenty of kills from using grenade launchers. Doesn’t that contradict with this article?
A: This depends on how much you rely on your grenade launchers. If you know someone’s hiding behind a window, of course a grenade would be deadly. If you walk around (corners especially) the map with your grenade launcher ready at all times, you’ll find that you really aren’t ready for everything they might throw at you.

In short, grenade launchers shouldn’t be relied on very much. If you do use a grenade launcher very much, you can find yourself scoring some kills, but usually more deaths as well.

Red Dead Redemption | Benefits of Having Low Honor

Being a low-life scum in Red Dead Redemption may not be as bad as it sounds. Here are the benefits of having a low honor level in Red Dead Redemption.

The first benefit of having low honor is that you take what you want, from whoever you want. If you like that horse, it’s yours. If that person seems to have too much money, it’s yours. You can basically take whatever you want if you wish to live an outlaw’s life.
Making money is much easier too. Although regular shopkeepers won’t like you, the ones at Thieve’s Landing do! You can buy items and sell your wares at Thieve’s Landing for good prices given you have a low honor level. On top of that, you can rob people and banks for money as well, so wherever money is, you just need a way to get to it.

Having very low honor can fear the citizens enough to not report minor crime you make. Did you run over that puppy and enjoy it? Well no justice will be done since the townspeople are too afraid to report it to the lawmen.

Finally, an honor level of Desperado allows you to whistle for the Dark Horse. The Dark Horse is one of the best horses in the game due its very special ability. It can go on unpaved areas with no speed or stamina penalty. This means you can quickly travel across the lands and avoid roads if you wish.

Does living the life of an outlaw really what you want to become? Do you really want to be carrying too much money on your back to the point where it hurts to move? If that is a life that you don’t mind living, the life of an outlaw may just be the life for you!

Red Dead Redemption | Benefits of Having High Honor

In the Wild West, a selfless person who was willing to die for others would usually find himself dead with nothing in return. In Red Dead Redemption however, being an honorable person and assisting those in need comes great rewards.

In Red Dead Redemption, you can shape your character into a positive member of society by doing good deeds. By far, being good is definitely harder than being evil. Good deeds require patience and effort, two qualities that can be an annoyance for most, but if you are willing to spend the time to attain a high honor level, you can expect those efforts to be rewarded.

At high honor levels, shopkeepers will find a positive air about you, and trade greatly towards your favor, as much as buying for higher prices and selling for lower! Thieves’ Landing however, has a certain dislike to goody-two-shoes and offer outrageous prices to players with high honor. In fact, criminals who reside at Thieves’ Landing may open fire at you just for being a good person!

When your honor level is at maximum, a random event might pair you with a nun who has been searching for someone with a kind heart. This nun will award you with the Obscuridad del Santo Andres. This miraculous item will make the player have a 25% lower chance of being hit by bullets.

Above all this, the player will have earned the respect of civilized townsfolk to the point where they will let small and minor crimes slide. Besides, everyone knows that if you run over a dog with a horse is definitely an “accident” right?

Finally, here is the greatest reward of all. Not getting shot every time you enter a town! Thieve's Landing excluded.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 | Hard-Scoping VS Quick-Scoping, Rational or Skill?

Is traditional hard-scoping or flashy quick-scoping a more effective way to snipe off targets in Modern Warfare 2?

In old fashion first-person shooter games, sniper roles would hide in a high vantage point while blending with their surroundings to slowly pick off hostiles. With the new wave of first-person shooter games, many people find that too boring and ineffective. Instead, they rely on their skill to quickly centre their target to quickly scope in and shoot their target, hence the technique, quick-scoping.

In Modern Warfare 2, it is often frowned upon players for people to hide in bushes, waiting to snipe an unsuspecting target. As a player walks by, the sniper would aim down their scope, line up their crosshair with their head, and wait for the perfect opportunity to fire. If done properly and in the right places, one can pick off many targets without them ever know what hit them or from where.

Many players find this an unfair advantage towards snipers, as they can easily take down targets with one shot and with ease, while the front linesmen are simply soaking up all the damage without a decent chance to hit back their stalker.

It is popular culture to explore the map, and quickly scoping and shooting any players who come into sight. For those who are skilled enough, this can be a deadly technique to quickly rack up kills. A sniper rifle shot can easily kill a player with a single hit. This is only for those players who are skilled enough, however.

So the question comes. Which technique is the most deadly?

How does traditional hard-scoping work? Let’s consider the requirements of a camping sniper. Firstly, they would need intense patience for players to walk into their range. Not only that, they have to be in a low profile spot where not many players will search. There are few maps that truly give snipers a useful vantage point while being able to look down high traffic areas. Already the ingredients for a strong sniper are at an impasse. Secondly, the player would need a strong sniper rifle that can generally kill in one shot. When shooting from long ranges, the sniper rifle’s range will decrease and become less lethal. A useful perk to strengthen bullets is Stopping Power, but by using this perk you would not be able to use Cold-Blooded, which makes snipers virtually invisible. You would also need a silenced sniper rifle to not show up on enemies’ radars when you fire, which greatly reduces the range of a sniper rifle, and further decreases its lethality. Finally, ammunition may also be a problem, as not only will your bullets disappear quickly, your claymores will not protect you for long either.

These requirements can be quite daunting to new snipers. However, if this is an experience player, they can easily headshot players, which is almost a definite instant-kill. Traditional scoping will be more welcoming to new players as they can take their time to line up targets. This technique of sniping also allows you to hit players across the map with ease with the long zoom a sniper scope gives.

What about quick-scoping then? Quick-scoping can effectively take any players at any distance. The con? The skill level required. A player who has been quick- scopes every day for three months is likely a professional quick-scoper, being able to hit virtually anyone at anywhere. But this requires immense patience and practice. Imagine walking into a building with a sniper rifle that has at least one hostile with an automatic firearm. Before getting the chance to even aim down their sights, that other soldier could already spray several dozen bullets into your body and head. This leads to another disadvantage of quick-scoping.

A low kill to death ratio. Generally, a highly skilled quick-scoper will do significantly better than everyone else in the game. An average quick-scoper can expect to get a decent amount of kills in return for a lot of deaths in return. Quick-scopers travel the entire map looking for targets. Unlike hard-scopers, they are much less protected by their surroundings and much more visible to the enemy.

If one truly does put the effort and practice in quick-scoping, they could become a dangerous one man killing machine. Sniper rifles work in a specific way in Modern Warfare 2. As long as you aim through the scope and if you don’t move or get shot, the bullet will fly and hit wherever you point your gun at. Quick-scopers take advantage of this by spotting their targets, and immediately centering their target, and shoot before the other player can react. Due to this programming, this makes quick-scopers able to accurately hit targets from long distances as well.

So who wins at the end? If you have the patience to wait in tall grass for a victim to walk by, then you’ll generally get a better kill to death ratio when hard-scoping. If you have the skill and experience however, quick-scoping will score much more kills than traditional hard-scoping.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 | Advantages and Disadvantages of Using ACOG Scopes

Have you ever changed the scope on your Intervention to an ACOG just so you won’t have an oversized scope blocking your sight? This article will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using ACOG scopes on Modern Warfare 2.

ACOG scopes are basically a circular scope with a red crosshair showing where the bullets will hit. Adding an ACOG scope slightly improves most guns’ range, meaning it deal more damage when hitting far targets. ACOG scopes are sometimes more preferred than red dot sights and holographic sights since it also has a red curser. A slight difference from an ACOG and a laser pointer sight is that the ACOG is slightly longer and takes up a bit more space.

When aiming down ACOG sights, you will zoom in more than regular sights, giving you a slightly larger subject to hit. To balance this, the sight will bounce more when you are firing. For example, a player shooting with a SCAR will generally shoot straight, with recoil slightly making the gun shoot higher. If a player was to fire a SCAR with an ACOG scope, the aim will not be as accurate as it would bounce up and diagonally.

Many players choose to put ACOG scopes on sniper rifles such as the Intervention and the WA2000. By doing so, the ACOG scope would replace the regular sniper scope, giving it less range and a shorter zoom. This can be advantageous and disadvantageous in many ways. When aiming with an ACOG scope, the view around the scope would not be pitch-black, as it would be on a regular sniper scope. This gives the player a better view in their immediate surroundings, making it much easier to hit targets who suddenly pop up near the player. It is widely thought that by placing an ACOG scope on a sniper rifle replicates a regular high-powered rifle without a sniper scope, similar to the semi-automatic and bolt-action rifles used in World War 2. In a way, this is true. The scope allows the player to aim like an ordinary rifle, but an ACOG makes aiming more difficult to do so. In fact, an ACOG scope will make any firearm, and especially sniper rifles to sway when aiming. A marksman aiming down a sniper rifle in Modern Warfare 2 will see that their scope sways. They have the ability to hold their breath to reduce the amount of sway. ACOG scopes do not have the ability to hold breath. They will sway relatively heavily and greatly reduce the player’s chance of hitting far away targets. Again, this will make hitting closer targets much more easy.

ACOG attachments are widely used by the military today in real life. In Modern Warfare 2, the choice to attach one or not is completely up to you.

Red Dead Redemption | The Best Horses of the West

Red Dead Redemption has a plethora of horses for you to tame and choose from. Every horse does not have the same health and stamina however. Therefore, instead taming the prettiest one, this guide will help you decide which horse is meant for you.

The American Standardbred.

There are five horses that you should generally consider having. These five horses are: the American Standardbred, Hungarian Half-bred, Kentucky Saddler, Dark Horse, and War Horse. Each of these horses has different qualities and traits, and so one should consider their preferences before mounting a horse.

The American Standardbred is a black horse. They one of the fastest horses in the game. To counter this, however, the American Standardbred only has average health and stamina. American Standardbreds are useful for quick getaways, but don’t expect to travel far quickly with this horse.

The Hungarian Half-bred is a white horse. They are slightly slower than the American Standardbrd, but have a higher health and stamina level. Hungarian Half-breds aren’t a bad choice for a regular mount, but know there are probably better horses for you out in the west.

The Kentucky Saddler is a yellowish-gold horse or palomino coloured horse for those who understand what palomino means. At the end of Bonnie’s mission “Wild Horses, Tamed Passions”, you break and keep a Kentucky Saddler. They are relatively fast horses with high stamina. Their health isn’t very high, but with a high stamina, Kentucky Saddlers are more for traveling than going into gunfights.

The Dark Horse is a jet-black horse with a white face. A Dark Horse can only be attained by having an honor level of Desperado, the lowest honor there is. A Dark Horse isn’t particularly strong in anything, but they have an interesting advantage. They can travel through the wilderness with no penalty. When riding a regular horse, their speed lowers when they travel on grass or other areas with roads. Dark Horses receive no such penalty when traveling outside of roads. If you enjoy cutting through civilized pathways, this horse is the one for you. As long as you don’t mind being an evil and hated person in the Wild West.

The final horse to be discussed in this article is the War Horse. The War Horse is a jet-black horse with a silver mane and tail. They are simply the fastest and strongest horse in the game, with their speed, health, and stamina levels at max. Unfortunately, the War Horse only attainable by pre-ordering Red Dead Redemption (which is now impossible to do) and by purchasing through the Xbox Live Marketplace for 80 Microsoft Points.

Being the heroic gunslinger you are, it would be nothing less than embarrassing to be seen riding a half-starved horse into a gunfight. With these five horses to choose from, know that you’ll be riding in style.