Introduction

Do you like guns? Do you like video games? Do you like games with humongous, intricately detailed arsenals? Do you like quirky, glitchy games from the former Soviet Union?

Back in 2005, Saint Petersburg studio Apeiron and publisher 1C Company of Moscow released a 3D tactical-squad-thingy titled Brigade E5: New Alliance, exported into English as Brigade E5: New Jagged Union in a presumed attempt to capitalize on its stylistic debt to the Jagged Alliance series. E5 was successful enough to spawn a 2007 sequel, 7.62: High Calibre.

In 2008 a goon named Squint did a Let's Play of 7.62 using a modded fan translation of the game, which had not yet been officially released outside the Russophone market. That LP died in a bloody last stand against game-breaking bugs. 7.62 finally reached the shores of the Anglosphere in 2009, but made little impact outside its very specific niche.

Fast forward to 2012. Thanks to a small but tenacious group of modders led by a dude called R@S, 7.62 has become considerably more enjoyable (but no less spergy) through an addon called Blue Sun Mod. BSM fixes most of the outstanding bugs in vanilla 7.62 and greatly expands its already massive arsenal. If you want to play 7.62 and aren't Kevin Spacey in Se7en a hardcore masochist, you want to play 7.62 with BSM.

Installation and setup

If you're in the US, or can pass for one of us, 7.62 is available as a (DRM-free?) digital download from Amazon. What you get for your

and a half is the contents of an install CD, which you can burn to an actual CD or run from the hard drive as you like. I strongly recommend keeping a backup of the original installer, since you'll have to reinstall the game if you want to upgrade BSM or play with a different mod.

Run the 7.62 installer and follow the wizard. It's not complicated, unless you're one of those strange people who call up tech support to complain that Microsoft Office wants you to let Satan into your computer. Don't bother to change any settings in the configuration program that pops up at the end, because BSM will reset them.

Next download the Blue Sun 1.9 installer files from the BSM home page and grab the BSM 2.0 public beta files here.

EDIT: the BSM files have been taken down by the host and we're still waiting on replacements. In the meantime, a fellow goon has provided a torrent:

SpookyLizard posted:

Download torrent ⁸¹ (6 files; 813.68 MB)
View torrent stats

Okay, here goes. Have fun kids. FYI, my upspeed is tremendously shitty so it may take a while. it's the multipart .rar's for BDSM 1.9 and 2.0

Once you have all your files together, extract the BSM 1.9 RAR. It contains an ISO image which you can burn to another CD or mount on a virtual drive like I did here.

Run the installer on the CD.

Setup is pretty straightforward, though note that the BSM installer doesn't automatically detect the 7.62 installation directory. If you're playing the English release, skip the German and Russian options. Then unpack the BSM 2.0 RAR and drag its contents into the 7.62 folder, overwriting existing files.

Once this is done, you'll have a bunch of new files in your game directory:

Now run E6Config.exe and set up sound and graphics preferences. Then go into the INI folder and tweak BlueSunMod.ini to your liking. When you're done with that, launch the game.

Before we jump into the action, we need to finish with preferences. Some of them are the same as in the config program:

There are a lot of keys to learn, thought nearly everything can be done with just the mouse and a few combos.

Now we get to the good stuff. You can hover the mouse over buttons to get a popup hint, but I'll cover some of these options in greater detail later.

7.62 allows a number of customized game actions, such as pausing the game when a merc comes under fire. The time deceleration function gives a sort of bullet time effect if enabled.

Let's rock.

The story so far

You are ________, a globe-trotting soldier of fortune who played a pivotal role during the recent civil war in Palinero, a small South American state. Your experience in the region has landed you a new job in the neighboring country of Algeira. Your mission is to find a dude and do bad things to him.

Who are you?

In vanilla 7.62, the default protagonist is one Aleksey Ivanov, a sleepy-looking dude with a Stalin 'stache. You can allocate points to give your hero a starting boost in his/her skills.

Why yes, I always make Small Guns a tag skill, how did you know?

Into the jungle

7.62 with BSM doesn't start out quite the same way vanilla 7.62 does.

Some final character setup to deal with...

I used my remaining points to improve Ivanov's Reaction stat and Throwing skill. Thus the Throwing entry in the bottom left of the screen is flashing yellow. Skills can be upgraded with earned points for the hero, and gradually improve with experience for all mercs on the team.

There are a lot of buttons on the UI, but don't worry about them for now. You can rotate the camera by holding down the right mouse button, and move it around with the arrow keys. Use Home and End to move up or down. Note, however, that the right mouse button also toggles between movement mode and targeting mode, so look before you left-click!

Order your merc to a position by left-clicking on the ground.

Turn your merc by holding Shift and left-clicking.

Make your merc sidestep, walk backwards, or roll over by holding Alt and left-clicking.

Hold Ctrl and left-click to pick up objects (highlighted in green) on the ground.

The mouse cursor changes if you hold it over a searchable container, such as a supply crate. Let's see what's in the car.

Vanilla 7.62 drops Ivanov into Algeira equipped with a Tokarev TT33, a spare mag, some boxes of ammo, and a hand grenade. BSM loses the grenade but starts him off with a better gun.

The silhouette button in the bottom right of the screen opens the selected merc's inventory. Searching the car turned up a Beretta 92FS, an empty spare magazine, and one box of 9x19 ball ammo.

We load the gun and the spare mag by dragging and dropping the ammo box onto them.

Some guns in 7.62 can be fitted with a wide variety of attachments, though the Beretta only accepts a suppressor. A lesser studio would have been content to use a mirrored texture for both sides.

Some games track multiple ammo types. Some games track individual magazines. 7.62 tracks individual rounds.

The inventory has a section which displays quest items. Right now there's only the BSM notebook.

Down in the corner with the inventory button are three other buttons. The upper left one opens the Log:

Lower left opens the Radio, for all your government and rebel propaganda needs:

Upper right opens the World Map.

A map littered with fragments of a kingdom

Algeira is a former Spanish colony, ruled by local dictator Alvaro Sosa ever since he overthrew the last elected government in a coup. During the Cold War, Algeira received NATO military aid while its southern neighbor Palinero turned to the USSR, leaving weapons from both sides readily available in local markets. The country's economy relies on tourism and gold mining, though drug cartels also maintain a strong presence. As the game begins, Algeira is on the brink of civil war between Sosa's government and a rebel movement led by a buxom lass in a Che shirt. BSM adds a secondary conflict, pitting the Blue Sun mining concern and its allies in the Bobling smuggler clan against the nefarious Jingo fighters. Meanwhile bandits, slavers and other scum roam the countryside, preying on hapless travelers.

To accomplish his own mission, Ivanov must choose his friends and enemies carefully.

Getting around by foot is quite slow, but Ivanov will have to work for his wheels. The slider in the upper left controls the passage of time, while the buttons under it allow you to stop your squad, order them to rest, and enter the 3D local map where appropriate. While traveling, your squad is surrounded by two circles: blue for their range of perception and red for the noise they're making, which can be detected by enemies lying in wait or traveling nearby. If you didn't enable Eagerness in the difficulty preferences, your merc's maximum stamina (blue bar) will drop as he travels, and he'll need to rest to recover it.

Ivanov arrives in Puerto Viejo. Upon reaching a location of importance, you can choose which entry point each member of your squad appears at. Incoming NPCs also arrive at these points, so be sure to cover them if you're trying to defend a position against enemy reinforcements.

Now to find Mister Rezvi...

The Let's Play Archive

7.62mm

by Sperglord Actual

Introduction

SpookyLizard posted:

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