In addition to fulfilling your mission objectives this also gives you the opportunity to get some new weapons. This usually involves tossing a grenade or two into a haystack and waiting to see what's underneath it all. As soon as you get close to the civilians, they'll move out to the town square automatically too bad the enemy weapon caches don't show as much initiative. In one level, you have to scour an enemy village rounding up the locals and searching for enemy weapons. Beyond negotiating the traps, you'll also be called on to take on other non-shooting duties. Some traps require elements to be manipulated in a particular sequence. Hit the "use" key and then the left mouse button to start disarming them. Disarming traps is handled in the same manner as picking up weapons: simply approach a trap and wait until the disarm message appears on your screen. Still, you'll need to be alert for tripwires and branches covered with sharpened spikes if you don't want to get a particularly nasty surprise. Little arrows will point towards the more obvious traps. In most cases, traps will be announced by a small pattern made of sticks.
The game takes the time to point out the first few to you and tells you how to spot ones you find later on. Early on in the game, you're presented with a large variety of traps.
Just as in the historical war, the traps in the environment often pose as great a danger to your health as enemy fire itself. Given the amount of cover you'll find and the danger posed by nearby enemies, you'll find yourself moving in a crouched position pretty frequently, at least if you want to live to see your next mission. Instead of offering "stance up" and "stance down" keys, Shellshock relies on two separate controls for crouching and going prone. Keys for leaning and changing your stance are available. This method also works when you're trying to defuse the traps that dot the levels. Once the option is highlighted at the bottom of your screen, you'll just need to hit the left-mouse button to pick up the new gun or switch control to the new gun. You'll need to toggle your "use" function when you want to pick up weapons lying on the ground or when you want to man some of the stationary guns in the game. The left mouse button also activates certain special actions. When throwing grenades you'll see an arc that tells you just where the grenades will land. The contact mode works best by default but you can use the time-delay mode to lay grenades in the path of advancing enemies. For the grenades, you can set them to explode on contact or on a time-delay. The AK-47, for instance, can be set to fire continuously or in two-round bursts.
In the case of the rifles, you can switch between full automatic and shorter burst modes. White tracers can help keep you on target once the reticle starts bouncing around but you'll need to keep the bursts short if you hope to hit anything beyond the closest ranges. The guns in Shellshock have a bit more kick than you're probably used to in games like Medal of Honor or Call of Duty which makes burst fire an absolute necessity. The default controls are the standard shooter fare: the left mouse button fires your selected weapon while the right mouse button aims down the sight giving you a better chance to hit distant targets. Being able to view the character in this manner definitely adds a lot to the game in terms of atmosphere and personality. You'll also be able to see the character in the environment as he moves through cover. Watching the character move around the environment in third-person definitely gives you a stronger sense of character and puts a bit more emphasis on the animations. If you're more familiar with the first-person view, it'll take just a second or two to adjust to the new format. In a switch from the traditional shooter pattern, Shellshock plays out in a third-person perspective.