Guide by BacktoEdgar

Chase the Express, or Covert Ops: Nuclear Dawn in the US, is a 2000 fixed camera third person shooter game. Taking influence from Resident Evil and Metal Gear Solid and other classic movies. It has a plenty of replay-value from different branchings, endings and NG+ exclusive elements.

This guide isn't a 100% walkthrough, it's just to clarify a few things and to give some tips.

If you never played this game, I recommend to start on Normal difficulty as a casual run and/or while getting as many achievements as possible while learning the ropes. Especially since Expert difficulty has less resources and you'll have to learn who to skip and who to kill to get their drops which is a bit of a trial and error. The Expert difficulty increases the number of enemies, changes to supplies and enemy drops, some different enemy iframes depending on the weapon you're using, and differences to damage values.

The set covers the Normal difficulty's NG and S Scenario (NG+) and Expert difficulty's NG, S Scenario and Special Stage (NG++). The leaderboards are strictly for Normal difficulty or higher unless specified otherwise.

• You can access NG+ (S Scenario) by achieving A rank on your first playthrough, any other ranking will just end the game normally. It isn't available on Rookie difficulty and will instead skip you into NG++
• You can access NG++ (Special Stage) by achieving the same on S Scenario, S rank replaces A rank but has the same requirements
• Special Stage is similar to NG except that you get the stronger weapon early on with infinite ammunition
• Achievements that are meant for first playthrough are locked out from NG+
• Some achievements that aren't affected by your weaponry are allowed on Special Stage, like the collectibles and the F~B Scenario ranks. So you can leave your endings grind to this mode if you want to
• After Explosive Escape Denied, you won't be able to access most of the train since you're close to the end. In case you want to go back and pick up a file you forgot

CQC Basics [5]
Defeat the first 3 enemies before going down the hatch without using any weapons

To use the unarmed combat is to know the range of your strikes and to back up before the enemy counterattacks. Alternatively, you can tap in a rythme of a single punch to keep them stunlocked or you can do a one-two but have to do it again as soon as the reticle shows up again. But these methods aren't consistent elsewhere with some other enemies so beware!

Quick Picking [3]
Take the Unit and leave Car 10 without being seen

For this and the other 2 similar achievements, if you're spotted, you can leave the room to try again. You're not allowed to kill the non-respawnable enemies before resetting or taking any concerned item. And for this one specifically, "Quick Picking", if you go up the second floor of the car and come back the enemy will despawn, what you need to do is go back to the previous car instead.

Get Off My Train [10]
[No Special Stage] Defeat all of the enemies in Car 14 without getting hit more than once

One thing I want to mention here is that if you keep staying still hiding behind the box, the enemies will come to you. They won't get near you keep showing yourself, shoot them or, if you roll back and forth every once in a while behind cover (towards the back, not towards outside cover). How you choose to proceed is up to you.

I Can Do This All Day [10]
[S Scenario] Kill Andrei Mikhalov and all of his underlings without healing, and without using a gun during the boss fight

The trick with this version of the boss is to go up to his face, he'll miss every shot and follow him whenever he moves or until he "stops".

Det. Jack Morton [10]
Collect all of the files in the Blue Harvest

Files can change depending on which Scenario you're in, but only their contents change, they stay in the same place except for a couple that might appear or disappear. But the achievement itself is achievable on all Scenario ranks except for F Scenario.

Scenario D or lower:

I'm Kind of Busy Here, Sir [10]
Listen to every radio contact from Deputy Commander Eric Ludow

I'll give a hint where you might hear them, there are 3:

1. Sometime after locating the Ambassador for the first time
2. Sometime during the missles launch threat
3. Sometime around saving Billy a second time

Gunslinger [3]
Combine the two Handguns

Panther Edge [3]
Upgrade the Handgun with the Long Magazine

Getting one or the other depends on whether Billy is alive or not.

Note: In case people won't notice this, you can switch back to the single version after combining the two handguns.

Handyman's Secret Weapon [3]
Upgrade the Machine Gun with the Twin Magazine

Loaded for Bear [3]
Upgrade the Machine Gun with the Custom Barrel

Getting one or the other depends on whether you shot down less than 5 helicopters during the Anti-Aircraft Gun Minigame or you shot down 5 or more.

Gun Survivor [50]
[No Special Stage] Finish the game without picking up the machine gun or the assault rifle

You're allowed to use anything, as long as you don't pick those weapons mentioned.

Thankfully, during my deep search into this game landed me on a very obscure link about this game's branching which spared me from drawing one, so I'll use that instead in the following point (source)

For those who like to see details, you probably noticed the landscape changing during the story, you probably will see nearly all of them naturally. But, in case you want to pay attention to them, here's a list of regions and their related locations:

These files are either unused or they're replacements in lower Scenarios and missed them: