SaOk did a nice overview of all the layouts so I will concentrate on my experience during the mission itself. Just to mention one thing about the intro: as far as I remember the intro was of the AA station taking down the F-35, and not of the insertion Helo... Did I play a different version? Anyway, I liked it.
The insertion was atmospheric. The choice of bad weather, along with the playing background theme was excellent. As for SaOk, my medic was sometimes under "Move" condition and then "Ready", so I had to make it return to formation every 30 seconds or so. I made my way to the AA station and took out the guarding Russians. Trying to attack the camp, where the pilot is held captive, from an elevated position was a disaster due to the fire my team took from the forces in the town itself, so I tried a different, stealthier, approach.
I sneaked through the valley at the back of the camp where the pilot was being held. I took out one long range weapons patrol and sprint to the captive pilot. To my surprise, he was not guarded at all. I was sure that in no time some reinforcements will be on my tail but none arrived, which was somewhat disappointing.
I made my way to the extraction zone, boarded the chopper and extracted to safety.
Conclusion
Ironically, the first failed attempt of mine, hold the promise of a more exciting mission than it turned out to be. When I actually succeeded to get to the base on the second attempt and bug out with no significant firefights (apart from that single patrol), I felt that I found a "too easy back door" to your mission plan.
The mission is currently simple and a nice one but I do feel that if some more interest will be put to it, it will be much better. My recommendation is to put more guards in the close proximity of the pilot (I wouldn't go for them killing the pilot, in case of a rescue attempt, they are Russians and not Al Qaeda after all...). Moreover, one of the known secrets for triggering adrenalin rush is making the extraction zone hot. Put some triggered patrols that will open fire on the extraction chopper. It has door gunners, let them do their jobs! You can also trigger the chopper automatically after rescuing the pilot and then make the player rush to the LZ to clear it before it arrives. Have the chopper make some machine gun passes over the LZ before it lands. And put the chopper under some significant danger, unless the player reacts quickly and violently.
Such feature alone could make the mission much more exciting than it is right now.
Having said that, the mission has nice atmospheric features, fun and worth playing.
Thank you for creating missions!
Variable
Topic: [SP/COOP-7] Crash and Grab (Review Completed) (Read 7930 times)