[OFP] Operation Turnover by pcverden

Review by Ozzie

Overview

Operation Turnover begins well, with the overview consisting of one of the pictures from the official missions and an informative overview to match. This was a promising start and over the course of the next twenty-five minutes this early high standard was to be continued to the end.

Intro

Immediately after loading, the game shot into an intro sequence, which initially saw US tanks heading off towards a Russian held town. The camera was smoothly scripted as it followed their course one viewpoint at a time. Once the tanks reached firing range the battle commenced with explosions all over the place as the two sides battled to take control of the area. The camera gave a rather nice aerial view of the proceedings and returned to ground level to show more explosions and wreckages all over the place. Then the camera suddenly switches to Russian tanks heading down a road towards the same town. They began firing from long range and a good battle between the two tank forces entailed. Helicopters then fly in to maximise the carnage, with the camera still keeping track of the action with the use of some nice viewpoints. The camera then moves to the other side of the island, where four Russian tanks take over the airport and set the scene for the mission itself. Despite this intro being rather long, it is also of a high standard.

Briefing

The briefing was also well constructed, with well-detailed mission objectives with markers linking them to the map. The map itself contained lots of information on the state of the island, noting where the Russian forces were and what you had to do. The notes page was also well done, which helped build in a storyline to the mission, and thus involve the player deeper into the mission. There is also a good gear selection screen, with a wide variety of weapons to equip your squad with for the upcoming mission.

Mission

Now it was time for the mission itself. The mission began with you and your squad inside an M113 that was being used as a landing craft. Inside is the rest of your squad and a squad of AI players accompanies you in another M113. The radio is used to good effect at this stage with lots of messages being displayed telling you what is going on. Once the M113s reach the beach you and your squad are thrown out of the vehicle and it’s time to take back the airport. Frantic action and an epic battle result as my squad and the AI squad attempt to capture the first half of the airport. A real sense of atmosphere is built into the mission at this stage and I found myself completely engrossed in the mission. After a fearsome firefight we eventually came out on top and had secured the first half of the airport, but at quite some cost. Most of the AI squad had been wiped out and I had lost three men.

The mission went into a slight lull at this point as there were no reinforcements sent from the other end of the airport but instead the Russian forces just stayed down there. After a long trek down the runway to a safe position it was clear to see that this half of the mission was going to be very hard indeed. From what I could make out there were 2 BMP’s, two Shilkas and numerous soldiers dotted around the end of the runway. Despite the slightly overwhelming odds due to the fact that we were vastly outgunned my men and I put up a marvellous display of courage and managed to take out the two Shilkas, call in the reinforcements and take cover until they arrived. At this point I did spot a slight error in the mission, since when the Shilkas were destroyed an error message came up at the top of the screen but I’m sure the author could easily rectify this.

Outro(s)

The reinforcements finished the job and I was treated to a rather nice outro as my reward for completing the mission. The outro was again rather good, with the camera slowing scrolling forwards above the airport, showing bodies all over the place. More reinforcements rolled in at this point, including tanks and choppers, and it was a good end to a good mission. Having been informed that this is the first mission in pcverden’s upcoming campaign, this is one campaign that I for one and definitely looking out for.

Special

Despite the intro being rather long the cinematic rating is very high. The intro is very well scripted and is action packed, with the many tank battles it depicts. The outro is also rather good, with the camera viewing the battlefield from above whilst reinforcement units role in. However, the camera positions could be better to allow better views of the action but overall the standard is high.

Overall

(Review Date: Dec 2001) Overall the mission is very good. The cinematic rating is high, and for a good reason, and the mission itself maintains this standard. The action is fast and furious for the initial stages at least and picks up again towards the end. The parachuting reinforcements are a well-implemented idea and the beach landings are well done. If this standard can be kept up for pcverden’s campaign then it is likely to be an excellent one. However, if the middle of the mission was made more action packed and the difficulty maybe slightly decreased this mission could gain a slightly better mark, but overall it is very good. A challenge for any Operation Flashpoint player up to the task!

Edit by Walter_E_Kurtz -
Some assembly required! First create a folder in \Missions\ named "OpTurnover.Abel" (.Abel is needed to tell the game the mission takes place on Malden). Extract the contents of the zip there.
Edit mission.sqm with a text editor such as NotePad. Add the following line, including quotations and comma, to the start of the list of addons for the Mission and OutroWin:
"editorupdate102",
Save the edited mission.sqm - OpTurnover should now be available to play from the Missions menu in the game.