[ArmA] The Triple Blow by Mandoble

The Triple Blow by Mandoble

Mission details

Type Multiplayer (Coop)
Player side West
Island Sahrani
Time of Day Mixed
Weather Mixed
Playable slots 20
Respawn/Revive Yes
Filesize 768.39KB

Mission requirements

Game ArmA v 1.14
Addons None
8/10

Overview - 7
Briefing - 8
Camera - 6
Scripting - 8

User rating

4/5


Added
15 Jul 2008

Views
4711

Downloads
1418

Comments
1

Summary

NOTE: playable in SP/MP.
As final survivors of a failed beach landing attempt and left without long range radio equipment, fleeing Sahrani becomes a difficult story. Are you up to it?

Click to see 2 other missions by this author.

Review by Cheetah

Overview

The classic title, image and text are included in this one. There is nothing wrong and nothing special going on with any of the three. Author name is included, which is a plus. It prevents missions from going authorless after losing their readme.

Intro

When played in singleplayer mode, you are spoiled with a short intro showing the story leading to the mission. While the intro isn't spectacular, it does its job with moderate camera and screenplay. The text presented is spelled correctly, yet lacks custom voices that could have made it more enjoyable. On the other side, this would've increased the mission's size which is not preferred for multiplayer.

The mission-intro is visible to both SP and MP players and shows the initial position, with ammo boxes and trucks. It welcomes you to The Triple Blow with a nice splash screen accompanied by a sound effect. Well done.

Briefing

The author was faced with a problem, his briefing has to be suitable for SP and MP while both often look different. For SP, the briefing is of good length, it offers a lot of information useful for the mission's playability. In multiplayer, it might be too long to let everyone read the briefing, but that can be overcome. The information offered, is made more spicy with one important image, it helps prevent a long search through the enemy camp. Also, the tips given by the author especially those concerning MP are welcome and helpful.

The map is well laid out and not too crowded, map markers are linked to links in the briefing and all the objectives get completed just fine. As the scenario doesn't allow any weapon selection, none is present, you're just a band of soldiers without a home.

Finally, two aspects that aren't what they should have been. That is, a few spelling errors on the notes page and low AI skill levels for singleplayer play. While not many would have discovered the spelling errors, and not many will play this mission in SP, these are only slight errors just worth the mention.

Mission

TESTERS: loki, savedbygrace, GEN. Nightmare, someonecalledjoe, spetznatzCU, allen, Dragon, MATCHY|Merc and cheetah
SERVER: Loki's Nightmare

In the multiplayer lobby, or in SP at the start of the mission you can select the difficulty of Mandoble's The Triple Blow. The difference between easy and hard difficulties is noticeable and easily quantified by judging the number of AI deaths. In multiplayer, the admin can also select the end condition or the number of deaths a player may not exceed. This is your prime difficulty setting and a lot more noticeable than the easy or hard setting.

The objectives are well defined so everyone knows what can be done. However, the actual route taken towards the end is open at some stages in the mission and therefore replayabilty is an option. Also, one objective has a randomized code in it so that you'll have to go through the process of finding it every time you play it. Luckily, that is not the only scripted part of the mission. Hell, The Triple Blow contains a great number of scripts which improve the gameplay. There is a large bunker with a lot of unique possibilities like a defense monitoring system. Many options in the action menu are present to make someone else the leader, to flash your position on the map or to regroup the team in case of casualties.

All these elements make the mission experience better and they tend to make the mission more original and let it have a better atmosphere. The radio connection device is good looking, the sounds and view you get upon dying are worth dying for and the credits displayed at the end show you what is possible in Armed Assault by using scripts. Also, the story provides a welcome surprise not everyone would have expected to be in the mission. Yet in no way is it a bad surprise, it adds up to the good experience one can have with this mission.

Of course there are a number of flaws or things that could've been improved. One of them is the respawn in the position you died. We had a nasty situation in which a D30 almost got the worst of us, luckily it got taken care of just at the right time. In singleplayer mode the thing that holds the mission back a bit is the AI problems which have little to do with the mission and more with the engine. It is hard to defend a base with just the AI and yourself in little time, especially on hard settings. To overcome such problems, playing The Triple Blow in multiplayer is a good solution.

Outro(s)

None.

Special

The seemingly endless scripts that take care of otherwise easy to forget things. For example, the make leader or regroup function present in your action menu can help a lot in some situations. And there's more to it, but to see that you'll have to play the mission. Scripting, no bugs and mandoble - those three seem to fit together.

Overall

There is a lot to experience in this mission, from defending, fast getaways to small scale assaults The Triple Blow has a lot to offer in its two to three hours of playtime. That combined with the absence of bugs makes it a really playable mission with a lot of good touches to it.

If you have a lot of time to spend on Armed Assault, be sure to load this one up as it'll give you a great time playing. Should you happen to have a few friends on standby, call them over for a long multiplayer party full of good scripting and enjoyable gameplay. In SP it's above average, in MP it is nothing short of good.

+  Long mission full of action
+  Action menu extend with handy actions
+  Enjoyable atmosphere
+  End condition is easy or hard depending on your preference
-   Respawn not always optimal


You can view the beta thread here.

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