[ArmA] Belle Foille by Imutep

Belle Foille by Imutep

Mission details

Type Single Player
Player side West
Island Sahrani
Time of Day Night
Weather Clear
Filesize 4.04MB

Mission requirements

Game ArmA v 1.14
Addons  
4/10

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

User rating

4.3/5


Added
29 Jul 2009

Views
2302

Downloads
398

Comments
0

Summary

The mission bears the name of the hotel where Commies have barricaded themselves with hostages. Step into the boots of a US special forces soldier to liberate them. And prepare for some of the toughest urban fighting action you can imagine.

Review by mathias_eichinger

Overview

The Overview has got a nice picture, and the text was ok. Nothing special and nothing bad.

Intro

The intro has some good camera work and good custom music. It is a bit illogical, when you consider your role in the mission, however. Since it shows a terrorist strike on RACS territory, why do sneaky US spec ops come into play in the mission itself?

Briefing

The Briefing is good. The map has just the right amount of markers and the Briefing text is informative. A weapons selection has been provided, as it is almost standard for any spec ops missions, and this weapons selection is very useable. It would have been good to have NVGs by default, because most players are bound to overlook them and end up in the darkness during their first round of play.

Mission

The mission itself starts on the beach, a considerable distance from the objective. This is actually good and realistic because it would feel strange to be inserted right before the enemy.


After a rather long trek, you close in on the city where the shit hits the fan rapidly. The difficulty is such that it degrades the fun very fast and gameplay becomes utterly frustrating.


The problem is that the urban setting coupled with the amount of enemies puts the player at a hefty disadvantage against the AI. Enemy AI is numerous lurking just around every corner, displaying his dreaded "instant-spot-and-kill" capability. Whereas own AI cannot follow you on your heels because of AI pathfinding. This results in an extremely challenging approach to the hotel and the bus that is rigged with explosives.


Speaking of that bus: If you are detected too early, it blows up and the mission is failed, which is realistic, but inconsistently implemented. You could be fighting 100 m away while triggering that explosion, yet killing enemies on the road with only a wall between you and the bus can yield success. Another "mission failed" event is if you sustain high losses on your team, e.g. if you are down to one comrade.


So if you display enormous patience and courage you will make it into the hotel. There, the pattern of fighting is the same, but it fits here. Once inside, I EXPECT to bump into enemies around some corners, and this is where the mission is interesting. You need not worry about nursing your hostage out of the hotel; he is setPosed out of it, after a cutscene showing a mechanized force arriving on scene. Pretty strong terrorists, I guess.


Then it is time to reach the evac helicopters without being caught by the huge enemy presence that extends coincidentally just before your evac zone. The mission ends with you and the hostage being airlifted out of harm's way.

Outro(s)

The Outro is good, it shows the aftermath of your operation while well chosen custom music is played.

Special

Custom music is used during the cinematics. There is an attack helo at your disposal which will neatly fire at the target you designate with your Laser marker. This is an excellent close air support solution which can come in handy for this mission. Having the enemies move around inside the hotel without them getting stuck is also a good effect.

Overall

Did you ever place an "unlucky save point"? The one where the enemy has trained his rifle towards you and will fire only seconds after you reload the game?


If you did, you can imagine the gameplay inside the city as you approach the hotel. Decide for yourself if this is the ultimate challenge for you, or if it stresses you out too much. The part inside the hotel feels right, however. But it could easily be that most players never make it this far since they give up in frustration long before.


The story also sets in some disbelief: The mission area is well inside South Sahrani territory, the intro shows a RACS presence, yet the US need to intervene is not explained (no request for help is shown). Also, the terrorists far outnumber friendly forces, which certainly does not feel realistic.


Bottom line: Extremely challenging mission with very high frustration potential due to the pitfalls with ArmA AI. Could be an excellent COOP-mission, but way too hard for most ArmA players to be fun as a SP mission.


You can view the beta thread here.

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