[OFP] Maelstrom of Goodwill by Tarados Qeng

Review by MachoMan

Overview

A good overview; a nice picture and some details about the mission. No border, alas.

Intro

The Intro of this mission is actually quite good. Proper use of in-game resources and custom voices. Alas, the voices are of pretty bad quality, thus extremely hard to understand. Thankfully the author was nice enough to include subtitles, so we can at least understand the story, which is kinda good!

Briefing

A fair briefing; a BIS-style briefing. The Notes section is a bit longer and gives us a detailed view of the situation on Nogova.

Mission

I start off in a boat, setting sail towards a little island just south of Nogova. This apparently is the last Resistance stronghold. As ever, the briefing tells us this will be a walk in the park … yeah right! So, hitting the shore I get out of my boat and move inland, with arty support, shooting Ressies as we go … so far so good. I earn a save-point by clearing the first objective, that’s kinda cool! All seems fine when suddenly some annoying Americans decide to come para-trooping in. Well, there goes my walk in the park. I keep moving and after a couple of tries I manage to clear those nasty Americans and the last guerillas from the Island. Great, another save-point … save-point?

Yep, save-point. Trying to take a little island isn’t enough trouble for the US army today. No, they seem to want to take Nogova. We can’t let that happen, can we!? So the briefing gets updated and because the Yanks felt liked destroying my old ride, I get picked up by a chopper which takes me to the invasion beach. The entire Russian army seems to be waiting for me here, damn our intelligence must be good! After a while the grunts show up and try to take my beach, which they don’t seem to be very good at. Alas, their artillery seems to be more effective then their troops, so I keep scrambling for cover on the beach, getting killed a couple of times. After surviving this beating, I end up rounding up the surviving enemies, because my friends don’t seem to like patrolling. Alas, there is a very large west-not-present trigger which causes the mission to end, so rounding up this mission takes some time. Of course I manage to get shot quite often by lone US soldiers, which gets really annoying after a while.

Outro(s)

Upon winning we see a short outro, nothing special and alas no subtitles this time.

Special

Artillery support, not dynamic, but it always stays cool. Also earning the save-games is a nice touch, which allows the player to use them when he really needs them.

Overall

(Review Date: Feb 2005) Overall, a very good mission, which does have its flaws. As I described, the large not-present triggers are a really big no-no, which seem to be used way too often by mission-makers. The voices are also a pity; just slightly better quality audio would have really made this mission a lot better! That being said, this mission has surely earned a permanent spot in my missions folder and I do believe you should really try it!