[OFP] Editor Pack by Mikero

Review by Cheetah

Missions

Lately we're seeing the release of a number of mission packs for OFP: Elite. These kind of packs are also available for the PC. One of them is this Editor Pack 1.2, which includes 14 missions to play, and only requiring the Editor103 addon. And as this is in campaign format, you don't even have to load up new missions one by one. The pack has been compiled by Mikero, using missions made in the past five years by various authors. They are grouped into categories, based on the island they take place on and each new island is introduced by a tiny cutscene, fine for its purpose but I would prefer seeing these grouped by a playing style instead.

The missions are carefully selected, only those without showstoppers are allowed in the pack. This allows for hours of playtime without getting frustrated, as well as some pretty high quality missions. There are missions for everyone: S&D, Lone Wolf, Defend etc. In short, a good mix. And of course you can always skip a mission if you don't like it, there's enough high quality ones left if you don't like one. The ending credits are worth watching too, it's like a summary of OFP Missions through the years. Good stuff to play before ArmA comes out, and probably even after that.

Languages differ greatly in this pack, most in English, many in Czech. Sometimes the language barrier prevents the player from enjoying the mission 100%, but you can play every mission as they are all straightforward enough. They include enough markers and names in Czech to remind you of the same ones in English. If you don't like specific language missions, simply don't play them! However, they are all fine and it's easy to understand what has to be done in any mission.

Playing these missions is great fun as there can never be enough good missions to play. This doesn't imply that these kind of packs should include 100 missions. Instead, the author of this mission pack has aimed for about 10-15 mb of missions. This allows people who have a slower connection to the internet to download it, but contains enough missions to keep you busy and entertained.

This large number of missions is a negative for the mission authors in that they get less advertising time than with a single mission or campaign. To fix this, the pack author could have added a line in the readme for each mission. I'm a fan of seeing more than this, and that includes the island cutscenes, or preferably playing-style cutscenes, to organize the missions, including a few credits to the author(s). Just as in the readme, they should be given a single line for every single mission. This would ensure that the author gains enough credit.

Overall

You can play these missions without having to worry about showstoppers. Don't be picky on the language as the gameplay compensates for it. This is a pack full of fine missions; some average, others pretty good. This is in my opinion how a pack author should look for missions, get missions which are average and leave out the great ones. Great missions take a lot of time to complete and one may lose interest in the mission pack because of it, which means less exposure for other missions. It's a very good way to show what has been made in the past five years, although you probably won't enjoy all of these missions, as they are far too different to like them all. I hope to see more of these mission packs in the future, as they ensure that you get to play more missions which would not normally catch your eye.