Been a long time since I reviewed a mission
. As I had some free time I decided to load the mission up tonight and have a play through it.
I wasn't sure how much detail you wanted in terms of feedback. This is a difficult mission to review because whilst the mission doesn't have a lot of substance, it does exactly what it says on the tin; it provides quick fun and has a reasonable amount of replayability. It's certainly not a complex mission but it doesn't really need to be.
Having said that, there are plenty of improvements you can make. I will list some of them here but ultimately it's up to you whether you want to implement them. I'll say straight up that you have a mission that is indeed bug free, and therefore I can proceed with the onsite review if you want. But I'd be remiss as a reviewer if I didn't at least put forward some ideas for improvement.
Before I go into that however, let's do this in the traditional format.
OverviewDecent overview; does its job. Room for improvement? Sure. The image could be made more enticing; more action-packed for instance. It's good that the image relates to the mission but you needn't stop there. If it were me, I would try and get a shot with me speeding away with the Qilin with perhaps one or two guys shooting at me. I'd bust out the ol' photoshop and make it more movie-like.
IntroNone. I do believe that no matter how simple a mission is, there is always room for some sort of introduction cinematic. One idea that immediately springs to mind is perhaps showing how the FIA acquired the Qilin in the first place. Maybe showing how we've come to learn of the Qilin's whereabouts. These things work wonders in elevating a mission's quality and indeed, the quality of the story being told. Like I said earlier, it's up to you whether you wish to add any cinematics. Just would be nice to see.
BriefingIn a word, brief
. In more words, it's an unremarkable brief that does concisely explain the point of the mission. It is essentially parroting what the overview says unfortunately. Also like the overview, there is room for improvement. I understand that this is a simple mission, but I still think that there should be some progress made towards immersion. What does this mean? Well, basically answering questions that the player may have; such as 'why is the Qilin so important?','Why is this intel so important?', etc. I believe that a brief should be...brief, but I think maybe this brief could do with having more substance.
MissionSo now we get to the mission at hand. Like I said at the beginning, this mission is designed to provide quick fun for the player, and that is what I got. I hadn't played Arma in a while so this felt good to play.
I pretty much went for a stealth approach up until I got shot in the face by a static MG
. That's why you should check those corners kids
. I wasn't sure if there would be any repercussions for eliminating enemies; maybe an alarm would go off and reinforcements would arrive. Or perhaps the enemy troops would rush to protect the Qilin. Once I learned that this wasn't the case I was able to clean up the town pretty quickly.
In fact, now would be a good time to mention some areas for improvement. The town didn't seem very well defended despite the value of the Qilin. I think it would be good to increase the enemy presence. Maybe have the odd vehicle passing through. What we're lacking right now is threat. The threat the enemy pose to the player right now is pretty minimal. Realistically the enemy would be going crazy if their prize Qilin was under threat of being stolen.
I'm not saying that this mission should be a stealth mission - though having one guy going solo would seem to suggest this - but there should be some punishment (or challenge?) for being noticed and/or going in all guns blazing.
In summary, the town is basically a bit too sparse and could do with a lot more. Maybe give the player the option of doing the mission at night? Maybe put some enemies in buildings? Instead of putting guys in the static MGs at the start, have some guys man the MGs when the player is detected; at the moment the gunners are just standing there looking a bit bored. Maybe put some form of alarm system in place? Have some reinforcements arrive to help protect the Qilin should the alarm be raised.
I understand though that these things were not present in the original OFP mission, but does that mean that these things don't have a place? Would you not still have quick fun if these things were in place? Just some food for thought.
OutroNone. I will admit here that perhaps an outro is maybe unnecessary, or at least not as important as an intro.
SummaryI bet this is a lot more than you'd expect from a mission of this size
. I apologise if this is overly critical. Like I said, there are improvements that could be made and I felt that I should put them forward at least. There aren't any issues that would stop the mission from working as far as I can tell, so we can proceed with the review if you like. Let me know what you'd like to do. It would be great to see this mission develop into something more, but I do understand if you'd prefer to keep this mission close to the original OFP version.
Thanks,
Gruntage