Hi Undeceived!
I was so much looking forward to finally being able to play Black Lands in all it's glory. After all this time though, my hopes were pretty low that this day would ever come. But here we are... and I'm really hyped. I can't thank you enough for all the work you must have put into this campaign. So I quit work earlier today and have a day off tomorrow so I have some time to playtest and see what you have created... especially regarding Petrovka Strike, for obvious reasons. I still remember you, Gruntage and me planing out that mission like it was yesterday. Knowing myself, I would have rushed through all other missions just to get there as quickly as possible. But that is neither what this masterpiece deserves, nor how to properly test a campaign. I want to take my time with each mission and thoroughly check every ammobox and unlocked veheicle.
So I just had to get it out of the way...
That being said, off to
Petrovka Strike.
I was right back into the story from the beginning, the atmosphere was dense and the music on point. In the last version I played I remember the timing was very tight and I had to hurry up to set up an ambush. This time I had more time, which made it quite a bit easier. It still took me three attempts to capture the truck. (The first one because of my own incompetence to remember my controls setup, I couldn't remember how to switch to my RPG.^^ I hadn't played any Arma for quite a while...)
The next thing I noticed was that the bright nights script doesn't seem to work, I had no option to adjust the brightness anywhere. But turning the ingame brightness to max solved this problem. Would be cool to have this option again anyways, especially as it's being mentions in the briefing.
I took the truck and drove to Grishino, grabed the sniper rifle and talked to the pilot. When inspecting the parked vehicles I found the motorbike with a personal note for me.
Seems like you have even more planes for this mission. Really looking forward what you're cooking up here.
The helicopter ride went flawless. Not sure if there was a situation in a previous version where ATC contaced the pilot as of why he left his route. Maybe that was a completely different mission. Would have added some more stress to the situation.
During the cutscene at the sniper position, some kind of scope-overlay would have been cool. But it was a great cutscene nonetheless and the music was on point once again.
The hardest part of the mission was probably hitting the target with a single shot. Finding out I can deploy the bipod merely by coincidence was already helpful. But it took quite some time to get a hang of that pso scope. The feature that the game cuts from the scope view right after every shot didn't help in determining where my shots actually hit, unless it was the last round in the magazine. I ended up firing four times in the air before aiming at the colonel. Ironically I killed him with the very next shot.
After the sniper task was complete, there was no waypoint showing the way. Normally that wouldn't be that much of a problem. On my second play through though, knowing what would come, I headed straight to Gvozdno obviously bypassing the trigger to start the next task. I ended up in an empty village. Of course it was my own fault. But as the campaign and this mission in particular have quite some replayability value, it seems not that unlikely that a player could choose this route. At least you might guide him in the correct direction by adding a waypoint.
The rain added really well to the overall atmosphere. The only downside was that there where almost no clouds in the sky. That looked a bit odd. However, that didn't matter anymore once Tomek and the decision making task kicked in. Oh boy was that thrilling. Or, to quote myself:
Add dramatic music, and voila! There we have our situation.
Did I mention that the music in this mission is completely on point? I literally had goosebumps all over while hurrying through the forest. Of course I tried both variants and both of them where crafted perfectly. Back in the day when Gruntage originally came up with this idea, I knew exactly which way I would go in my final playthrough. Unfortunately I couldn't remember what I had planed back then. Making this decision was really hard. It was such a tense situation. You have created an truly epic mission! (I'm really looking forward to read feedback by someone who hasn't played this before.^^)
However, while fighting my way through Grishino, a thought struck my mind which I had never considered before. As the Spetsnaz are searching the village for Tomek, and in the end I kill them all off, who is left to take care of Gvozdno? Is there a second strike team? How long are they going to search anyway before they move on? Or before they find Tomek? Should there be some kind of timer for the player to rescue him? Probably that would be too much. I don't know, maybe I'm overthinking it here. It just came to my mind while playing and I felt like mentioning it here.
Another thought, I can remember that there was another part in this mission, where you meet with that other rebel guy and the mission ends in that abandoned village to the south. (Sorry, can't remember the name right now.) It seems you cut that part completely, which is a good idea. It would feel disconnected after all that Tomek drama. But do you follow up on that in some other mission? I think it was quite important to end the mission in that village for the further plot. Well, maybe I'll just have to properly play the campaign an find out for myself.
When clearing either of the villages, Kamil at some point reveals that the Spetsnaz are in fact the guys who talked to the colonel earlier. This is displayed as titletext, instead of a chat message like all the other conversation. Not sure if this was intentional.
One spelling mistake I noticed was in another message from Kamil: "They know he's is there somewhere."
While clearing Gvozdno I tried to enter the church compound. The only way being across the debris, which was no problem, but I got injured every time. Again, not sure if that's intentional, as the debris where burning, too.
Oh wow, what a mission. I am truly impressed by what you have created here and the long wait was totally worth it. Thank you so much for this. I guess I will have to play the campaign at least twice now, to see the consequences of my decision in the forthcoming missions. Really excited to see what's coming.
PS: Gute Besserung
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