OFP1.96, vetmode, bench 5895, no super ai
Overview:
Interesting pic, and a nice text
2nd page advertorial might be too much for some, but I like this approach very much. If advertising is going to be done, this is, the way to do it.
version number is missing.
Intro:
Beautifully, beautifully done. You couldn't make this intro more perfect for me. Sound, perfect, music, perfect, use of titletext, perfect. Use of teletype , perfect. Length of black out, perfect. Movement and scene's, perfect.
I got the storyline instantly, and that, is the purpose of a good intro. I think, that's what intro means !!! I'm ready to play this interesting mission on the Intro alone.
Some minorest of typos and English gramattica which can be mentioned on a 2nd review
I won't spoil this intro for others, they can look for themselves.
Briefing:
excellent of course. Concise objectives and to the point. An immediate thought is that you should NOT have the other objectives listed until the 1st is met. I dont see their purpose now, you should put them in progressively. You do so for other things, you should do so for the entire thing.
Gear and selection.
considered and properly thought out
Group:
missing, I always like to see who i am. It appears later, when I play the mission, this is a bug.
Plan:
typos
will be started= we'll be starting
this villages = these villages
the Bravo = Bravo x 2
enemy's = enemy
enogh
woman names = women's names
Notes:
well, this is your preference of course, but I'm used to seeing real, personalised notes rather than a rehash of the plan: I consider this a wasted opportunity.
Mission:
Loved that selection panel.
I cannot tolerate crap AI, especially my side, so i chose 50% me, 100% them, which is the best I can do. Having now played the mission, I am severely dissapointed with my incredibly stupid team members. For what you ask of me as a player, this, is a mistake. There is no point giving me dumbed down troops, and, expect me to protect them when they attack. This spoiled the mission for me, big time, and became very frustrating with many retries because, you effectively, blamed me with failure for their stupidity. You will get hate mail.
Instantly loved the chatter, frankly, I would NOT attempt to use English voice overs, this is highly authentic, lovely stuff, as it is. Keep it, do not touch. Do NOT translate to English voiceover, it is entirely, totally, unnecessary. Change the storyline slightly, to allow me to be a czech speaking spec op.
cutscene boatride
again, and almost, beautfiully done. Music, beautiful. Not happy with the author advertising, that was overdone.
grammatica:
enjoy it = Enjoy Yourself.
Througout the mission there are occaisional gramatic errors, they annoy, but are not important enough to list now.
hint.
not happy. Get rid of it. it's noisy and removes the atmosphere, bringing player back to reality, not good. Having played this, the hints are bloody awful, you're immersed in the game, then this splatter comes in and breaks your concentration, they do not need to be anywhere near as verbose, nor, as repetitive. I am not 6 years old.
Retry position
perfect
Of course, I went straight to village and missed my contact, but both scenes played out fine when I found the dead civilian. Great both ways.
Loved the time transition, loved the savegame count.
Drove right thru squads, figured I'd take the hint and behave like a russian officer. Because I didn't stop and get out, I figure loons took no notice of me.
Cutscene and time transistion.
Brilliant plot, disguised Russian.
Have no problem being US special forces and speaking in czech, I am, US 'special' forces. Do NOT use English voiceovers, this will destroy the theme.
another savegame. Excellent.
bzzt insect, brilliant.
bzzt radio, why? I'm one meter away from him what on earth was that for?
excellent action from russian to stop truck.
a little unclear when troops get in truck if they're ours or theirs. You don't explain well that we will use truck to pick up more of us. Your briefing is over the top noisy, it's not necessary, and not desirable, for you to be so specific as to how this game will play and what the objectives are, let me discover the objectives by playing. As it stands, you have confused me with far too much, elaborate, information.
cutscene at Riviere excellent
got to pow camp and then it went muddy.
BUG
got ejected from truck and because I had pistol in hand, fight started. I can do nothing about this, the game 'sets' me with pistol in hand.
retry
Dropped to ground, told to go to tents. Had time to put pistol on back walked into tents
someone shouted now, mission failed
retry, stood outside entrance, drew pistol shot 2 mission failed
retry shot 2 + officer mission failed
retry shot 2 and my guys shot others. mission ok
this is not good, you have to do something here. This was a mess.
Buggish the freed prisoners don't collect weapons, that is odd to extraordinary that resistance would not collect everything they could, and, they are unarmed and this is the first thing any prisoner would do. Not good.
cutscene fadeout
great
music great
titletext great
2nd cutscene to forest and etc's ditto
BUG
very difficult to follow the resistance leader, I need to be in his team not to lose him I am trying to watch him and radio trafiic at same time. Not good. I can't see him or others in the forest. I must be part of that team.
BUG
Destroy Shilka and clear road?
rubbish.
Clear road, and destroy shilka.
BUG
I have no means of knowing where or which forest I am in (other than use gps), you should have put a new target marker on map at this point. You have already confused me that I have to attack shilka first, and I assume I am north, not south. Not good.
BUG get rid of those damn hints.
great use of fade in cutscenes ingeneral.
BUG
The attack was messy. First I am not part of this team and had great difficulty following them and finding them, then, magically, you decide to make me their leader. This is poor, too too cute. Make me the 12th member to start with.
The enemy ai was savage (good), my people were pathetic. At best, 3 of them survived. This is wholly unrealistic.
BUG
somehow, someway, the resistance have to defend their base. In the meantime. i magically lose my 3 remaining squad (good, coz I'm sick to death of them) and they simply stay standing exactly where they are. Later, they vaporise with a de-spawn. Terrible.
The attack on vigny was 'ok' to good.
Another cutscene and I am enjoying this fade out technique you're using.
Final Goisse
In a word. Crap.
Firstly there's no suggestion and no indication i should get in truck, I couldn't even see it.
Second, the magic sniper rifle you force onto me is attrocious, it can't hit the side of a house.
Third, you arm me with so little ammunition I have almost no chance of taking out all the enemy, and you wont let me use Bravo to do it because you know they'll get killed.
4) Bravo are so dumb, it's inevitable they die, and you, tell me, I failed. This, is very poor.
Ok, so I struggle thru and take Goisse.
Bug
no end brieifng
Bug
a jarred music change at end mission to something nice in the outro cutscene. The end mission music is awful, get rid of it and use the nice stuff from the outro.
Outro
a nice credit list with nice picture postcard.
Overall:
Initially, I was prepared to rave about this mission. It was and has the beginings of one of the best out there. It really is clever. It is destroyed by some very poor friendly ai and a sense of hopelessness continuing with them.
The forced choice of a crap sniper rifle with next to no ammunition made me nearly -endmission there and then.
Also, I am deeply unhappy at your use of a yeardate (1986) this is extremely crass. You took away, stole, a players imagination here by not allowing her to 'imagine' some other time that suited her better, suited how the player felt the mission was. Get rid of it, it is entirely over the top stupid to use one.
Rating:
Basically a 4 because of the bugs present at the graveyard. A 6 if this and the poor La Pesagne were fixed up and a 7 if the ai were improved to tolerable levels with no player punishment for failing.
This is and can be an excellent mission, one of the best, if the ai is dramatically improved and the flow of fighting considerably tightened up. The storyline and theme are potentially great but are destroyed by these poor battle sequences.