[ArmA] Search and Destroy by snafu

Review by bert

Overview

A reasonable overview is included. There is decent descriptive text, although the picture is a bit basic and lacks a border.

Intro

The intro focuses on the player's patrol being dropped off at the foot of the hills south east of the objective. There is a small amount of text to give the player some background info on the situation. Camera work is a little basic, but by no means bad. The length is just about right, not too short, but not too long that it gets boring.

Briefing

There's nothing shabby about the briefing. A small, but well written section gives the player all of the instructions required to go about the mission. It is definately one of the better written briefings I have seen. The notes section is used as a diary page which adds a personal touch to your character. All of the map markers are properly linked in the appropriate areas.
There is no gear selection due to the player not being the commander.
One thing that is missing is a lack of a note telling the player to use the radio on the map screen when instructed rather than the usual 0-0-1 type method. Silly old me sat around for quite a while waiting for the option to activate on my first play. An in-game hint would have done just as well.

Mission

The mission starts over 1000M from the main objective, although you will travel further than this due to your patrol's indirect route. Some of the enemy patrols in the area make for some interesting situations due to the use of the Urban Patrol script and the nature of the terrain. You need to keep your eyes open as they don't behave 'normally'.

Difficulty wise, I'd say the mission is in the easy – moderate band. Enemy patrols turning up can cause some nasty situations as you get little warning due to the broken terrain. I do think a few extra UPS equipped patrols (after being set to start in random positions and with a random number of clones) would have been an improvement, especially on the replay value front.

Perhaps the best thing that the author has done to improve the replay value is to add an extra objective that is only made available if enough of your squad survives the attack on the enemy camp. It definitely adds to the realism by not sending a vastly reduced force to attack a defended position.

Outro(s)

A short outro showing some patrolling troops closes the affair. The camera work is simple, but like the intro, looks cleanly done.

Special

This mission gets instant plus points for the use of custom radio voices. Such inclusion improves the mission no end.
The author has also made good use of Wolfrug's body armour script, ColonelSandersLite's random weather and Kronzky's ubiquitous Urban Patrol Script. The body armour script was particularly impressive as it introduces the possibility of getting stunned. Its disconcerting watching tracers skim overhead and being unable to to anything about it.

The inclusion of a possible extra objective was a pretty good move for improving the re-playability of the mission.

Overall

A very enjoyable mission that is particularly impressive given that it is the authors first 'proper' mission. I didn't encounter any bugs and the inclusion of some pretty good scripts and those custom voices really brought it up a notch. The mission itself has rather basic objectives and doesn't offer anything particularly original, but this isn't a problem as it is well executed. I'd advise anyone looking for a simple SP mission giving around half an hours game play, to give this a go.