[OFP] Operation LoJack 2 (BAS Version) by toadlife

Review by Tigershark

Overview

What is one of the best features that a mission maker can build into a mission? What's that?? Frontal nudity...mmm...nice answer but *bzzzt* thanks for playing.

No..the correct answer is randomness. The unexpected...the possibility that everytime you play a mission, objectives may have changed, patrol routes are different, force levels are modified slightly. In short, the ability to make a mission playable over and over again.

Toadlife has been successful in implementing this to a degree. Your mission is rescue a young officer who has gone missing. Thankfully he is carrying the "LoJack" tracking device. Using BAS Rangers your team is tasked with rescuing him. Each time you play this mission the likely location of officer changes adding greatly to the replayability.

Intro

The mission begins with a fairly good intro cutscene of the officer being captured. Very nice NV effects of enemy troops capturing the officer as he is...well...lets just say it would have been a frontal nudity photo op...just not one we'd want to see. Toadlife sets the capture in first person view and switched to a nice third person "stroke fist" action when the troop is taken down. Very nice.

Briefing

The Briefing is comprehensive. Including a photo of the officer, a detailed briefing (in case the basic briefing is not adequate), intelligence reports, background info and a special guide on the "LoJack" tracking device.

This section is very well thought out and provides ALL the information you could ever need about the mission. Attention to detail in simple things like this can only mean the mission will play well.

Mission

So how did it play? Inserted in the early hours of the morning via helo, you are told by Ops that you are not far from the drop zone. Nice use of custom sounds and voices are another classy touch on this mission. They are a little faint sometimes...but we don't all have access to professional voice recording equipment. The sounds add great ambience to the mission.

During the insertion not all goes well and you quickly find yourself in damage control, bailing out of your helo and assembling your forces on the ground. Told to proceed with your mission you have to decide whether you should procure a vehicle from the enemy.

From this point on, the pace picks up rapidly. The enemy use Toadlife's "hunt down" script and are programmed to find your squad with the aim of killing it. Throughout the mission, squads of soldiers appear hell-bent on stopping you. Makes for very action packed gameplay.

Your final objective, when you find it, is no cakewalk either. It is very tricky to take down the enemy without your hostage being killed or even you shooting him yourself.

Overall

(Review Date: Jun 2003) This is a very good mission for many reasons. Well thought out, good use of appropriate scripting, custom sounds, well polished briefings and overviews, nice choice of player units (ok..I'm a little biased about that :-) and a mission that plays well, with nicely timed action.