[OFP] Iron Wall by TakeOffTim

Review by Ace

Overview

First things first – Read the score! 9 out of 10! 9 out of 10! Download this mission! I hope you are only reading this because:
1.) You have also completed this mission and wanted to see how I did on it
2.) It's downloading right now

Because if not, you are wasting valuable playing time on this masterpiece! This review should merely be eye-candy until you are ready to play. OK? Understand? Good.

Intro

Oh, TakeOffTim, you are blessed with the ability to create such a beautiful Intro it almost made me cry, but I stood tall and kept the tears away because otherwise I wouldn’t have a clear view of the amazing explosions and fire effects you have managed to incorporate into Iron Wall.

OK, I’ll ignore the rather shabby voice acting near the end (sorry… it did suck though) and settle with the good script and score. But hey, at least you had voices!

Mission

Now the fish begin to fry! Anyone remember that building script made by BIS? You know the one, just click the Action menu to have a sandbag built here or a machinegun there. Well it's back again. But TakeOffTim has improved it! It’s bigger and better than ever! But that’s not all, it would seem there is another script activated by the Action menu (the enter button on your keyboard will be worn out during this mission!) The best artillery script I have witnessed ever is included. You can choose to shoot a single or 4-shot salvo of artillery at a chosen distance. A lifesaver when you are staring at a T-80 and your rather slow rocket soldiers aren’t lending a helping hand.

The mission itself is straightforward, fortify the village using the building script and then prepare for the attack. Defeat all the soviet tanks and infantry that appear. And the whole mission could be rather easy as well. If you get the tactics and fortifications exactly right… But you won’t, half-way through the defence you’ll realize “S***, I really should have put an ammo crate there or another bit of wire there.” So if you are a regular General Van Tactic then this mission should be no problem... in theory. But if like me you think you know something about tactics but really don’t you are in for a challenge! Just before the end of the mission a short camera sequence shows the destruction the tanks and my AT missiles have caused.

Outro(s)

With an Intro that good, the Outro promises the same. Not as much action, more conversation really. The voice acting isn’t that bad I realized when watching this. One of the soldiers even sounds like Arnie!

Overall

(Review Date: Feb 2003) Very hard, so hard that I had to exit the mission and play it on Cadet. But it was definitely worth it. Could it be improved by having more things to build?