Final Countdown

[Sdstorage 0]

Just finished the campaign a little while ago and read through this thread. The last mission was the most promising, it had so much potential... with the RACS sudden betrayal, the truth about the refugee camps, etc. Sadly, the odd waypoint switching back and forth to the "check the camps" thing made it somewhat disjoined and confusing.

The way I saw the story, neither the north nor the south are entirely innocent. They both appear to be fairly brutal regimes based on amalgamations of real world nations. The US sides with the south for better or worse - and likely due to economic interests (READ: oil). The north perceives a military weakness as the US begins to depart and perhaps fearing an invasion from the newly equipped south, invades. Despite initial sucesses, the north is pushed back into their own territory by the south with the combined forces of the US army and marines. The north is then blamed for the mass murder of civilians, which we later learn were actually comitted by the south regime.

The RACS shooting of US troops when they discover the truth, in an apparent attempt to cover up their gov'ts mass murdering of civilians was an interesting plot twist. It was somewhat odd, though, as surely that would just compound the issue, when the truth came out? Unless, the RACS thought they could kill everyone at the refugee camps and again blame the SLA?

If the whole campaign had the sort of high drama presented in the last mission and been properly tested, I think it could have rivaled Resistance in terms of immersion and quality. Also, it seemed very short. The very final scene was somewhat disappointing. Two soldiers lamenting that a third didn't make it. Framed within the above story it seems almost like he died for nothing. Very depressing and not especially satisfying. When Victor Troska died, it had meaning. It was one of the more memorable endings to a game I can remember. As was the CWC ending. War is a sad and terrrible thing, but unfortunately it is likely to always be a part of our lives.

Overall, I would rank the Armed Assault campaign above Red Hammer, but not nearly as good as the original Cold War Crisis or Resistance. The background and source material were excellent. The basic plot was very good. The execution was flawed.

BIS we know what you are capable of, you touched on it with this campaign. Make another one and do us proud!

/sorry for the rant

[horrgakx 1]

<span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%'>Double post (admins can remove)</span>

[horrgakx 1]

Oh no, don't tell me this is the last mission?  How dissapointing.  I've only been playing it for less than a week, there is SO much more potential, its a very short campaign ;(  No flying of jets?  Loads of vehicles left to drive??  Only seen a third of the map???

Anyway, I'm also having problems with this mission and getting started, when I get out of the vehicle and try to move forward to the first waypoint, either I have to go off on my own or my stupid AI squad gets mown down.

Dave

[nichevo 2]

I'm glad Trapper took the time to pour over Czech-commented scripts to find our there's no alternate ending to the Final Countdown.

First time round, it annoyed me. I keep all my AI in the Stryker (they're much safer there), and I went alone into the camp. Of course they say "tell us to board the Stryker if you want us to leave, otherwise we'll stay." I thought the abrupt ending was because the game detected they were already in the Stryker.

Second time round it really annoyed me because I purposely ordered them to get out before I went into the camp. Same thing happens. I'm thinking it is yet another badly-designed mission, and I'm being robbed of a "happy ending".

Of course, I came here and sorted out my misconceptions.

If they're going to remove the ability to choose (presumably because they were running out of time), they could've at least altered the speech so it doesn't seem like you have a choice.

It's a pity that the campaign is so rough and unpolished, because the rest of the game is great. It's a bit like having a sports car and putting in those cheap beaded seat covers.

[horrgakx 1]

I just felt that the campaign scratched the surface of this wonderful game. You could easily get three times the number of missions and still keep them varied. I started the last mission but I've not bothered going back to the game at all for the last 6 weeks. Highly disappointed

[Mr.Whitlow 0]

Sheesh. This mission is so imperfect it's almost funny in some parts.

Started the mission in the stryker as usual, it veered off the road at some stage (~250m away from target destination) and went over to a small house in the middle of a field. All disembarked, etc. bla bla. There was a BMP-2 sitting in the middle of a field further up. Having killed the 2 soldiers outside of it (And had not got in it for some reason), I climbed in, got an AI to drive and just gunned my way over to the camp. It was sort of OK up to there.

Killed the RACS troops with ease, went over to the camp. It seemed like I was given a choice, but it copped out at the last moment and skipped to the next mission. I did all that stuff. As soon as the player swap became available I chose to pilot a cobra. (There are 4-5) Flew over. Had to retry like 15 times because I kept on getting shot through the trees by the Shilkas (Damn them to hell)... Took them out, then exhausted the rest of my hellfires on the T-72s. Then took another cobra. Did the same. There was a checkpoint saying 'check camp' so I looked at the directions and there was nothing there, just a field. Great. I did more camp-checking, all of which was to no avail. Then I got a command; 'wait'. So I waited. Then suddenly the mission completed after 15 seconds of waiting. (Also, my chopper lost control and crashed into a bunker as that happened) And... That was it. The news follow up was OK (I was expecting it to continue), and then the speech at the end was pretty much completely useless. (Seriously, wtf... "Oh, shit. Gordon died." - "Who?" (Exactly what I was thinking)) And that was the end. "Oh shit".

I'm glad that I was able to completely disable Bagango's defences with a cobra and a half (I took another chopper after I used up all of my hellfires and FFARs) though. Was quite fun taking out all those tanks with the hellfires. The one fun part of the mission.

Oh and by the way, there are pilotable harriers in the level, after the unit swap becomes available (Just swap a few times. There're 2 controllable pilots near harriers). You get the objective: "Provide air strike (Or support, whatever)" I tried to do it but I failed, sort of. I think I took only 1 tank. Think I need a bit more plane practice. (To the guy who was disappointed at the supposed non-existence of plane flying in the campaign)

All in all, the mission was nothing less than poop, to be honest.

Oh well. At least there's MP. (Which I like, a lot)

[Dashers 0]

I'm another surprised user. I bought the game last week, and have been playing a couple of missions a night. When I got to the capital, I thought "this can't be it, CWC was so much longer and difficult, it's gotta get challenging soon".

Alas no. I did the mission with the Stryker. We all disembarked about 1km away from the camp, with a BMP2 and troops in the field in front. So I cleared those out and moved up to a camp which we cleared out and then headed onto the civi camp. I went in alone and everybody else was hiding.

Got that cut scene and thought "brilliant, there is a whole load more coming where we will be fighting a gorrilla war or something", then the mission kinda jumped and loaded to a bridge blowing up behind me. I then went back to the camp which I cleared previously and had to engage some RACS troops, I then walked to the camp (which I thought I checked in the previous mission??), and got wiped out.

I used team switch, but the AI refused to budge and just sat waiting at their starting points. Tried a couple of times. So gave up and took a cobra and took out all the tanks etc, switched to another one to save rearming and then hovered over the capital or camp, or whatever while the gunner shot all the troops and the mission ended.

WTF indeed. I've been raving on about how nice it looks (although on my 3 year old PC, I've had to turn off the Post-Processing, which makes it look like OFP with grass). I'm afraid I'm not able to recommend this game to anybody. I'll stick to Resistance for multiplayer and Battlefield 2 for anything a bit more chaotic.

Not worth the £19 I paid imho.

[llama9000 0]

Another funny thing I discovered there is if you do a team switch from a pilot while still flying the chopper, the AI will simply land the craft even in the middle of the battlefield. Pretty smart eh? I thought the least it could do is stay up in the air...

[chefd261 0]

Maby I just got lucky but the campaign finished fine for me or maby the 1.06 version got fixed dont know ,there was also an explanation for the RAC's troops behaviour.Still I hope that CWC and RES rearmed will be worth the wait because this campaign was way to short.

just some observations

[frozina 0]

I am finally playing the campaign, after playing ArmA since it's release, and get to this last mission. Which starts with my group in a Stryker and we immediatly get blown up by a BMP. Game Over! No team switch or anything.

Any Ideas?

[Rommel 2]

Edit:

Interesting storyline reasons here, makes a lot more sense now, great work on the conspiracies there Spokesperson.  

Edit2:

Why do so many judge this game on its SP? Its crap for SP personally, play online or go home.

[goose4291 11]

I'm having major issues with this monstrosity.

I've got to the point where it allows you to team switch, and by the time I've taken out the Air defences/Armour with a cobra or two, it wont let me jump back into an infantry or ground unit. All that's left available are air units.

I wouldn't mind but I'm SO close to finishing it.

Any suggestions?

[jasonnoguchi 11]

Conclusion: Armed Assault campaign sucks. It ended when it could get interesting.

Moving on to Rahmadi conflict and the seemingly more interesting Royal Flush. Hope i don't get disappointed. But then, the damage's done. Those 2 other campaigns are not about being the common infantry on the field. sigh...