Another terrific mission by Suicide (see the earlier review of Suicide's mission "Wrestling With the Bear"). This mission can be played with any OFP version. I wish this guy would make new missions for OFP: Resistance. Do you read me, Suicide?
This is an almost perfect mission except that it took the fun away from me several times before I could play it through completely. If you insist on knowing what I mean before playing Airborne, read the hints and spoilers below for the details.
First the storyline. It's very clear-cut and seems quite realistic. You're a sarge, taking your troops on a helo insertion into Malden. Your goal: help clear Malden's airbase of enemy forces. Things start getting hot way before you touch your feet back down on terra firma. Once you've jumped, gather your team together and make it to the rendezvous point. When you get there - excuse me - if you get there, the commander in charge has some chores for you. Stay alert. Get past that and you'll finally march off to Malden airport.
The custcenes are impeccable, especially the ending one. So is the text conversation that goes on between the soldiers. It would have been really terrific had the mission used voices and not just a text dialogue. Triggers and notification of events are used cleverly. A very interesting effect I've not seen before in OFP missions was being woken up from a deep sleep (twice) by my troops.
This mission comes in a slim and trim file, with no unofficial addons used whatsoever.
Hints and Spoilers:
I suggest you first try playing the mission before looking at the few hints below. At worst, you'll die, right?
First of all, sometimes, during the initial helo insertion, the choppers will stop as they reach the Malden shoreline and just hover there forever. If this happens, it's just some sort of a waypoint/trigger jam. Restart the mission again, if this happens.
If you've played the mission once, you may have noticed that, after your chopper gets hit and you eject, you may have lost a lot of troops. You did eject, didn't you? You did issue an order to your troops to dismount, didn't you? If most of your team didn't survive, I suggest you restart the mission.
Finally made it through the jump? Make sure you all take cover and order the injured to heal at the medic, who hopefully survived. Once you're ready to move on, look at your map to see where you've wound up (a marker has been added) and decide on a route to take to meet up with everyone else at the rendezvous point.
If you manage to meet up with everyone and lost too many teammates on the way, you will be informed that the mission has been aborted as it's futile to attempt to attack the well prepared Soviets with mere remnants of NATO platoons. The same holds true when your camp is attacked. Lose too many troopers and the mission will similarly be aborted.
At both junctures above, I would much rather have had the mission continue, with the player, as commander, getting a scolding and being reassigned new grunts to continue on. Having to replay the mission again from step 1 was not what I was looking for at this point.