Download Pulakov Beach (2,417 KB)
It's been too long a while since MOM has seen a quality mission come out. Thanks to master mission maker AliMag, the silence has been shattered.
There's lots of action here. The plot is simple - even common. Russians have taken over several islands and NATO has decided it's time to grab them back. A combined air and amphibious offensive has been plotted to kick off the war. You'll be commander of a squad of US Rangers, landing via chopper with other NATO forces at the southern tip of one island, on Pulakov Beach.
This is not a very long mission but the amount of action and atmosphere packed into the first few minutes, on your way to capturing the beach town, is overwhelming. Expect to have everything thrown your way by the Russians, except for aerial attacks. Looks like the Russians - at least for now - do not want to stand off against NATO dominated skys.
Once you've secured the beachhead and nearby town, you'll be assigned another objective, further inland. A piece of cake? Maybe. Maybe not.
Before you even begin playing as squad commander, sit back and watch one of the best intro cutscenes to come out in a long time. It will give you a taste of what you're going to go through once you yourself hit the beach.
Besides an exhilarating mission, the excellent cutscene and accompanying music, Pulakov Beach incorporates top-quality scripting, a dynamic mission briefing and good voice clips (even if some of them are computer generated). My only gripes are that the mission can be somewhat easy if you keep your head down (which you should) and that there's a bit of a lag problem in the gameplay because of the large amounts of units and objects employed.
For this latter reason, I highly recommend that you at first should not play this mission with any of the smoke and explosion mods that have recently been released, such as the GMR and ECP mods. This will help reduce lag, making your movement and issuing commands more controllable and smooth. Then, once you've played through the mission, try it again with the smoke and explosion mod of your choice. The carnage is awesome!
AliMag has incorporated the use of several addons into the mission. There's Laser's LSR 1993 US Army Rangers (10,803 KB), which is what you will play as. There's also the Current Conflict USMC addon (1,604 KB), by Suchey and Earl. Other than for theatrics, one or the other (or BAS' Ranger units) would have been quite sufficient, in my opinion. The download file also includes a third small addon that the mission makes use of, Lester's Invisible Targets.
And it looks like AliMag is planning to continue this mission's storyline with several sequel missions. We're waiting with great anticipation!