[ArmA] CQB Trigger Time by Ironman

Review by hoz

Intro

Ironman has created a quick cutscene to start the mission off; nothing special here, you're presented with a quick chopper scene and then the camera pans over each town giving you a short top view. The scene doesn't last long and then you come back into the mission where you're about to be dropped off. When the cutscene first starts one helo looks almost like it's going to take a plunge into the landscape but it successfully makes its destination each time. Nice work!

Briefing

The multiplayer lobby includes a difficulty setting for the AI, the options are easy, normal and hard. You can also adjust the time of day settings.

The briefing here is short - it's a squad type training/practice mission if you will, so the information is sparse. There are two objectives: one to enter the target range and the other to clear out the fire town.

The briefing is lacking a picture which is always nice to have, no weapons pool is provided. Don't get too worried about this, you're not limited to the unit's assigned weapon, an ammo box is provided as soon as you begin.

Mission

The mission starts out with a short cutscene and then you switch back to mission mode and about to land at the top of a makeshift camp. Grab your weapons and head to the first training town for some target practice. Your first objective instructs you to hit all the targets in town. Make sure you hit all the targets, the one that triggers objective complete is hard to locate and can be frustrating. We often skipped this town once we completed it a few times.

Your second objective is where the real meat of this mission is, and is much more interesting than the stroll through town. A lot of time went into building that enclosed town. Kudos for that! The squad is forced to tackle a man-made totally enclosed town with only one entrance. You really need to get yourself situated quickly because you are presented with a stream of east units coming at you. There is barely enough time to get into the house and find cover before the onslaught begins. Often fraught with death we found it was best just to stand back and let the east run at you, it really just turns into a massive turkey shoot.

After the killing spree, you're presented with the task of clearing out the town. There are many well placed units through out this town. It takes some time moving carefully, searching for the enemy soldiers. Once you have learned all the locations of the east, it becomes fairly easy work in proceeding attempts at completing this mission. You can also use the satellite camera view via the radio, this will help with finding some of those hard to reach guys.

One of the fall-backs of this CQB Trigger Time is once you're dead you end up as the proverbial seagull. This may bring back some of the frustrations of OFP before we had spectating available to us on death. Given that this mission is a bit on the older side, you can easily over look this!

Overall

CQB Trigger Time is a fun turkey-shoot type of mission. There are plenty of kills to be had by all for the first part of the mission, then you get down to the serious business of clearing out the hard-to-reach, well-hidden enemy units. The mission itself seriously lacks any meaningful objectives and the replayability factor is on the weak side, but hey - it's a training mission and killing is the game! Keep in mind when you play CQB that it is meant to be a training mission to warm you up before some serious play and it does this well!