Apophis

I sit here wondering how to start this review. I honestly don't know what to say. I got home from work today and installed the preview that Kunin sent over and expected to see a really good map. With all the mediocre maps that have come out for GR, I wasn't honestly sure what to expect. To put it simply; the bar has been raised...

Ossetian Woodland is a beautiful map with varied terrain. You have everything from fairly level plain areas, with trees, rolling hills, mountainous regious, water, cliffs, you name it. While I was wandering around in the demo mission, I felt like I was taking pictures for national geographic. There is still a detailed texture issue with the ground that BattleBorne is working on, but after playing for 3 minutes I ceased to notice it. The mission that was included with the preview was pretty fun and very challening. Especially for one human with AI support.

This is the crew hanging around trying to figure out where we are, what our objective points are, and figuring out how the terrain is laid out so we have the best natural cover for our movements. Not a bad spawn point, definitely a cold LZ.

Objectives defined; get into the supply depot and retreieve some documents. Fine and dandy. Then go kill some punk hiding out in a camp on the other side of the map. Piece of cake. Yeah. Riight.. We managed to get up over the first hill without incident and spotted the supply depot. Low and behold there was an active tank inside the depot. He couldn't really go anywhere but his parking spot, but he made his presense known by moving his turret around a bit.

This is where all hell broke loose. I sent Alpha team off to the north side of the depot and Bravo to the south while I stayed with Charlie up on the hill. Bravo was beat up pretty badly and I lost all but one of the AI players. I took a couple out but quickly became the target and lost ALL of Charlie team except for myself. Crap. I sent the last of Bravo in hard to take the heat off me. Luckily it worked and the heat was off. Well; until I turned slighty to my right only to see a pair of legs there. I was half laughing and half messing my pants because this guy was literally 2 feet away from me. He walks by and I listen for more footsteps behind me... nothing... engage...

I guess his friends behind him were being quiet and didn't seem to like the fact that I took out their buddy as I was quickly eliminated. Spawn into Bravo.. Bravo had done an excellnt job of clearing out the depot area so with a little finesse and some trickery we managed to get into the depot and clear out what we needed to pick up the documents. Damn Bravo though, they waited for ME to get there to take out the tank.. Lazy bastards. It's now down to just me and one AI demo guy. He wanted a picture to send home to the family to show him how nice it was out here.. What was I going to do? Say no?

It's a good thing I took that picture. He was shot in the back seconds later by someone up in that tower in the background. I guess I should have cleared that first, eh? Being all alone I figured I would just grab a couple more screenshots of the map before I got toasted. There was a nice river coming through the canyon that added a nice touch. I've always liked maps with properly done water elements.

Overall. I thought the map was fantastic and i'm anxiously waiting it's final release. I won't spoil the ending, but I will tell you that there are plenty of twists and turns in this one; you'll feel like you did the VERY FIRST TIME you played GR and had to complete that Caves mission. It really does take you back. There are random spawn points and not all of them are cold LZ's. I found a rather hot one that was VERY difficult to get out of. Not impossible, but something to really keep you on your toes.

Thanks for the preview, Kunin, and FANTASTIC WORK BattleBorne! I hope you have more in store for us...

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Diplomacy is the art of saying "good doggie" while looking for a bigger stick.