Description
Mysterious Cargo is a port of the first mission of the not completed NUBIAN CONFLICT EPISODE 2 Campaign for FS1. On this mission, you are part of the 242nd Suicide Kings squadron stationed aboard the GTD KINTE. SOC has dispatched the KINTE to the ROSS 128 system to investigate mysterious happenings near a previously undetected Shivan cargo depot. Full in-flight sounds. Read Nubian2.doc 1st!!!!

Storyline:
A distinctly average storyline backs up this mission. The premise is to capture a couple of cargo units from the Shivans. ThatÂ’s about it, and there are no real surprises thrown into the mission. Briefing and command briefing are pretty well done, with a few spelling errors and incorrect ships for icons. These, however, are only minor problems. There are numerous spelling errors in the messages. The most irritating thing in the storyline, and throughout the rest of the mission is the use of totally capitalised names. Why?

Balance:
Although not a total pushover or completely impossible, this mission does tend towards being rather easy. There are never enough Shivan fighters to challenge you really, and as a result the Shivan attempt to capture the cargo fails. The bombers do pose a reasonable threat to the Kinte, but no other mission critical ships, such as the transports ever come under attack. The loadout is also far too broad – the player literally has a choice of any weapon, though the author does explain this.

Design:
The use of the rarely used training s-exps to create cinematic messages is a nice touch, which lifts the design of this mission above the average level. However, it is dragged down again by poor event layout and ship placement. Ships are all placed in the direction in which they appear in FRED2, so a Shivan cruiser attacking the Kinte must turn 180 degrees before it can fire. The number of events could have been reduced a huge amount if the author had used the send-message-list s-exp. Some of the messages also have repeat counts added to them. It is incredibly annoying to have the same message flash up on the screen <i>fifty-five</i> times.

Gameplay:
While the training messages may be a nice design touch, in practice they’re far too intrusive. There’s no feeling of immersion or suspension of disbelief to be had, because of this and also because of the disjointed nature of the mission. Rather than have the ‘stages’ of the mission blend together, there are large pauses between them. It isn’t a great challenge to play, but it’s not all bad. The use of the in-built FS2 messages in addition to messages from other sources is nice, though the personae of the pilots keep flicking.

Other Thoughts:
Similar missions have been done before and better than this too. Personally, I don't see how this mission got a score of 85%+.