Description
As a pilot for The Vega Syndicate, a criminal organization, you will lead a strike on a GTVA convoy carrying some of your captured comrades. Full Sound included.

Storyline:
In a highly original plot idea, the player is a pilot for a criminal organization, the Vega Syndicate. The goal of the mission is to rescue Syndicate members that are being transported to a correctional institute in Sirius.<p> The Command Briefing is handled through a series of "e-mail files," which is also clever.<p> However, this mission does seem to point out a very interesting flaw in command briefing and briefing design. Since you can run FS2 in high resolution, you can cram more text into the command briefings and briefing that you could on, say, 640x480 resolution. As a result, a lot of the text in these parts of the mission overruns the bottom of the window and the icons in the briefing appear crammed together.<p> If the author noticed this rather unpleasant "quirk," the storyline would have gotten a 5, easily.

Balance:
Ouch... this is the only real category <i>Vega</i> falters in. This is a very difficult mission to complete, even on Very Easy difficulty. All too often, your wingmen will get totally wiped out - the reinforcements too. This leaves you to go solo and defend an Elysium and an Argo transport without any help. And what's with the Expedient leaving as soon as the Hanover is neutralized?

Design:
The balance issues are really souring... because one look at this mission in FRED2 reveals a masterful design, filled with use of the more exotic commands in the Events editor and much event chaining and combined events. This author knew what he was doing. Everything about the design screams thought and creativity.

Gameplay:
But when you get right down to it... it is just a very, very difficult mission to complete. Especially since I got caught off-guard with how the GTVA actually <i>disabled</i> the vessel I was escorting as opposed to just destroying it. Sneaky, since that sort of damage is not reflected in the Escort Monitor.

Other Thoughts:
If the author tweaked the difficulty and made it a bit easier, this mission would easily get into the fabled Preferred Missions category.<p> The voices are quite good, I must add.