Description
You must intercept a convoy of Shivans and Destroy it.

Storyline:
Very little storyline exists in this mission. The two-stage briefing gives only the required amount of information and no more. It is full of spelling and grammatical errors, as is the debriefing. There are three messages in the mission, and even they only give arrival messages for friendly capital ships. Incidentally, the capital ship names are stolen from various sources in the main campaign, while not retaining the right ship. Not good. The mission holds no surprises either, something that I always like.

Balance:
If you can survive the first fighter attack, you still probably wonÂ’t win this mission. If even one of the transports or freighters jump out youÂ’ll fail, and there are simply too many to stop, bearing in mind that you will be the only one of your wingmen to survive. The arrival of the capital ships is also poor. Both have to be destroyed in order for a new wave to arrive. The Shivan convoy is also far too large anyway. A much better mission could have been made with just a few ships; for example a mission in which you must destroy the vessels and capture the cargo.

Design:
The mission works without errors, but there are many elements to be found in a good mission missing from this. There are no directives, and, although waypoints are used, the freighters and transports pull far ahead of their cruiser escort. This is the main problem with the mission. If the freighters and transports were made slower, the convoy would be much easier to destroy and look better too. Beam weapons also work, but again there are no complicated s-exp arrangements. The mission goals also need an overhaul – they’re far too strict as it is.

Gameplay:
YouÂ’re likely to die within the first two minutes, but if you can survive long enough the fighters will all be dead and youÂ’ll only have to deal with the freighters and transports while friendly bombers deal with the cruisers. ItÂ’s usually fun to destroy the poor, defenceless freighters but this mission made it slightly <i>less</i> enjoyable.

Other Thoughts:
Cutting back on the number of enemy and friendly ships in the mission, while limiting freighter speed and perhaps adding a surprise (I can think of many) would greatly enhance the mission. On another topic, if anyone saw the previous version of the review, I made a mistake when I slipped with the mousewheel, resulting in me giving this 0.0 for gameplay. All fixed now though...