Description
Dredcon Station, a top-secret Shivan research installation, has come under heavy Shivan attack. Alpha and Beta Wings commence evacuation efforts in order to rescue the personnel and valuable computer mainframes from the Station.

Storyline:
After the invasion of Taranova installation, all of the stuff there related to the Top Secret Shivan Research was moved to Dredcon Station, but now Dredcon's under heavy shivan attack and must be evacuated. The story is well-done, and the briefing is rather professional looking, although it would be nice to find out just what those scientists are researching. The in-mission storyline is fantastic, and the hero of Taranova, the GTC Virtuoso, plays a large part in A Way Out - a nice touch.

Balance:
A Way Out is well-balanced. Any fighter is available, as well as any weapon. The enemy is neither too numerous nor too weak, although sometimes they die for no apparent reason. However, there are a few too many fighters at the player's disposal, making the Cains a bit easy to kill.

Design:
Like Taranova, A Way Out is filled with good design ideas. Aside from a few grammatical problems (like "Iota is has departed"), there are no real flaws here. The enemy comes in nice-sized waves, and the objectives are all completed when they logically should be. This might seem a no-brainer, but bad Objectives programming has condemned more than a few missions in the past. There are, however, too many Dragons. In fact, the only major problem I encountered was that a wing of Dragons enters the mission after all objectives are complete. All of the player's wingmen have departed as well, making the destruction of the slippery craft all but impossible. A lesson to all designers: Avoid more than a few Dragons; they're just too damn annoying. Also, sometimes a wingman would explode for no apparent reason, although this only happened twice out of the many times I've played A Way Out. The messages are informative and concise, if not elaborate.

Gameplay:
Escort missions are usually rather dull, but A Way Out is just fun. There are several wings of transports and cargo ships to protect, and surprises often come out of nowhere (with subspace, that's literal), breaking up the standard escorting routine. As with Blade's previous venture, a common gameplay type is turned into a varied excersise in fun.

Other Thoughts:
This is the second Taranova mission, and a third is forthcoming. Apparently, they are not a campaign as such, but more of a trillogy. I agree with Razor's desicion to keep this three-mission cycle from being called a campaign, because it really isn't. Razor Blade, in general, seems to be one of the better mission designers out there, and I ferverently hope that Taranova 3 will maintain the high quality seen in Conflict at Taranova and A Way Out.