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The
commies are coming! The commies are coming!
Review by Dave "!FT!Marauder" Kratky. June 28.2001
Sneaking through the woods with your squad, you see movement at the edge of the woods. You lay down your rifle, pull out your binoculars and peer ahead. Oh great. Just f(*&*ing great. Russian soldiers are entering the forest, and they've got a BMP in support. They're looking for someone, and that someone is.... You. Welcome to the frontlines of Operation Flashpoint.
People have been sending me emails for months, pestering me about Operation Flash Point... Get it.. Get it.. Get it.. Argh. Well, it's finally out and I got it. You can all just shut the hell up and go away..... So I cam spend more and more time playing OFP. Damn. This is one HELL of a squad based shooter. I've been hooked on squad based military shooters ever since the day I picked up a little game called "Rainbow 6" a few years ago. You may have heard of it.. It's the game that started the whole genre. I've not been hooked on something like this game since those haloed days. The background story of OFP is.... Well, lets just say it's there. You're a soldier going through training. A wacko Russian general with an attitude problem decides to attack the islands you're on and make them his own personal little fiefdom..... Of course, you pesky Americaners just happen to be between this loon and world domination. Kill some Ruskies, kick the General's ass and... OH! Did I mention the nuke he's got? No? Well, you'll find out about that a little later in the game anyhows.
Graphics Engine & Sound Wow. Now this is what I call a pretty game. You can see one hell of a long distance, and shoot and hit that far off as well. Textures are detailed and realistic, there's excellent detail on all the vehicles and player models. (You even have tail and headlights, which you can switch on and off.) For the first time I've ever seen in a game, a forest actually looks like a damned forest, rather than a two dimensional block textured with trees.
Tanks have good looking dust rising from their treads. Shadows move over the country side as choppers and attack aircraft maneuver. The engine is rather like a cross of Delta Force meets project IGI, but sexier.
Models in third person do look a little strange, and your hand on the gun looks a little off, but these minor things really don't detract from the game. In first person the models look pretty damned good. They breathe, blink, talk etc. Very nicely done.
Sounds in the game are detailed and realistic. Tank and APC cannons boom, machine guns chatter, birds chirp in the forests..... Near misses whine as they fly by. The music matches the game perfectly and sets the mood. Your teammates also radio chatter back and forth. It sounds REALLY canned, like Half Life radio chat.... But it's pretty decent for the sheer number of sentences they manage to string together. The voice acting is pretty good as well.... Well, it's above Mechwarrior 4 anyhows. :)))
Vehicles/Weapons
The thing that really sets OFP apart from other squad based military shooters such as WWIIO, Delta Force and IGI is the sheer variety of weapons and vehicles you can use. If you see it, you can use it. I was running through a town trying to escape enemy patrols (I got lost in the woods like a big fat loser during the initial Russian assault on the islands. I found me an Austin mini, baby! Woot! Fired up that bad boy and raced to the extraction point with time to spare. :)
If you're running low on ammunition, you can kill enemy soldiers and loot the bodies. It's like a virtual cornucopia of guns, guns, guns! So far I've counted one submachine gun, 4 assault rifles (One with a grenade launcher!), 2 sniper rifles, 2 machine guns, 3 types of rocket launcher, and hand grenades..... Man. I've driven civilian cars, 10 ton trucks, 2 tanks, 1 APC, flown 2 types of chopper and one attack aircraft...... I like this game, I like it alot. Not much chance of me getting bored with all these toys to play with.
Worlds/Battlefields/Missions Wow. It's a big world out there, and you're just a little cog in the military machine. Missions range from standard night patrols, ground attacks, tank spearheads, assassinations and covert infiltration. The variety, and the fact that every missions plays different every time is sure to keep you interested. Missions are given to you via in game cut scenes. Basically, you pretty much do what you're told. It's an interesting change from always being the hero type out to change the world. In FOP you're just another grunt trying to survive the day. At the start of the game anyhows. :) The game has a series of basic training missions to get you going with each phase... For example, you start the game as a ground pounder So you run through a few little training exercises that teach you to maneuver, crawl, run, shoot and fight. You also learn the basics of driving. As a tanker you learn the basics of driving, and then of commanding your own tank in battle. After the training you are thrown into progressively harder missions against the Russians.
Some of the missions are insanely hard, and again the damned "Can't save here" thing comes back to annoy me. Navigating the world is easy as you have an in game watch,compass and map that you can pull up anytime. Consult the map alot. These levels are massive, and you WILL get lost if you're not paying attention.
AI Not bad, sometimes a little bit too good. I've been picked off by troopers so far away I couldn't see them. It's a bitch to tell where the rounds are coming from, but that's life. On the other hand, sometimes your idiot teammates just sorta ignore incoming armor and get you all killed... Or drive into the side of a building.. over.. and over and over..... Mixed reaction here, but overall not bad.... As usual though, not up to Half Life specs.
Nothing fancy here... Or is there? When you're playing as a grunt you use your standard shooter controls, easily remapped to whatever you want them. Third person camera is available, although it can be disabled in mutliplayer by the host. When driving or piloting you still use pretty much the standard shooter keys. As the tank commander you can click on targets, or if it's empty ground, tell the driver to move there. You can also send commands to the driver via the WASD direction keys. Most excellent, and one HELL of a lot more convenient than the standard arrangement where you're jumping from station to station like an idiot. If a human player takes one station in a vehicle, the AI controls all the others. Very, very nice way to do things. Makes it actually worth commanding a tank, and surprisingly easy! Commanding a squad works pretty much the same way. You just pop down the command menu and tell them what you want them to do. Flying is surprisingly simple. It's like a flight simulator without the simulator part, just the flying and blowing stuff up part. (In other words, the part we all enjoy) A few quick minutes getting used to the keys and I was away to the flying races!
Manual Excellent
manual, with tons of detail on the gameplay, controls, vehicles
and weapons. Multiplayer Well, there's no in-game browser for joining multiplayer games. I hate that. However, it does support Gamespy Arcade (GSA), so finding other games and players to yack with is easy as cake. Just open GSA, click on Flashpoint, join a room and a game. Flashpoint autolaunches and connects to the game. That's it. There are mutiple game types, including standard deathmatch and city defence. Players pick their affiliation and role when they join the server. Regrettably, I couldn't find any games in North America to play with. All Euros, and there's no way in hell I'm going to play at a ping of 300+. (Apparently the game isn't officially out in North America until September 15th.) Need more people on this ol' continent with this game and then.... Ohhh boy. I can hardly wait. It's going to just kick ass to do a combined arms assault with your buddies. The only game I've seen so far that does this sort of thing is WWII Online, and I like the graphics on OFP on hell of a lot more. :) Also, modern guns and vehicles are goooooood.
Saves, or lack thereof. Nothing pisses me off more than having to play one part of a mission fifty frickin' times because I can't save. I hate that. You can save once per mission. That's it.
It's annoying (but realistic) to not be able to see where bullets are coming from. No side arm. It REALLY annoys me off that you don't have a melee weapon, or a pistol for up close work and emergencies. Argh! Stupid Windows 2000 bug at the start of the game. You had to minimize and then maximize the game to continue past the menu screen. Fixed with the first patch. (3 megs.)
Well, it's worth playing. I'd say it's the best squad based military shooter since the first Delta Force, and is certainly the prettiest. The story is good, voice acting is decent, music is excellent, the action is intense if sometimes frustrating, and over all, it's one hell of a lot of fun. This so far is the finest example of the military squad based shooter I've seen to date. I'm going to be playing this one quite a bit, and I can hardly wait until more folks in NA get it. Then we're going to see some major gamage. Cyah all on the battlefield. (Note: The only place I've seen in Canada with it yet is VAM Computers. You can email them inquiries here: sales@vamcomputers.com) ------------------------------------ Shortly after posting this review I recieved this email. Thanks Wolfgang! hi, maybe you
heard it already, but there's a little trick to save more than one
time per mission: in /users/ important:
switch to the explorer while the game is running, because switching
in pause modus (after hitting
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