Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis

"Attention to detail, the Gran Turismo of War Games"

And I thought the reviewers were gonna be wrong on this game. After hearing a few negative comments on the game, I decided to check it out myself. Operation Flashpoint has its downsides, but most of the common downsides would appeal to the common computer or gaming freak.

Presentation
The box is pretty nice, and you get yourself a lil keypad reference and the instruction book, jus the basics. The game's got some nice menus and some of the other screens such as mission briefings gives you the feel that you are a soldier fighting, but at the same time, the game gives open to question on that you rarely get any info whats going on.

Graphics
Sigh, one of the parts the nerds and geeks all around were cryin bout. ''The graphics are terrrriblllle, gllavin. I'm not gonnnna play this anymoore, glavin''. Well the graphics ain't that bad, but they ain't good.I guess there not trying to push your computer to its limits since the fields are huge and almost limitless and not everyone is like ''I'm gonna upgrade my computer every 4 minutes, glavin''. So there tryin to appeal to the casual gamer with his regular computer.

Gameplay
The best part of the game. Never have I ever played a game like this. The controls are simple to learn, so thats a plus. The great part about this game is that it plays like a real war simulator. Whenever your getting shot at, you gotta get down. Theres no radar so you have to spot your enemies gunfire to shoot him. If you get shot in certain places, it'll effect your ability. I got shot in the leg and my soldier could only crawl from then on. Missions can go two ways now. In one mission to capture a town, one way could be you lose all your men and you retreat. The other outcome would be successfully taking over. Driving the vehicles is also a great addition to the game.

Now the only downsides to the game is that it'll run slow if you have a slow computer. I decided to make the game screen smaller so it'll run faster.

Intangibles
The game is a near perfect war sim. If you aren't a computer nerd that goes for only graphics, then play this game. If you are one, stay away from it.

On a grade scale of 5 +'s
Presentation - ++++
Graphics - ++
Gameplay - +++++
Intangibles - +++++

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 09/12/01, Updated 09/12/01