Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis

"*Run run run BAM! slump restart* and repeat 'till yer sick of it all."

Operation Flashpoint (called OpFlash, by some) is a game that had a brilliant idea, but suffered somewhat in the execution. The general idea sticks you in the middle of an escalating war between Russia (presumably) and the US Armed Forces. You start out in the army as a private and work your way up the ranks, mostly by simply surviving and going on to the next mission. The game packs 40 missions, so you'll be working on it for a while. In those 40 missions, you'll spend a lot of time in vehicles, whether your driving, gunning, being a helpless passenger, or commanding a giant tank, you'll have fun with the numerous vehicles. To supplement the ground vehicles, aircraft are available as well. Since Operation Flashpoint didn't aim for a true-to-life vehicle simulator, the controls have been dumbed down to make them easy to maneuver and fly. To see those shiny vehicles and Russian AK's, many graphics options are available, so as long as you meet the minimum requirements, you can play the game (which is a plus for some people). The game does have a visual flair to it as well, although the graphics get murky after a certain point, and the low resolution textures look like pixel blobs.

Gameplay - 5/10

This is where the bulk of Operation Flashpoint's problems come into play. Since the game is based on a realistic frame, you'll take realistic damage, and deal realistic damage. This can be both good and bad. Good in that you can mow down the Reds with ease (provided you can aim), bad because if you miss, you probably won't survive the counterattack. Which leads to the next annoying problem, the godly accuracy of the enemies. The second they notice where you are, they'll hit you accurately every time, no matter how far away you are (I got shot accurately from over a kilometer away by some recruit soldier!). The game also includes iron sight aiming (looking down the sights of the gun for ultimate accuracy), gravity affects bullets on long distances, and so does wind shear and heat loft. This can make sniping a chore, but after the first shot aiming is easy. Vehicles are easy to drive, but for some reason the M1A1 tank swerves madly whenever you try to drive straight, and only straightens out when you take a corner. Flying is also somewhat weird, as I managed to flip over my helicopter and plunge 2 kilometers to the ground by moving the mouse to the left. The Command system, for when you get a high enough rank to attain control of your own squad, is clunky and difficult to use. Unless you actually bother to memorize the entire radio menu (and it's 20+ sub-menus), then you'll spend most of your time in command looking for the correct radio command to send to your troops, which are dead by the time you find the radio order. You also are not restricted to a certain operational area for your mission, you can roam anywhere you want to on the island (144 km² the box claims), but don't count on finishing your mission if you do roam around. Operation Flashpoint lastly includes a technical and difficult to use mission editor, but it does allow you to make any of the Single Player quality missions, thus allowing you maximum replayability.

Graphics - 6/10

The graphics in Operation Flashpoint do look good, but they are repetitive like all get out. Rows upon rows of trees, bushes, shrubs, and more trees. Trees are everywhere. EVERYWHERE. I can't stress it enough. And everything is green, except your uniform and weapon. Coupled with the pixilated textures, and somewhat badly done shadows (Which you can turn off), Operation Flashpoint is a romp through a murky island (or two, you do move to a different one later on, and there are 2 extra multi player only islands). The character animations aren't well done, and could use some refining, with emphasis on movement.

Sound - 8/10

Operation Flashpoint synthesizes all it's radio voice on the fly, which means they sound scratchy, emotionless, and downright annoying. While the radio voices will get on your nerves, the rest of the game does have good sound effects. The weapon sounds aren't distorted or twisted and screwed up in some inane way, although explosions could use a little more of a powerful sound to them. The game does include music, but I never really listened to it, so it couldn't have been good 8).

Story - 6/10

The story is fragmented into the 40 missions. Most of them have almost no bearing on the next one, except for some momentous missions where you evacuate from an island etc. Since the story is hacked into 40 individual chunks and left with undescriptive cut scenes for you to piece together, it goes without saying that you'll have little idea of what's really going on.

Replayability - 3/10

Here is yet one more point where the game also suffers. Since the missions rely heavily on scripted events and follow a set linear path, the replayability of the single player game hits 0 once you've run through it the first time. Fortunately, the game prevents itself from having a complete 0 in this rank by including a built-in mission editor (Hard as hell to use, but still fun to play around with), and multi player support.

Pluses

+ Built-in Mission Editor and multi player
+ Vehicles are fun and easy to use
+ Realistic. To the core.

Minuses

- Repetitive graphics
- Twitchy aircraft controls
- Realism is lethal, in most cases.

Note: Overall score is not an average.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 09/17/01, Updated 09/17/01