Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis

List Price: $39.99 Discount Price: $11.92

Accessories:
PC Gamer (1-year)	Games for Windows: The Official Magazine

Customer Reviews:

Awesome - esp for a bargain bin game! [Posted on 2003-11-06]
This game did not get the popularity or the recognition it deserved. First off, it was one of the first tactical combat FPS simulators where you could actually drive any vehicle, explore endless environments, etc.. and it was released a whole year before some other games that could do the same (BF1942 comes to mind). You can do so much in this game, it's too awesome. Like pick up rifles, ammo, grenades off dead soldiers. You can snipe, assault, drive, use heavy ordinance. It's truly awesome. Also, I picked up a utility off of Fileplanet/Gamespy which allows you to do multiple saves in-mission. This will help alleviate any stress some gamers may feel when they play this game - it feels that real when you pllay it. Cheers!!!

Great game, if flawed [Posted on 2003-11-09]
Operation Flashpoint is a great game
Pros:
Grear army, tank, helecopter sim
Long Campaign, good, if a bit unrealistic plot
Lots of weapons and vehicles
Great sound
Varied objectives
Some great graphics
Huge maps
Cons:
Poor voice acting
Cant reload and move at the same time
Bad clipping
Bad graphics up close
A few bugs

Overall: A great military sim, if you can overlook the flaws

Military Buff's Game of Choice [Posted on 2003-11-18]
Operation flashpoint is a Tactical first person shooter set in a 1980's "cold war turns hot" scenario. For those of you not in the know, while most First person shooters focus on rambo-style action, tactical shooters emphazise realism, planning, and ussually allow you to control a team.

The plot isn't exactly a novelty, A soviet invasion of a small group of Islands results in a serious clash between US and Russian forces. The story is enough to drive the gameplay however and make you feel you are fighitng for a purpose.

The game differentiates itself from others in the genre in many ways. To begin with, this is the first FPS I've seen that attempts to completely simulate combined arms combat, with a commitment to militarily accuracy. A complete compliment of 1980's military hardware is featured in the game, from abrahams tanks, to AH64 Apache Longbows, to T-80 Tanks, to a number of accuratley reproduced firearms. The selection is amazing. A large selection of machine guns, sub machine guns, grenades, tanks, planes, helocopters, APCs, and even boats are available. Each has SPECIFIC and very different features and specs. You can actually notice accuracy differences between rifles. And you can use ALL of them!

That's a BIG selling point for this game. Before Battlefield 1942 and other games like it, Operation Flashpoint was perhaps the first game to feature combined arms. So not only is it a first person shooter, but it's a tank simulator, a flight sim, and a driving game! And you can use ANY vehicle in the game. You see a car in a small town - get in a drive. You see a dead enemy soldier with a weapon, drop what you got and pick up his instead. You can even get in boats. This kind of freedom is definatley unusual.

The landscape and mission paradigm is also free form. You can go ANYWHERE. You are never limited as to where you can go in a mission, and you can get in a car and drive miles in the wrong direction if you so choose. You can complete any mission in whatever way you like too - sneak into a town and complete your mission, or jump into an empty enemy tank and blow everyone away.

Realism is a key emphasis. Get shot a few times, or once in the head, and you're dead. Get your legs shot up and you can't run as fast, or may have to crawl around. Shoot out a tire on a truck and it goes flat. Shoot an engine you might disable it completely. You have a compass and map, and a watch to tell time and there is a realist time cycle - it will change from day to dusk to night at appropriate times - and there is also weather variations. Run too long and you get tired. I've rarely seen such dedication to realism in a game.

This realism extends to graphics and sounds. All vehicles are accuratley rendered both inside and out. You can choose first person or 3rd person view, so you can actually sit inside a tank and look around at the inside. Detail is present in graphics - there is even a working speedometer on car dashboards! The use of sprites and less than perfect textures on some objects like houses and fauna limits the eye candy to some degree but otherwise the game looks really good, especially for being a 2001 release. Sound is great, and very realistic. Hearing bullets whiz by you or the reverb of a tank shot is enough to convince you that you're actually in danger!

The problems with the game are bugs. Motion is can be stuttery at times, and occasionally you'll get stuck, or pass through solid matter - if only the army got ahold of that technology! The controls for the various vehicles can have some issues, as flying is a real pain. Driving too, isnt perfect - OFP is a jack of all trades and a master of none. The realism also makes for a VERY difficult gaming experience at times. The WORST mistake was the choice to limit you to only ONE save per mission. A HUGE pain. You will no doubt have to play the same parts of a hard mission over and over and over thanks to this, and while it adds to realism, players should always be given the option to save more if they choose. This really can hurt the gameplay experience. I often become frustrated with this, especially since all it takes is one tiny wrong move to get yourself a in body bag.

Bottom line: This was a ground breaking game. If you love detailed realistic games and are a military enthusiast, you will have an orgasm playing this game! Just be prepared for a first person war simulation - NOT at all an arcade game. If you just like quick action then you best look somewhere else. This is a great game that needs some polishing, hopefully the sequel will address the flaws. I recomend buying the game of the year addition which costs the same and includes all the add ons and expansion packs.

Real, real war [Posted on 2007-12-18]
This 1st person shooter makes a new era in this kind of games. Maybe not so graphically espectacular as Medal of Honor or similars, but with realistic ballistics and weapons.
A single shot at 1000m can kill you and the weight of ammo and weapons is limited, so you can not behave as a Bradley tank as you do in MOHAA, for example.
The enviroment is very big, with a tactical use of maps and obstacles, and there is not so much pleople as in other shooters.
You can manage a wide range of infantry weapons, including RPG or LAW grenade launchers, guided AA and AT missiles, machine guns, and a wide range of vehicles, including M-60, M1A1, T-55, T72 tanks BMP or Bradley ATVs (nice realistics, but it is NOT a tank simulator), or helicopters (poorly realistic).
As a complement ther are some cars and even a bus, useful for ambientation.
This is not an arcade, is nearer a tactical trainer for an officer academy...
It comes with 3 campaigns, the original one for Western forces, Resistance (Nice Anti-soviet Propaganda exercise) and Red Hammer (A really shame if you are not an US citizen).
If you want to use this game as a soviet-eastern-block soldier, better make your own missions with the editor.
The editor has 2modes, one simple an manageable and the otherreally comprehensive but difficult to manage.

Wolf [Posted on 2007-12-30]
A good game, when it came out, though it's a bit dated and behind the technology, now. However, it's a lot cheaper than some of the hot new games. It has different modes, within the war campaign. In first-person-shooter mode, it is generally fun, though sometimes, there are long, boring scenarios. Later in the campaign, when you drive tanks, the controls are too confusing, and it can become VERY frustrating. Also later in the campaign, you serve as an officer and must give orders to other soldiers, which is just too complicated and more like work than fun.

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