Operation Flashpoint Review

I've already talked about this in the demo review, but since then, the programmers have made some subtle, yet important changes to the interface. They've introduced the "clock". Well, it's not really a clock, but a mechanical watch-like compass that comes in handy when your commander shouts out things like: "target, unknown, 9 o' clock!" Besides the "clock", the interface will allow you to easily tell where you need to go at all times by giving you onscreen info (move to this and that waypoint), making it highly unlikely that you'll ever become disoriented during a mission. All you gotta do is listen carefully to your CO's instructions - obey orders and keep your head low, and with a little luck, you'll get to live another day. Also adding to the realism over the demo is the inability to aim straight when wounded. A shot in the head will have you opening the Heaven's gate in no time, while a body shot might completely screw up your aim. What you need to do in that case is run to the field hospital and get yourself patched up before you jump back into action.

Commanding the troops, craft, or vehicles is easy enough as well. Issuing orders is done on the fly, especially if you learn all the keyboard shortcuts. I've already talked about how the soldier movement is well-conceived and how it influences so many elements of a fire fight, so all you gotta do now is add up two and two together and you'll realize that you've got one helluva war sim on your hands. The resulting gameplay is smooth and intense - a perfect mix of verisimilitude and action.

The only drawback to the smoothness of gameplay in the single player game are the scripted AI routines, which can sometimes cause enemy soldiers to act def, blind, and stupid at close range. The idea was that (like in real life) the soldiers should look for you before they start shooting at you, which is just fine if you're 100m away and hidden in thick bush, but the concept doesn't work so well if you're standing 2m away from the tango and he's going prone to look for ya. Hello! Mister stupid soldier man! I'm right here! POP, POP, POP! No more mister stupid soldier man. Other than that, the "reds" can be pretty tough when they get set and start shooting at you from mid-range.

It should also be noted here that you can only save the game once during a mission. It's a cool feature if you ask me, and it further adds to the whole "focus on realism" OF concept. You simply have to watch yourself when you're out there.

The game's soundtrack is perfectly complimentary to the excellent cinematic atmosphere. It's timely implemented, and it only adds to the electrified war-faring mood of the game.

Finally, the visuals are not the best you've ever seen, but they are highly functional and complimentary to the Op. Flashpoint style of gameplay. The most important thing is that the 3D engine appears highly scalable, and it adjusts well to a wide range of PC's out there. I played the game on three different rigs: one had a GeForce, the other a GeForce 2 GTS, and the third one had a GeForce 3 inside. Needless to say, there were some, um, visual disparities amongst the three. The colors, and the models looked about twice as vibrant on a high-end machine than on a low end one, even though I've set the game on maximum visual quality on each of the test systems. Surprisingly enough though, the frame rate was in its teens on a PIII 500, 128RAM, and GeForce even when I had all the visual preferences set to max (1024, 32-bit).

Still, the color palette seemed a little washed out, and the mouse look seemed jerky, regardless of the frame rate number. The eye candy could've used some more polishing, but on the upside, the maps are enormous and full of (rather simplistic) vegetation, which is exactly what you need for this type of game. The engine also supports some rather groovy day and night cycles and some decent lighting effects.

All in all, Operation Flashpoint gets two thumbs up from the Action Trip.com staff. Not only does it feature some addictive and versatile gameplay, it also has depth and great cinematic quality. Just remember that "War is not nice." And cows give milk if you milk them; money is used to buy things, and getting shot in the head from point blank range while two homo midgets are using the "pliers and a blow torch technique" on your nuts is definitely not nice. Barbara, you take our breath away...