Review by:  Blood
October 13, 2001

 

I’ve had an unusual life compared to most people my age, I’ve done things most of you will never experience, and I’ve been places most of you will never go. It all started when at the ripe age of 17 I met Sergeant Alan Griffith an Army recruiter. I signed my name on the line and the rest is history. I did my basic training and my advanced training at Ft Leonard Wood Missouri, then began my life as a member of the United States Army.

Although I was never in an actual live combat situation, I spent many the wet, rainy, cold, snowy, hot, sweaty, night slogging through some forest with an M16 Rifle loaded with blanks waiting to get my ass shot off by an "enemy" force. These training exercises are common, and depending on the weather and the location, the training was usually a blast. I went through Sergeant’s school (PLDC) and learned how to plan ambushes, and how to lead similar military exercises. The point is that it was fun. On one night we went through a course where they shot live machine gun rounds over our heads. We were crawling up a hill and there were explosions going on around us (controlled of course). We had to crawl under barbed wire, and through clouds of smoke put off by smoke grenades. You’re probably reading this wondering what in the hell it has to do with Operation Flashpoint Cold War Crisis, well keep reading and you’ll find out.

I got the game and installed it. I was rather impressed by the minimum requirements to play the game, it seems many gaming companies have set high minimum requirements for new releases. Codemasters, the creators of Operation Flashpoint, made the game playable on a Pentium 2, but the game still takes advantage of technologies in today’s hot gaming machines without sacrificing anything.

The game takes place on the island of Everon, the year is 1985. The United States and the Soviet Union are still embroiled in the cold war. You start out as Private Armstrong, your platoon is getting ready to be shipped off the island in a day or so. The first campaign mission is more or less a training session. The session is worked into the story well, and lets you get the hang of the controls before dumping you into combat. Shortly after the training mission you learn that the island has been invaded by a group of Soviet renegades. You are told there is help on the way, but you and the other soldiers on the island are going to have to try and dislodge the Soviets.

The game, much to it’s credit, has a very solid story (unlike my evil nemeses, the most over rated game in history, Quake 3). Each mission is connected to the last with a cut scene telling a story. Several of the missions themselves are bisected with cut scenes helping the story along.

Armstrong has a rather interesting platoon, very reminiscent of Saving Private Ryan. You have a commander with you and several other characters that follow you through the missions. There is even the goofy guy nobody really likes because he is such a moron. This aspect helped with the realism of the game.

I was filled with sheer awe as I played my first combat mission. I had to help retake a village the Soviets had invaded. I entered the village area with my platoon, and a few pieces of armor (tanks and the like). We had to fight tooth and nail for every inch of land. As we got close to the village an enemy tank came out to meet us. It’s turret turned to face us and fire erupted from the barrel as it fired. The shot hit a distance from me killing a member of my squad. The tank fired again hitting very near to me. I was amazed, the shot hit far enough from me that I wasn’t killed, but the resulting explosion was amazing! It felt real. All I could see was fire, dirt, and smoke. About that point I ran into the trees, and a retreat was called since I was informed a Soviet armor section was coming into town.

The most amazing thing that struck me about the game was all the tactics we used, and the way the missions were lined out, it was exactly like it was in the Army. This game is the closest thing to being in the real military as you can get, short of signing the line. Another aspect of the game that I really enjoyed was the ability to fly a helicopter, drive jeeps, tanks, trucks, and any other piece of equipment in the game.

One of my favorite missions involves getting behind the stick of an Apache Helicopter and smoking out an entire convoy. There is a mission where you can take the controls of an M1A1 Abrams Tank and wreak havoc on the enemy.

 

The relationship of how the game works to real life is incredible. Like real life if you get shot you will likely die. You have to low crawl, and run to survive. There is no medi-pack to bring your health back up. You are either alive, alive and seriously injured, or dead. This makes the game a challenge.

The game comes with a mission editor which allows you to create your own missions, and has multiplayer support for up to 16 players. The game also allows you to play from either 1^st or 3^rd person point of view.

When the game Hidden and Dangerous was released I thought I’d seen the standard by which all tactical first person war shooters would be judged by. Operation Flashpoint sets the new standard and sets it high.

 

You can check out the official Operation Flashpoint website here.