Rating: 
Summary: not a bad attempt - it ain't WW2OL
Review: First, this is more of a combat sim than a mere fps game. This game is VERY realistic, which is a great refreshing change after dflw and such games. The damage models for each weapon are extremely true to life. For those of us who have really fired these weapons it is a bit eery how close the sound and looks have gotten to the real thing. It is much harder to kill an opponent than in other games, and the wounding model is excellent. If you're shot in the arm, you can't hold the weapon site stable, etc. Myself and a large group of friends have been getting ready for multiplayer experience with this title, though already the lag factor is making the claims about "massive multiplayer" support not easily believed. Huge improvements in the net code will be required before more than 10 total users can battle online simultaneously, or more than 2 helos with a few infantry. The lag is terrible and if you have less than the best connection to the internet... fugedaboutit. However, the game is still excellent in single player mode, and perhaps with a few patches we could expect some steps toward larger scale online battling... any new release's bread and butter if you ask me. Map making is also very easy with the mission editor. All in all worth the 40 bucks!
Rating:
Summary: Get ready to rumble, 80's style...
Review: Combine Half Life, Rogue Spear, and Delta Force, and you'll end up the Operation Flashpoint. This game is like no other.The realism is what stands out the most. This game brings you into the world of combat instead of throwing you into a "get killed, restart" learning method as most games do. Not to run a spoiler, but one of the first missions drops you in a conflict zone for the first time. You're leader is yelling at you, the radio is clogged with voices screaming and yelling, explosions are going off near and far, bullets whizzing by your head and hitting soldiers near you...I could go on and on. Also, the sight of a battle in the distance is remarkable. You could just stand there and watch, but another great thing...If you don't take cover, you're fair game for a sniper no matter where you're standing! TAKE COVER!!! The pace is outstanding and this game is no cakewalk. Be prepared to learn how to avoid getting killed, even if it means hiding in the bushes for a long time and crawling everywhere via Commandos. The reason I gave this game only 4 stars was the fact that sometimes the game can overwhelm itself. Too much going on can tend to lag the system temporarily. I'm hoping for a new patch. I have a P4 with 1.6 ghz. Hard to slow that one down. This is the 2001 game of the year. Get use to it.
Rating:
Summary: Military Buff's Game of Choice
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: I've never been in a war, but I bet this is what it's like.
Review: Operation Flashpoint is a war simulation. You actually feel like your fighting for the American Army. Battle seems extremely real and enemy and friendly AI is great. Everything feels great and one person writing from PC Gamer said, "When I look at the panels for the vehicals I see what I saw when I was in it." With that aside, OF is based in Czechlosovokia during the Cold War. A crazy army general from Russia tries to gain the motherland some more dignity. The movies are in game and sometimes show a little bit more than needed (Exp- Showing a whole minute of a tank driving to your base). The voice-over is fine but the in-game movies are nothing special. The controls are a bit different but you get used to it in no time. What about gameplay? It's amazingly realistic (I'm geussing) and incredibly fun. Being in a tank isn't my specialty but is pretty fun. Just remember that you are a team, because if you forget then you'll be reading one of the many cool death quotes. My favorite is, "The idea behind war isn't to die for your country, ..."or something like that. Some minor problems in OF. First there are limited saves, one per mission in fact. Some missions need more than one save so this can be quite a problem. If only it were two saves it probably wouldn't be as much of a problem. Another is the fact that there is no definate way to tell where your bullet is going, but that could be going back to the realism thing. The last is that some missions have too much downtime such as truck rides or waiting. Everything considered this game is great and good looking. Fun, realistic, and exilerating. Great game. I haven't played Ghost Recon but look forward to. Until then this is the reigning war-sim FPS game.
Rating:
Summary: For serious soldiers only
Review: [Added January 30 2002: This does NOT appear to be the latest OFP Gold edition, which also includes Codemasters' Red Hammer campaign. Amazon appears not to be selling OFP Gold, which costs just about the same but includes Red Hammer. Let the buyer beware!] It's me - The Avon Lady! If you seriously enjoyed playing Delta Force 1 and 2 but despised Land Warrior, this is the game you want to have. Large terrain, realistic weapons models, playable tanks, planes, helos, trucks and jeeps, squad commanding, crackshot AI and - most important - hard work. Many a younger teen will not enjoy this game. Patience and strategy are definitely required virtues for playing OFP. There are no boom-boom Quake or Land Warrior like guns here. Realism is one of OFP's goals, and OFP does a decent job of attempting to achieve it. So much so that OFP's developers are already partnering with a military simulations company to develop a more advanced version for actual use by the US military and other armed forces. Any warnings? Yes. This game is rated for mid-teens - both in the US and Europe. While it's relatively low on gore, it has some and there's plenty of battlefield killing. Overall, there's very little foul language in the game. Make sure you have a good system. A minimum of a PIII 600Mhz, 256MB RAM and a good, ATI, NVIDIA or KYRO based graphics card are recommended. If you've got a PC motherboard based on the VIA chipset, be prepared for some potential technical work. The multiplayer environment is somewhat limited. You will not see games with 30 online players. Most games have from 6 to 16 players. Still quite a lot of fun but less so for the 56K modem set. There's a lot more I could say but I'll invite you to visit The OFP FAQ site instead. Just use your favorite search engine to look for "Avon Lady's OFP FAQ". Dismissed!
Rating:
Summary: Into War Simulation... Doesn't get any better then this!
Review: I purchased Flashpoint a long time ago now and still it comes out of it's box. It's based in the gulf war where you play as many units in the American Army. A tank commander, privet, captain, you name it, you can be it throughout the single player campaign. What first struck me about the game is that it's so realistic, it becomes second nature after a while to hit the dirt if you or anyone else in your squad see's an enermy, and to then open the small scope on the M16 and check out the horizon which i have to say has no limits other than the hills that obstruct your view.
The enermy AI is totally adapted to the style of play, with snipers and soldiers, even helicopters that if you hide under a bush will hunt for you until they get bored and leave. And you really will run, and run like hell if you see a tank and your on your own trying to get to base, i did. The sprint option allows you to run fast but you soon get out of breath and your aim becomes dire.
A fine example of the limitless and non linear style of play that will become obviouse the second you start playing is when i was playing one of the missions and we had just liberated a small town. The town was ours, but then we were attacked from the North East by Russian helicopters. All of my men were killed which wasn't - i don't think supposed to happen. I had to then make my way back to base. It was getting dark and the sky was red and no kidding in the hour an a half it took me to get to base it had long got dark and you really can navigate by the stars. The reason for the delay was the tanks patrolling the fields and the soldiers walking up and down the main roads. So i went to ground and crawled around a parimeter of their position. Fortunatly and this must have been put there in the event of being so far away from base, an abandoned beat up car was at the side of the road. Civi cars are slow on grass but fast on tarmac, and so i got in and drove as fast as possible towards base. The car was riddled with holes when i pulled up outside the barracks tent and the mission was over... COOL!
The realism is extreme it really is, and if FPS are your thing then don't expect a classis like Quake becuase it's not a FPS. Infact i don't think it has a genra apart from Simulation.
Anyway, the multiplayer game if you can get enough people and have good enough PC's is very good but time consuming.
But finally, the best part of the whole game is the Level editor. It's so good, you really can recreate any childhood toy soldier scenario you can think of. You can sporn as many enermys as you want, infact what i did was start on an aircraft carrier and then land in a boat like the D-day landing with lots of other boats and troops, with helicopters triggered to start after we landed to aid in taking out the machine guns i had placed on the beech. That was good.
So to sum up, be ready for a fresh new game becuase to be honest i have never come across one quite like this before, it's replayability isn't even needed because the single player is so long i still havn't completed it and i must have clocked up a cool 20 plus hours, and even if you do, you will then download loads of other levels and then if you like, make your own.
It is worth the buy just to own it and play it when ever you want.
Rating:
Summary: My experience in the 80's US Army
Review: I went to the store one day just feeling like buying a computer game. What caught my eye? I soldier with a sniper rifle on the front cover of the Operation Flashpoint box. I bought it, but to my dismay it didn't work on my old comp. So around Christmas I bought myself a present. A shining, brand-new Dell 8200 desktop computer. OFP worked liked a charm on this bad mofo. Soon i was emersed for hours at a time in a war fighting for my country against those damn dirty commies. The game is so realistic you wouldn't believe! It even starts you out with boot camp to train you for war. Then one night you're shaken awake in your barracks the night before you're going back home after your Army Reserve training. You're sent out on a mission as a grunt to liberate a town. From this mission on it's turned into a full scale war! Fighting and fighting. Then your squad and it's commander go down in a helicopter crash while evacing one of the islands. You're left alone and get picked up by the Resistance forces and have to fight with them until the US comes to get you. Then you command your own squad on a series of battles. Stopping temporarily to play a few missions as the roles of a Tank Commander, Helicopter and Plane Pilot, and a Special-Ops soldier called a "Black-Op".
You absolutely have to stay with your squad otherwise you will die! One or two shots kill in this game, sometimes, rarely, if you're lucky, it will take three shots to kill you.
You can put your weapon on your back and even salute or sit down when you're not fighting, but just waiting around. The models of the soldiers are amazing. And you don't automatically have binoculars to look through. Only the leader of your group does. In some missions a truck has to take you somewhere and you get to sit in the back while SOMEONE ELSE DRIVES! There are several single missions as well and plenty to download off of the internet. There's very realistic recoil of the weapons, especially the machine-gun which is kind of hard to get the hang of with it's big recoil. Firing from in a bush or something? Don't stay there too long or the enemy will see your muzzle flashes and lay down fire on you. Get wounded very badly? You can't walk anymore and have to crawl until you find a medic or first aid tent/center. Afraid of the fire-fight that's getting too intense outside? Go hide in a house or shoot out of it's windows. The enemies aren't idiots in this, they actually THINK. On Veteran mode they are crack shots. So watch out. When soldiers are idle you can watch them checking and cleaning thier weapons if they're sitting. The sound is extremely realistic, from explosions and gunshots, right down to bugs buzzing and bird chirping. The death animations are kind of lousy though. Not enough blood for a huge war like this in my opinion, but whatever. There's also a map editor. It's very difficult to learn how to use, but once you learn how the scenarios you can create are endless! Upside: WARNING: POSSIBLY CONSIDERED THE MOST EXTREMELY REALISTIC WAR GAME EVER!!!!!!! Graphics are AMAZING!!!!!! Sound effects are awesome. Map Editor provides endless createable missions. Several pre-made single missions. Tons of military equipment. And, for once you can be a GRUNT!!!! WOOT! WOO HOO!!! Downside:
Multiplayer is iffy. Hard to get the hang of some weapons. Hard to get the hang of tank command. Hard to get the hang of troop command. Cheasy death scenes. I.E very little blood, soldiers don't flinch when they're wounded. Donnyd
GameReview official reviewer.
Rating:
Summary: Pure Genius Realism
Review: Operation Flashpoint is the most realistic game I have ever played, it's as simple as that. The gameplay launches war gaming into a whole new era in that you get the whole experience of war. Not only do you take part in very intense combat situations, but you take part in inter-battle scenarios, for example driving trucks to pick up troops, and meeting with your commanders. In fact, there are 3 or 4 missions which only involve these sorts of things, creating a whole package of realism. The ability to enter any house, climp any hill, drive any vehicle and pick up any item left behind by dead soliders all add to the great realism. Combat:
The combat situations are extremely realistic, and are no use for any Quake fans. Usually, one shot will kill you. If you stand in an open battlefield for more than 10 seconds, you will die. If you fire your gun and dont move for more than 10 seconds, you will die. All these factors would make you seem that Operation Flashpoint is very hard indeed; this is not far from the truth, but not as far as you might think. This is because along with you are tens of other soldiers on your own side, a feature which has never really been successfull in any other game. This means that you can work with other soldiers on your side, just like in real combat situations. These soliders, like the enemy soliders, have very good AI, and spot each other very easily. Graphics:
Fantastic. So long as you have a fairly decent video card and memory, you will be simply amazed at the graphics of such an all-inclusive game. Combat games have never been more lively than in Operation Flashpoint. Every soldier's face is different, and sounds different on the radio. The graphics in the cut scenes are incredible aswell, and are very close to real life video. This adds to the realism very nicely and really involves the player in the game. Cons:
It would be impossible to find any game that did not have some flaw or other. After writing this statement, I realised my mistake, because Operation Flashpoint simply does not have any flaws. So long as you have a decent computer, and it does not have to be that decent because you can turn off most of the graphical features (eg. shadows, smoke clouds). In conclusion, it is fair to say that Operation Flashpoint is the best game out of my huge war-gaming collection. It combines every aspect of war and therefore is a MUST buy for any war fan; I simply can't wait for Codemasters' sequal.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent and horrible
Review: This game is great and yet it is horrible! How you ask?
Well.. I will start with the cons:
HUGE environment.Makes you feel like you are in a real battle zone.
Different types of units (air/land and sea)
Editor allowing you to customize missions! Negatives:
VERY HIGH SYSTEM REQUIRMENTS! I have 3 PCs .. it worked on only one and that was after having to read through sooooooo many pages on different websites and trying different soloutions! The other 2 PCs either had an Vedio card not supported or was just not enough speed! (500MHZ) Looking at the trouble shooting section n thier website I see that there a lot of a people having problems with installing and running the game .. just like me! So unless you have the state of the line PC be prepared to spend hours trying to find a soloution! A great game as a single player. Also a great game for Multiplayer on LAN. However if you should decide to play it online on the internet, thats when you will be very dissapointed. There is a lack of public sevrevs. Due to the huge sys req. Most will suffer from lag that will ruin tye game (assuming you can find a vacant server) Over all:
Good miltarry stimulation as long as you have a good beefed up system (1GHZ+) and a good vedio card with 32 Megs!
And if you are a die hard fan of online gaming then this game is not for you! If single player or LAN is what you are looking for then this would be a good purchase!
Rating:
Summary: Military Buff's Game of Choice
Review: 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.
| 
