User Reviews (1 - 11 of 21)

Show these reviews first:

Highest Rated
Lowest Rated Newest
Oldest Most Helpful
Least Helpful

Not what I expected

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 31
Date: February 13, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I was looking for a good, realistic military shooter, since I had been very dissapointed with the Call of Duty series. I thought those were childish games, totally unrealistic commando crap. So I was looking forward to this one with very high expectations.

I was totally dissapointed.

I don't usually complain about graphics, but it had the graphics of the original Rainbow Six. And worse.

The enemy AI, said to be the best AI in computer gaming, does nothing but hit the ground when they spot you and try to fire at you.... sometimes. Most of the times they just run towards me without firing. What the heck? Are they trying to stab me or something?

The only weapons availiable in this game are grenades, AK-47's and M-16's. Mmmm.

Maybe I'm missing something- you can only save once during a mission? I found that after hitting the "Save" button for the first time, it would vanish from the menu. What the heck?

Missions consist of advancing with your troops, finding a pair of ruskies every 2-3 minutes, shooting them, and repeat. I thought COD was childlish, but after playing this I really miss the large scale, trench battles. This is NOT fun.

Times have changed...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 12
Date: January 16, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I was hooked on this game when it first came out - spent a couple years playing it over and over again. Unfortunately,
after about a year of not playing it - I thought, what the heck - pop it in my computer for old time's sake and have some fun. I couldn't get past the FIRST MISSION in Red Hammer!!!
And not because it was difficult either - the game has aged so much - the graphics and the sound are really old fashioned...
you think that an AK74 would have a real kick to it - I used to think it did, but after playing games like MOHAA and Call of Duty - the sound of an AK74 in this game is like "Sput! Sput!"
Now, nothing is better than wasting a German with your Thompson, or BAR gun... good times. Sorry folks, the thrill is over - time to move on and make room for some really decent games. However, I am really looking forward to Operation Flashpoint 2.

unrealistic, frustrating but with a lot of potential

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 9
Date: December 24, 2005
Author: Amazon User

The game is touted as a "combat simulation" but the single
player combat is totally unrealistic and ultimately frustrating.
None of the fundamental and basic real life combat techniques
of "squad rushes", "bounding overwatch" or "cover fire" are
implemented. The AI combines the unlikely qualities of utter
idiocy (eg. leaping up in front of hostile enemies) with
superhuman fearlessness and impossible accuracy with their
weapons (fancy being zapped through the forehead from 600 yards
away from a guy firing one round from a Kalashnikov!?).

That said, however, the extensive and enthusiastic third party
community that has grown up around Flashpoint, and the almost
unequalled facility for "modification" sets this game well apart.
Some of the deficiencies of the game out of the box are fixed to
some extent by third party efforts. Also the sheer scope of the
game is unique and exciting. No restrictions are placed on how
exactly one accomplishes a mission for example, and the whole
expanse of extremely large battlefields are free to exploit.
Sadly, however, the default missions are somewhat idiotic and
unrealistic (for example a mission has the player attempting to
thwart the "real and present danger" of a thermonuclear threat
with 8 buddies, a rifle and a "satchel charge" - utter nonsense).
However, a fully functional "mission editor" is provided and the
enthusiastic "third party community" has abundant resources
available for using it to its fullest.

The third party "modding community" also offers upgrades ranging
from improvements to and augmentations of the basic effects to
realistically rendered troop and vehicle units from virtually
any modern army worthy of note.

And played multiplayer, with mature playmates, this game is
unsurpassed as a "tactical simulation" (just ask the real life
professional armies that use - adaptations of - it for informal
training).

REALISM COMES WITH A PRICE

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 15 / 15
Date: January 05, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Operation Flashpoint is a rare treasure. Everyone has heard of games that "try and do too many things at once" or are "over-ambitious".

In this game you will play the role of soldier, commander, Black Ops, prisoner, utilize jeeps, APC's, tanks, helicopters and even an A-10! -- in a huge, seamless world roughly the size of Vvardenfell in Morrowind.

Very ambitious indeed!

And yet, Operation Flashpoint pulls it all off rather nicely. The graphics are not the best, but they are nice where they need to be. Having been in the Army I can tell you that the tanks and vehicles look very much like their counterparts in the real world.

As for the topic of "Realism" let's face it, NO GAME now or ever will ever be so realistic as to simulate life. Ok, so there are not many "squad tactics" done by your AI squad mates in this game, but frankly, what are you going to do when the vast majority of the map is huge open fields? Do a three-second rush and hide behind a 2-inch tall blade of grass?! I think not!

Which leads me to the title of my review: "Realism comes with a price". Considering all that this game does, it does it well. If bottles don't break in three different places, if lights don't blow out when you shoot them, if weapons don't jam--too bad! If the programmers making this game had implemented EVERY realistic touch they could think of, this game would be 5 disc's long and come out maybe 5 years after it was scheduled.

With that being said, now I'll break down this game into it's component varieties of gameplay:

SOLDIER MISSIONS: In these missions you don't command troops, you just follow orders. But there is still a great deal of flexibility. If you're told to capture a town, you can choose how you want to attack it. This is not like Call of Duty where you are following a linear road or track. You could detour 20K or more in this game--if you really wanted to. As long as you complete the mission objective it doesn't matter how you get the job done.

COMMANDER MISSIONS: These take a while to get used to. Not only are you fighting with your troops, you are also leading them at the same time! And unlike SOCOM where you have that handy microphone to SPEAK orders to your men, in OPF you have to TYPE them in on the number pad. But the problem is, there are so many commands you will often fail to find the one you need most in the heat of battle. OPF really should have done what SOCOM did.
But I would also like to say that, for the most part, your squad members are not dumb. The AT soldiers especially do a good job of taking out tanks and BMPs for you. But the commands are good to prevent them from attacking prematurely.

BLACK OPS MISSIONS: My favorite! Don your night vision goggles, grab your sniper rifle or silenced machine gun and tear the place up! Sometimes you have Black Ops buddies, sometimes not. The only mission that didn't make sense to me was one where you have to FIND 3 Shilkas and then a few missions later, you have to DESTROY those same 3 Shilkas. Why you couldn't have done it the first time is beyond me.

TANK MISSIONS: Like the Commander missions, these can also be hard. The controls are not really intuitive, either. The #1 thing to keep in mind: You are not a one-man tank commander! Decide if you want to drive, or be the gunner and assign someone else to do the other task. If your driver is constantly going the wrong way, grab the controls from him and drive yourself. Usually, AI soldiers are MUCH better gunners than drivers!
Several nice realistic touches with the tank: 1) If you shoot a soldier with a SABOT round, the soldier will FLY many feet into the air from the huge resulting blast! 2) Any house you shoot will crumble.

FLYING MISSIONS: Usually a helicopter, but there is one mission where you get to fly an A-10. I found the flying vehicles a bit easier to handle than the tanks--and more fun. You can assign gunners or drivers here, too. Oh, and one realistic experience I had: I landed my helicopter on a sloping hill accidentally. Well, it's not like you have chock blocks for your wheels, so Whoosh! my helicopter ROLLED down the hill, all the way into the ocean before finally blowing up!

The missions are not in this order, one might see you as Black Ops, the next two as Commander, the next as pilot, the next . . . something else.

And that's just the original game! There is a mission editor, campaign mode, single player missions, multiplayer, Red Hammer and Resistance expansions. You are guaranteed to get the bang for you buck with this game!
This game is not perfect (hence the 4 stars) but I think wanna-be soldiers and real soldiers can appreciate what this game does.

If you want to play a GAME, this is it.
If you want more realism, join the military.

SWEET GAME

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: May 16, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This is by far the best FPS out there. I've played Alien Versus Predator 2 Ghost Recon Medal Of Honor but this is by far the best. It's extremely realistic. the game includes the original and both expansion packs. THe graphics kick and the weapons are sweet. WHen u play the game you actually feel like ur in the military. you got ur captain yelling u orders bullets zipping by and tanks being destroyed. Best FPS out there.

Enjoy Realistic shooters? Get this game.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: July 02, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I have played the original OFP and the Red Hammer expansion all the way through. There is nothing I've played in the first person shooter catagory that even comes close to this game for pure realistic military action.

The only reason I give this game 4 stars and not 5 is because of the difficulty of online play.

A few very fun aspects of the game:

-Awsome, engrosing story line.

-Good graphics, exellent effects. The graphics are good. Vehicle modeling is well done. Explosion and fighting effects are very well done.

-You can use any weapon you find. Need to blow up an armored personel carrier, use a diffrent rifle, or need more ammo? Pick what you need up off a dead enemy or fallen comrade.

-You can use any vehicle you find. As long as you are the commanding officer pressent you can use and order your men to use any vehicle you come across. On occasions you will even find yourself with the opportunity to steal enemy equipment and use it instead.

-You play a few diffrent characters throughout the original campaign. An infantry soldier, a Tank commander, A pilot, a special ops soldier. Its very enjoyable to play all the diffrent aspects of these characters from sneaking into an enemy camp to blow up some tanks with statchel charges to leading 4 M1A1 Abrams tanks into a large tank battle.

I could go on for a long time about all I love about this game. Here are the few areas of the game that could use improvement:

-Online play is fun once you get a game going... but online play only starts when all players are ready - and their is no joining games in progress. Anyone who plays games online knows people are constantly coming and going so it is rather difficult to get a sustainable game going without people leaving on the one side, and without waiting for 5-15 minutes for a new mission to begin if you just logged into a server to join a game.

-There are a few AI pathing issues with this game when in close quarters (like soldiers in a house or narrow alley, or tanks trying to navigate around the corner of a building) or in some strange instances when vehicles crash at wierd angles they tend to bounce around in odd ways. But overall this has little negative effect on the game since 99% of the action is out in the open.

So if you are looking for a good military game, go get this and it's expansions. It will have you playing for days upon days on the single player missions. As for online play, I had a hard time getting in to it with all the waiting around and botched missions due to people leaving and new ones not being able to join untill a new mission starts.

Great Value

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: June 09, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I love the original OFP and was looking for one or the other expansions when I came across this package. The Red Hammer expansion alone was selling for 29.99 just recently, here you get all 3 for this great price. Couldn't pass on this one. And be sure to check out the mod community out there they are really putting out some great stuff, for this game.

A different 1st person shooter

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: December 18, 2007
Author: Amazon User

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.

excellent

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 20 / 20
Date: March 18, 2005
Author: Amazon User

this game is one of a kind. although many games have failed to pull off 20 soldiers against 20 with difficulty, and problems. the main one being that the player could kill all his enemies quickly because of bad enemy AI and would be able to keep his friends happy and alive. Operation flashpoint solved this problem, making it harder to run and gun going for a more tactical approach. this is because the enemy AI is just very very good. They run away when there is trouble, only to ambush you when you forget about them. They seek cover when under fire and dont stick their head up till its safe, and they are good shots. this goes the same for your team. also your commander in the beginning of the game will give you orders and your teammates orders when they or he spots the enemy.

Graphics- 8/10 This game has excellent graphics. The soldiers have a high polygon count, and the veichles, such as the AH-Cobra and the M1 tank, look so very close to the real thing. My only complaint was that the textures looked samey, and bland. But this is a little complaint as every level is absolutley huge and in the long run its just a little pest. Also, your guy runs funny. His butt jumps from side to side while sprinting in third person view. While i usually dont tend to look at guys butts, this is just really funny and should have been edited.

Gameplay- 9.5/10 Rating this 10 would mean that the gameplay is absolutley perfect. You play in a first person mode although the option of 3rd person is available. To aim your gun you can use the cross hair, or move into a more accurate mode where you actually look through your weapons' sight. As said before, the AI is top notch and will make sure you dont say in the same spot sniping endlessly, so you keep moving, and since you also go down in one or two shots, the anxiety and tension is enourmous when trying to run from one area to another in the thick of battle. A problem i encountered was that my guy cant reload and run at the same time, this lead to me getting shot often since i couldnt get it into my head that i cant run and reload. another thing i didnt like was the ability to save only once in a mission. maybe getting a certain amount of save points depending on how long the mission was would have been better. i frequently found myself going through a huge battle, saving, then go through two other battles and then die, having to redo the last two battles. but all in all the gameplay was exceptional and realistic.

missions- 10/10 missions in OFCWC were varied and exciting. and the best part was that the story unfolded perfectly through every mission. what was probably the coolest thing was when i was getting more anxious about how the war would turn out. one second i was leaving an area in a truck. the next thing i know im ambushed. after that my squad leader runs into trouble, and my entire team is gone, leaving me alone, and easy meat. after that i had to hide in the woods, avoiding russian patrols, which i couldnt shoot because of my lack of ammo and the fact that helicopters would be coming after me. in the end i had to run away when i got caught by resistance leaders. amazingly, this was one entire level. every level has a plot twist, for the best or for the worst. you can even choose to fail a mission and you'll do another one that is the concequences of not completing the previous mission. also you get to do tank and helicopter missions. most missions dont drop you in the beginning of the action, it takes time to get there, fleshing out the story and mission objectives, trying to show what battles are like before during and after. each mission is the result of the refining and creativity by the level designers and programmers, who did a terrific job.

story- 8.5/10 the story is difficult to rate. although having a conflict between the united states and the ussr is pretty generica and blah if not done right, OF did something different. What OF did was present the war to you from a political perspective, a world perspective, and the soldiers perspective. the chatter between your fellow soldiers regarding the war at the beginning of missions or during the interlude really brings the war to you upclose and personal. It's difficult to describe, but there are a few soldiers that stick with you the entire time, and are there to create a sense of unity and brotherhood within a squad, which they succeded in creating somewhat. the reason why the story isnt give a 10/10 or a 9/10 is because it just didnt blow me away.

multiplayer 7/10 multiplayer is sub par with in comparison to the rest of the game, which seemed more of an after though. the levels are huge and there are a lot of trucks and tanks. but, there isnt much strategy unlike the single player. usually a good tanker will get rule the day and will destroy you and your base endlessly. also nobody wants to team up, everyone plays in a every man for himself mode, which isnt how the game is supposed to be played, and it comes down to which team has the better shooters instead of which team is more organized. if they had had a much more tactical multiplayer, the online component would have been incredible, and earned this game many more bucks.

My final thoughts- this is a great game. not really for doom fans, not even for half life fans. more for the gamer that wants to play a tactical war instead of a big guns war. The action is fast yet slower paced, althgouh much is hapenning you can only contribute a little bit cause your under heavy fire and you cant stick your head out. Overall this game is just fun. The stress from a huge battle, the feeling of luck when you beat a mission, or feeling lonely as each one of your men is killed, one by one, leaving you all alone all help you get immersed in the gmae. This game is recommended.
-alex, 14

Best Part about OF

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 12 / 12
Date: January 29, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Everyone's covered the great aspects of this game, but they've left one thing out:

When compared to MOH Allied Assault/Clancy, etc... this game is WIDE OPEN. One of the things I hate about typical FPS games is that the environment is too small. You can feel the game developers pulling you through the game in a certain way (see MOH, Max Payne, Clancy's to some extent.)

With OF, you literally have the entire island at your disposal and the islands are huge. If you see an enemy patrol, you figure out how to best neutralize them. After playing the original OF, I bought some other FPS games where you walk down a hall and shoot stuff and just got bored with them.

Also, you might be walking down a hill and hear a bullet whiz by without even hearing the report of the rifle. Either it's a sniper or a normal soldier trying to hit you from far off. This never happens in other games... Graphics do seem a little tired when compared to newer games, but gameplay makes up for this. I can't play Ghost Recon/MOH over & over like this game. The enemy AI, environments, and realism is too engrossing. While it's frustrating to be immediately killed with a good shot by the enemy, this contributes to the realism and certainly makes you think before taking action. Once an enemy has you in the open, you can dodge bullets by jumping/moving side to side like in some games.... Replay value is extremely high.

Just one question: When's the next OF coming out?

Review Page: 1 2 3 Next 

Actions