Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis

"I do not know what weapons will be used in World War III, but in World War IV it will be stones and sticks" - Albert Einstein

I remember a few years ago, various types of simulators experienced a boom, be it helicopters, airplanes, tanks or other, sometimes not necessarily "natural" vehicles. Many of those titles are cult games today. But like every boom, this one was loud, people were delighted with it, then it echoed deeply and passed away, leaving only a handful of fanatics behind. For a long time, producers of computer games have departed from the genre of simulator (I mean the classic simulator). Why? There are several reasons.

First of all, because the simulator is a genre that accurately reflects the topic it is about. And while it might seem that this should speak in favor of him, the reality is completely different - I would say - the opposite. The simulator's specialization in today's computer games market is considered, if not a weakness, then certainly a limitation of some kind. After all, it only focuses on one topic, while in parallel there are many other games, combining a multitude of different genres and themes. These games usually exceed ordinary simulators in terms of gameplay and they find their audience in a larger number of players around the world. Currently, the simulator is a game intended exclusively for a handful of fans. Of course, each of us sometimes wants to fly, ride (in a professional way), but not everyone has the money to pay for this pleasure. We are more likely to buy a hybrid as it potentially offers more fun (which is often deceptive).

Another reason is the saturation of the simulator market. Can anyone even count all flight simulators?!? We are just running out of ideas for creating a good simulator. The car comes off. Tank, helicopter? It was already there. Maybe something in space, a Star Wars world would be good. Also plenty. Or maybe a soldier simulator? Oh, that hasn't happened yet. Or at least not like Bohemia Interactive did.

"The purpose of war is not to give his life for his homeland, but to make another bastard give his life for his" - General GC Patton

Operation Flashpoint is not the usual soldier simulator most of you think about. It is not similar to, for example, Soldier of Fortune, where we lead a character loaded to the teeth with an arsenal and we forge through kilometers of corridors, exterminating everything that moves. There is also nothing of the daring actions of Unreal, Quake or Counter-Strike. I think it's closest to another Half-Life mod - Team Fortress. No, but not. But it has something to do with the Delta Force franchise and the recently released World War II Online, although that's not it either. After further reflection, I come to the conclusion that there has been no such game yet.

OPF, created by our southern neighbors, is a simulator, not so much of a soldier as of wars, combining elements of many other simulators. Yes, you can steer vehicles, you can even fly vehicles. And most importantly, it can be done at any time. But more about that in a moment. First, it's time for a little historical background.

The action of the game takes place in a light alternative world of 1985. He writes lightly, because the campaign scenario in the game could really happen. From history, we should remember the date 1985 as the beginning of Mikhail Gorbachev's rule, and thus the beginning of Perestroika. The Evil Empire is still the military power of the universe, with millions of soldiers and tons of decaying but dangerous equipment. The Cold War is not that cold anymore, but the warming has not yet happened.

You start the game in the south of Malden Island, as a member of a small American branch, where you are just finishing your training. Your training is a tutorial cleverly woven into the script, explaining well and showing the basic commands and behavior in the game. Right after its end (really just right), we get a report about unidentified activity on the island. We are sent to investigate the matter and encounter ... not very friendly soviets there. It turns out that one of the high-ranking generals of the Soviet Union does not agree with Gorbachev's reforms and decides to pursue the foreign policy of his empire on his own. This is how the conflict begins, which will soon turn into a little hell on earth, and we have the misfortune to be at its very center.

OPF offers a campaign consisting of 30 missions, in which we will initially play the role of a young soldier named Armstrong, and after passing many missions, become a unit commander, order his subordinates during the action and choose the right equipment before starting the game. But not only Armstrong is the world alive. Later in the campaign, we will play the role of other soldiers, such as the commander of a tank, a helicopter pilot or an A-10 Thunderbolt plane. There are also missions in which, as a member of an elite unit, we force our way to the rear of the enemy, sabotaging its anti-air defenses or destroying tanks standing in the base.

The missions are very complex, wisely constructed, with frequent twists and turns - more than once I experienced a heart attack while escaping the Soviet counterattack of T-72 tanks. The whole thing gives the impression that we are actually taking part in a real war chaos. And realism is enhanced by the new Real Virtuality graphics engine, which is responsible for this overwhelming enormity of everything.

"In war there is no substitute for winning" - General Douglas MacArthur

The graphics engine generates an amazing amount of models, textures and spaces. Each of the four islands (except the desert island) in the game is a large area consisting of villages, towns, forests, valleys, fields and, of course, a piece of the sea. I used to try to run the whole island but gave up after 10 minutes. Maybe a sports car would be faster? It is a pity that the authors did not think about rivers and bridges, because the number of tactical solutions would increase significantly. On the other hand, I am impressed by the weather conditions, where you can't really see anything at night (night vision also doesn't give you much) and where the weather conditions and the time of day have a huge impact on the course of the mission. Now I know why many of the great battles were postponed because of bad weather. The day and night cycle is perfect, and at sunset I almost cried out, paying my melancholy tendency with my life.

And apart from the terrain, there are also soldiers and a whole lot of riding arsenal. We can choose from 11 character classes, from the gray soldier, through the officer, paratrooper, soldier with a heavy machine gun, to the pilot or the sniper. Also the arsenal that these soldiers use is admirable. Weapons enthusiasts will find here various types of the M-16 rifle, mines, surface-to-ground and surface-to-air missile launchers, M-60 heavy machine gun, grenades, flares, binoculars, night vision devices and a very effective M-21 sniper rifle. The Soviets, of course, use quite different equipment, led by the immortal Kalashnikov.

The fight is very realistic. There is no room for Rambo bravado in missions - this is not the Wild West. Sometimes one shot is enough to bring the opponent to the ground. This of course means that you must be careful too, for you are as fragile and mortal as your opponents. The best tactic, once you hear the shots, explosions and screams on your radio, is to lie down on the ground and find shelter in the nearest bush. You can wait until the end of the mission, and your squad (often a small battalion) will complete the mission successfully without you. But it's better to take out the binoculars and find out what's going on. It's a pity to miss what is happening. And if someone is disturbed by FPP mode, they can always switch to the view from behind, which helps a lot when sneaking and hiding.

Fans of close clashes with the enemy will be disappointed, because in OPF, just like in war, you can barely see your enemies. Most of the time it looks like you are shooting at little points that are moving somewhere and praying that they are not your people. Some people think it destroys the whole charm of shooting and killing, but it's not true. It's like a war here. You tilt your head and you go back home in a plastic bag. There is also no point in pressing the trigger while running, because the dispersion is greater than with the "Kalash". I am tempted to write realism, but the authors tried to balance the fun with authenticity. Yes, after running a few kilometers, the player is blowing like a locomotive, and the heart is pounding like a jackhammer and then it's hard to hit anything (the barrel just shakes), but with a launcher weighing a good few kilograms on your back, you will run the same and the effect will be the same .

Artificial Intelligence looks very good. The soldiers themselves know where to hide and when to start shooting. The only mistake I noticed was the problem with close encounters. Sometimes computer soldiers can run past you without even noticing you. Well, at least there's an occasion to look at the motion capture technique that was used to animate the characters. As a squad leader, you can issue dozens of different types of orders, ranging from combat to formation, tactics and behavior orders.

"The fastest way to end a war is to lose it." - George Orwell

From what I can remember, trying to combine different simulators in one game usually ended in disaster. OPF is the first game that has really succeeded and where vehicles, with some exceptions, drive well in both FPP and TPP modes. There are over thirty vehicles in the game that we can control. Starting with transport vehicles such as jeeps, trucks, civilian cars, ambulances or trucks with fuel and ammunition, through armored vehicles such as tanks (e.g. T-72, M1A1), through "lighter" equipment (e.g. BMP, M113), ending with other equipment flying (helicopters and planes), floating and driving.

It's still nothing. Most of these vehicles have a lot of seats that the player can use. This means that you can be both a driver, a shooter and a commander (e.g. of a tank). You can also get on as a passenger and move from point A to point B much faster. I was especially fascinated by helicopters when they sit on the ground and a whole squad of soldiers jumps out of the inside. But you have to see it for yourself.

Unfortunately, the vehicle simulator mode did not avoid a few errors that should be mentioned. Air combat is very weak, where (especially) the A-10 plane is terribly hard to hit anything, and the map can be flown in a minute. Besides, flying anything slows down the game terribly, because you can see much larger terrain and the computer has to display many more objects and textures. It looks as if the engine of this game was not made for flight simulations, although there are no complaints about helicopters.

I also had some problems with driving the tanks. Being the commander of one, my driver sometimes chose not the best route to get to the designated place - he was just stupid. Moreover, when there are a bit more tanks in the formation, very often collisions occur, which do not do any damage, but are irritating and spoil the realism a bit. You can also complain about the speed of executing commands by the crew, and in a tank it is a very important matter. Especially when the mini battle of Prokhorovka takes place on the field where birds singing could be heard a moment ago.

In addition to the campaign, there are several individual missions to choose from, which we can play without any obligations, and the number of which can be significantly increased by playing with the simple mission editor attached to the game. It's really probably the easiest editor I've ever seen. Hundreds (if not thousands) of new missions for singleplayer and multiplayer mode are already circulating on the Internet. Immediately after the release of OPF, fans of the game began to create their own campaigns and new mods for the game. The engine of this game is constructed in such a way that you can easily add new troops, islands, textures, etc. The Operation Vietnam mod will be released soon, and a dozen others, as interesting and eccentric (a Star Wars mod!) Are waiting in line.

"Humanity must put an end to war, or war will end humanity" - John Fitzgerald Kennedy

The game also has a multiplayer mode (deathmatch or cooperative), thanks to which up to 100 people can play on one server. And only in this mode does Operation Flashpoint show what it can do. The fun is quickly addictive and addictive. All the little lapses with artificial intelligence are irrelevant here, because people think, and they are the most demanding opponents.

Operation Flashpoint is one of the best games I have played. It is a bit banal and trivial statement, but I assure you - in this case, I do not throw my words into the wind. This game just doesn't get boring. The freedom with which you can move and what you can move around makes an amazing impression. The mission can last 15 minutes, and it can also last 3 hours, depending on the tactic you choose. Some complain about high hardware requirements. I do not deny that they are high, but still worth buying this game. Soon the prices will be so high that you will be able to buy a machine that will easily operate this engine. And there is no game on the horizon that could dethrone Operation Flashpoint.

There was once a boom for simulators. Now its name is Operation Flashpoint, and its echo will not fade away for long.

Gabriel Angel