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 REVIEW:
OPERATION FLASHPOINT |
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Operation Flashpoint is a military strategy
game that won nearly a dozen "Game of the Year"
awards on its release in 2001. Praised for its realism
and the huge environments to explore, it is still regarded
as one of the best games of its genre.
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June 22, 2001
Bohemia Interactive Studios
http://www.bistudio.com
Codemasters
Microsoft Windows / Intel PC
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Operation Flashpoint Game of the Year Edition (GOTYE) takes
place in a country overrun by enemy forces. It is set in the
time of the cold war crisis, as the name suggests. You, as
the hero, play the role of a young soldier straight out of
training or the veteran brought back in to action depending,
on which campaign you're playing in. The objective of you
and your former army members is to win back your land and
live freely once again. Eventually, as you rise through the
ranks more and more is revealed to you about the war. This
plot direction gets old and you really start to ignore the
plot and skip scenes to get to the best part, which is the
gameplay.
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As the game engine is a couple of years old, the graphics
don't quite match those of the current competitors we see
today, but when this game first came out it revolutionized
what could be done with technology. Some of the best parts
of the graphics are the horizons that go on seemingly forever
without running into invisible walls (i.e., boundaries). This
leads to some dumbfounding scale and you think that the horizon
never ends. The Operation Flashpoint game engine is Bohemia
Interactive Studio's own technology, something you see less
of these days. Mainly, game developers stay away from making
their own game engines to minimize game development costs.
This game contains forests that are nice to look and important
to the gameplay in terms of tactics; in this case I was hidden
from enemy view by the dense foliage. As shown here, the tree
models are all exactly the same, for example the textures
of the bark and leaves are similar if not the same.
Landscapes
The terrain is varied and consists of a dozen or so types
of vegetation in addition to the immense forests and the lifelike
ground and mountains. The graphics might not be as smooth
as those in games today, but the photorealistic images and
the scale are what really bring the landscape to life in the
long run.
Buildings
You can't go inside most of the buildings and the ones that
you can enter are almost empty of furniture or any detail,
but they contain the basics such as rooms. You will never
encounter enemy forces inside buildings and you can't shoot
from the inside through the windows. This gives the buildings
no tactical significance. The buildings are average, usually
plain and lacking in detail; they leave you wanting more.
The geometry is decent but the textures are always low to
average in quality.
The geometry in this building leads you to believe this is
in fact a church, but up close you see the average low-resolution
textures and then, to your dismay, you find that you can't
enter the building and see what is inside.
Vehicles
The vehicles in this game have to be some of the most astounding
work I've seen in vehicle models. They are extremely photorealistic,
capturing every detail of the real thing. You can tell just how
much time the artist took to put every last detail in the vehicles.
Everything is easily recognizable as their real-life counterpart.
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| Operation Flashpoint M1 |
MetaVR M1; click to see a close-up
of the model |
The Operation Flashpoint M1 tank shows detail in the camouflage,
individual road wheels and the gunner/commander sitting at
the top. You can see the treads moving; they leave tracks
in the ground, which is really impressive.
Characters
One thing I would pick on about this game is the character
modeling, from the large amounts of clipping (when something
passes through another object) to the blocky character rendering.
The characters are too jagged and rough to be realistic. However,
the two things that are done well are the faces and the animations.
The faces are all different, which is good, even though the
bodies are all the same. It is nice to stumble upon a reloading
animation that takes more than a couple of seconds and looks
good at the same time. One has to assume motion capture was
used to achieve this effect.
An interesting thing about the scene above is that all the characters
are doing the same thing. Notice the hand of the soldier to the
left passing through the back of the gun, which is called "clipping".
Far Horizon
The horizon in this game is amazing; even with its age it
outdoes almost any game I can think of. It is so realistic
and displays so well, it makes you feel as though you are
immersed in the middle of the countryside. It doesn't cut
off at all except when it should, such as when you're in the
middle of a vast fog. The horizon shots are simply amazing.
Here is a picture of one of the sunsets you will see in Flashpoint. Notice
the shadowing and particle affects that make the image both stunning and
realistic.
Special Effects
Effects consist of extravagant explosions, large smoke clouds,
and dust and tracks from the rear of vehicles. Together they
add something to the graphics to give a little flare. Soldiers
have shadow effects but the shadows look very blocky. The
effects in this game are not wonderful, but not terrible either.
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Operation Flashpoint GOTYE feels like a strategically active
first person shooter (fps). The whole interaction within a
squad's routine adds the strategic feel of the game. While
you are working in a squad, you hear all your members reporting
in through a radio, which you can also participate in by using
a menu that lets you pick from a list of commands. This atmosphere
makes you feel as though you are part of team, which really
shines through in online play.
Operation Flashpoint is also closely tied to realism in terms of
how many shots a soldier can take before dying and how long he can
run without tiring. The game restricts how much equipment you can
hold, so you end up running out onto the battlefield having to pick
up new ammo from a nearby corpse. All of this adds to a lifelike
battle simulator.
The large number of vehicles you can interact with is great.
These vehicles include trucks, jeeps, tanks, APCS and even
helicopters. The vehicles help you to get from point A to
point B or can assist with taking out enemy troops. The decision
of how go about it is yours, but I warn you that the worlds
are so big that you're going to need a vehicle.
The lack of checkpoints in the game is bothersome. Checkpoints
are autosaves midway into a level. Without these essential
checkpoints you are sure to play some parts of the level over
and over again. And when the parts of the level happen to
be transportation parts, it really gets on your nerves. For
example when you die you are forced to wait in a vehicle to
travel from point A to point B, which sometimes takes a minute
or so. One would not have to worry about this if there was
a checkpoint after getting to point B. The difficulty level
is also quite high; hopefully this will not turn away players
before they get to dive into the whole of the game.
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CONTROL SCHEME |
SCORE: 7.0 |
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Odd menus plague the game and make your ability to control
what to do a chore. While you are trying endlessly to figure
things out, you're being shot by the enemy and before you
know it -- boom you're dead. The overall vehicle controls
work well and movement is easy enough. It just takes a while
to get used to the difficult-to-navigate menus. Navigating
the controls could turn some gamers away early.
This menu appears when you first enter the game. It isn't
nice looking and it is confusing and frustrating to use. You
might want to go online and play a multiplayer game but just
finding one through this menu might take ten minutes.
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The enjoyable online play mission editor and the vast possibilities
for completing a level make Operation Flashpoint a game that
will last you a while. All aspects were well planned out and
brought into the game.
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BUGS AND GLITCHES |
SCORE: 8.5 |
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The only problem I can find is the huge amount of clipping,
such as when I see one player run straight through another;
it seems to occur only with the soldiers. The other place
you will see the clipping is when a soldier goes through part
of a vehicle. This behavior is just annoying and troublesome.
Other than that problem, Operation Flashpoint bug free.
Here you can plainly see his arm going through the jeep. This
often occurs when soldiers are in vehicles.
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No matter what genre of game you're into playing, Operation Flashpoint
GOTYE should not be overlooked. Look past the somewhat aging graphics
and tough difficulty level and you have a classic that should be on
every gamer's shelf. It's truly a must have.
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