So I snagged this for $4....
During the steam Christmas sale I spent a terribly large sum of money, all for a bargain. One of the most notable items snagged was the sequel to one of the most realistic combat simulator made for the PC, Operation Flashpoint. The sequel details the storyline in a quick and simple cut scene shown at the beginning, to put the story in the basics, China is out of oil, Russian island off the coast of china has lots of oil, Diplomacy fails and war sparks with the Peoples Liberation Army of China attacking the island, and having the US army brought it to sort out the mess. This is just a backdrop and really not mentioned again, just an excuse to go to war.
So the story is out of the way and now your onto the good old OF mission routine, walking slowly through forests and carefully picking off the bad guys from a safe distance with your three other team mates. 1 shot is all it can take to kill someone, including you. One good shot can set you back 10 to 15 minutes, this at first annoyed the hell out of me. Then I realised this is war, and this is a simulator not some run and gun action-fest. The way to play this game is Slow and smart, that is the key to this game, and not to go running around all lunatic like, play smart. position yourself and your team well, engage at the right time, and you may come out unscathed. However if you do get shot, chance it's not a kill shot, then you will have to find some cover (unless your already in cover which would tie in to the playing smart as mention before) then you must patch yourself up. The consequence is that you will slowly bleed out and die. This enforces the fact that this a'int no run and gun, this is a combat sim and you will die if you get shot (unlike the unstoppable tanks who can regrow limbs and push bullets out from their flesh with their pure awesome *cough*call of duty *cough*). The Difficulty level will change the consistency of checkpoints and how much of your HUD will show.
Because this is a combat sim that would mean that a large amount of effort has gone into the combat, and it has. As mentioned bullets hurt, and close encounters are not your friends. Your AI will help you in this combat with a bevy of tactics such as pop smoke and fall back, return fire only, and assume a formation. All of this is accessed through a scroll wheel. Which can cause you to be killed if all you want your team to do is fall back and to do this you must go through about 3 different menus while being shot at. Not to mention the AI can be absolutely thick headed, walking into walls, standing in the open, not taking cover, not helping you when you have been shot, and most importantly, not following orders. Occasionally you are given permission to call in a "fire mission", which can include a barrage of artillery fire on a well enforced hostile position, however these are quite rare. Back to the AI a many a time have I explicitly told my team to attack and enemy position, while im firing and getting shot at I will turn around and see them all studying a nicely detailed tree. ignoring my screams for help as I lay bleeding on the ground.
Oh and how nicely detailed it is, a large spanning island landmass, huge sweeping hills, beautiful ocean view. Often I have been distracted and utterly gob smacked by the visuals that I didn't realise my team were all dead around me with the enemy charging up towards my position, and not to take snapshots of the view either. Bodies are well equipped with detailed military equipment, guns all have the nicely detailed feel of a weapon should, pockets of dirt will fly up when shot at, sparks will flow when foolishly shooting tanks with assault rifles from its muddy, dirt covered hull. all accompanied by a powerful bang when the bullet leaves the chamber and the high pitched yelp as an enemy falls down dead. Truly effort has been put in to make this game as realistically visualised as it does in its gameplay.
Yet, the dialogue between characters can be just downright painful, if you have ever played ArmA 2 then you will know what i mean by strangely constructed sentences protruding from a robotic voice where each word has been said singularly and all pieced together to form a sentence. it can get painful. However, this is when taking and issuing orders, hearing your team mate calling out at his reloads or while being shot at is quite well done. However the Chinese forces speak in a strange accent that only barely be reminiscent of the Chinese dialect. But even then you shouldn't hear them talking unless you engaging in close range, which i am shoving down your throats as a bad idea because you will die, you will almost certainly die, If you are closer then 20m to an enemy then chances are you will die.
Thats the single-player game anyway consisting of running around for 10 minutes, finding an enemy, shooting him, then being shot by his friend who was hiding behind a tree setting you bat those 10 minutes. The campaign length varies from 8-12 hours depending on how many times you are shot between checkpoints. So whats different in Multiplayer? well, not much. You will still be running around a large map in a 4v4 team deathmatch, only the chances of being shot are increased, and chances of finding an enemy decreased. The better part of the Multiplayer is the co op. Your three AI team mates can be replaced by smarter (hopefully) and more intelligent humans. This is a much preferred way to play as yelling at your team mates about what to do using a mic is much better then through a slow, annoying scroll wheel.
In conclusion, this game is a sim. Not a big as a sim as ArmA 2, but a sim non-the-less. If you like combat sims then chances are you will like this, If run and gun is more your thing, then stay away, for you will be punished with your crazy antics. Best approached in coop with real people, for the AI is barely tolerable.
