Operation Flashpoint is all about the journey.
If you take vehicles in games for granted then I pity for you.
Here, travel back in time with me.
Imagine you're a child again, playing with action figures.
You have the basic soldier.
Then you have the snipers, anti-tank soldiers.
And then you have vehicles.
You treasure those and spend hours marvelling over their stats and uses.
You have cars, which help you to get from A to B. You have trucks.
Armoured APCs.
Heavy tanks with near impenetrable armour.
And then you have helicopters and jets, fast-moving, noisy killing machines that make everything
else run for cover.
Playing Operation Flashpoint for the first time makes adults turn into children, and
children into... uh... something else.
Military geniuses, perhaps.
You've got to understand that back in the day, most games consisted of linear, scripted
worlds and on-rails action sequences.
Over time I'm sure that things would have gradually improved, but Operation Flashpoint
skipped all that by providing a genuinely revolutionary leap.
It gave us a COMPLETELY open-ended world, with large armies, jeeps, tanks, boats, helicopters
and planes.
Weather would change dynamically, and the sun followed a 24 hour cycle that would change
depending on the time of year.
Number-plates randomly generated and the church towers' clocks were all out by a couple of
seconds, all for the sake of realism.
It modelled the speed of sound.
Bullets would often kill instantly and waves would lap the shores.
All of this at once, in a single fully 3D game.
That sort of detail would be touted in modern games, let alone one released in 2001!
And it did it with style.
Set in an alternate reality where the Cold War gets a bit hotter, Operation Flashpoint
includes a long, difficult and memorable campaign that nicely showcases and teaches new players
the gameplay mechanics.
I personally found the combat far too difficult and scary when I first played the game.
I'd fear every encounter, since one stray shot could very easily kill you.
I'd often survive by the skin of my teeth, perhaps dragging my useless shot-up body miles
at the pace of a snail, then would enjoy the long, drawn-out mission debriefings.
The earlier missions had many 'scripted' conversations where you could overhear other soldiers talking
to each other and there was a lot of 'dull' driving about.
Back then I savoured every second of it.
It was as close to war as I ever wanted to get, knowing that the enemies were indeed
out there, scouting the hills and valleys for us, while I was back at the camp with
my friends.
What if they went off-script and came to get us?
Would we be able to resist them?!
Back then all these thoughts were churning in my mind when playing... while now skip
any moment of silence, playing it for the combat alone.
I miss the patience and excitement I experienced back then and pity anybody who hasn't been
able to appreciate it for those small details that set it apart.
I never played multiplayer back at the time due to my slow internet and lack of skill
but have since ventured onto servers with a friend.
Even after all these years there are servers with people playing.
It's surreal to join an ancient game and to see the beautiful manoeuvres that today's
players can pull off in-game.
The custom maps vary from really really bad to really really hard, but they're memorable
none the less.
And then there's the editor.
A seemingly simple mission creator with surprisingly large capabilities.
I dare not count the number of hours I spent, placing different units into bits of the level.
You'd think the appeal would wear off, but to this day I still enjoy it.
I set up 'who would win in a fight' situations.
I tried to recreate helms deep at one point.
I even tried to build my own town, complete with civilians travelling to work and doing
all kinds of things.
At one point I made a 20-level campaign where you didn't fire a single bullet.
You simply had to survive in a world where tanks would be thrown through the air, or
NPCs would be glitched into crashing their cars into you.
It was the compilation of all the glitches and hilarious things I could manage in the
editor.
In fact, that's where I got the idea from for my 'How Will He Die' series on this channel.
Thank you, Operation Flashpoint.
I used to go on a lot of caravan holidays when I was younger.
Call me sad, but I'd explore the places, making maps of them so that I could remake them in
Operation Flashpoint and view them from above.
Operation Flashpoint inspired me and gave me the sense of freedom that nothing else
has managed since.
Yes, it's a shame that the Operation Flashpoint name has now been tarnished beyond repair.
I personally enjoyed Dragon Rising for being different and yet still retaining some of
the qualities of Operation Flashpoint, but Red River was an insult to the series with
absolutely no redeeming features.
How dare they mutilate and completely misunderstand what the series was about?
Fortunately, the real developers of Operation Flashpoint were nothing to do with those sequels.
Instead they started up Armed Assault, AKA Arma.
I won't go into depth about these games, but they're essentially Operation Flashpoint but
with prettier graphics and very, very minor tweaks.
It's apparent that it's the exact game underneath.
And now they've re-released the original Operation Flashpoint on Steam.
If you're viewing this video before the 19th of May 2014 you can install and keep it forever,
I've provided the link in this video's description.
I urge you to try it.
It's a beautiful memory from the past and is still a blast to play, in both single and
multiplayer mode.
Every time you play a level it gets easier and I have since defeated the levels that
left me for dead when I first got the game.
It's a game I still play at LAN parties and may forever be the biggest single leap in
the level of freedom it provides that I'll ever encounter in a virtual world.
Operation Flashpoint has been a major part of my life.
I first played it at a friend's house, longing to get it myself.
Years after I messed about in the editor I met another friend who had done the exact
same thing for all those years!
Together we would boot up a mini 2 player LAN in my room before going out clubbing on
Saturday nights.
We PERFECTED the multiplayer missions and would end up reminiscing about our experiences
when out on walks.
To this day the music still haunts me.
Any muffled, angry sounding voices remind me of the voice samples in this game.
I remember the time we played a custom zombie mode.
I planted a satchel charge and set the timer to 30 seconds before hiding in a shrub with
my friend, only for the explosive to blow up JUST as our third guy caught up.
That alone ranks among the most hilarious things ever to have happened in a computer
game for me.
It's things like that that define a game.
I understand that you won't have memories such as these to fall back on.
Perhaps for you the game is a lifeless shell.
I urge you to load it up with a friend and to join an empty coop server.
You'll spend a lot of time driving about.
And you'll die.
A LOT.
But it's never been about the destination, now, has it?