‘Truck, is history.’
The Arma series prides itself in being a brutal, unforgiving military sim.
But it houses a dark secret.
Die, and you become a seagull.
Or at least, you used to in the older games.
At LAN parties, my friends and I would play the first game in the series, Operation Flashpoint,
for all of its multiplayer scenarios.
Some of these missions are still favourites, but most have fallen out of favour, for reasons
which will soon become very apparent in this video!
We love Operation Flashpoint for -firstly, it’s music- and also for how it tries to
be ultra-realistic, yet is actually very arcade-y in certain ways!
It took us years to master the combat in this game… but we’ve done it!
From a distance, any one of us can single-handedly beat a full squadron of enemies.
Precise instant-kill distant headshots from hundreds of metres away is possible, and very
doable- plus, the AI is stupid and predictable.
It’s a winning combination!
And there’s a thrill to picking up a fallen enemy’s sniper rifle or rocket launcher.
You won the mad-dash there, and your LAN party teammates are suddenly very jealous of your
loadout!
There’s even joy to be had in a mission that gives you 3 rockets, when the tanks you
face require 4.
Or how about that mission where it’s just you against an endless swarm of literally
hundreds of enemies?
It’s ridiculous, but a thrill to boot up and to attempt once per LAN party.
…But no more than that!
Because, despite Operation Flashpoint’s many strengths, its appeal is often hamstrung
by several STUPID decisions, which transform a potentially fun scenario into one that’s
frustrating… or even boring.
And these things, when you’re younger, you assume it’s just because you’re undertaking
scenarios which are designed for better gamers than you are.
For people with better skills, more friends and -most importantly- more patience.
But as you grow older, you realise that you lose patience over time, and so rightly or
wrongly begin to see this stuff as poor game design.
An example: Desert Ambush is a great sounding mission.
You start in a rocky outpost in the middle of the desert, and your goal is to ambush
a convoy that will pass your spot.
You have to take them out, defend against a MASSIVE counter-attack, and then push on
to the objective.
It sounds awesome, but it throws up a number of problems.
Namely, the pacing.
It takes 5 minutes before the convoy reaches the spot you’re supposed to defend!
I know, because I timed it.
Here.
During this time, you’re placing mines around the area, and satchel charges along the road.
This does not take nearly as much time as you’re given.
So while the anticipation of the convoy is exciting the first time you play this mission…
The second time, it’s a massive chore.
And it only gets worse with every replay.
Some activities get better with repetition, as you slowly perfect your actions and your
timings.
But that requires YOU to be the limiting factor.
Here, you are not.
You’re given 5 minutes to fulfil 2 minutes of tasks.
This mission could have been made 10 times better, simply by giving the leader a radio
code they could call to fast-forward it to the moment the convoy comes into view.
‘Truck, is history.’
The convoy’s arrived, and you’ve just ambushed it.
What happens next is really good!
You’re attacked from several directions, and there’s even a helicopter that flies
overhead that we’ve got good at defeating with our LAW launchers.
It’s fun stuff.
Peak Operation Flashpoint, right there.
Sometimes it can get a bit boring, as enemies are seemingly delayed and can take 10 or 15
minutes to arrive.
You’re too afraid to move in case this happens, but there’s always the fear that you’ve
already killed them, and could be waiting forever.
Again, the classic Operation Flashpoint experience there.
But then the last objective is to reach a location that’s a kilometre and a half away.
And you have to run to it!
This is not fun, and it takes a long, long time.
Oh, and they hid a few enemies in the bushes, just to catch you out!
But you know what: I’m fine with all of this! …were it not for one, FATAL flaw:
that being, when you die…
‘1, is down!’
…you become a seagull.
I’m not kidding.
When you die in SOME levels, you become one of your AI-controlled teammates.
And that’s great.
But in others, there could still be a dozen fit, strapping young men to come into, yet
for some reason, these missions force you into the body of a damn seagull instead.
Why, Operation Flashpoint?
WHY?
Why did this ever seem like a good idea?
Did you not test your own levels?
Do you not realise that it’s more fun to play as another soldier from your squad than
it is to become a seagull?
Or do you prefer a life of loud cawing and pasty-stealing?
How did you only get THIS close to even greater greatness?
What can you do as a seagull?
You can fly about the place at a slow speed, and you have a turning circle of about half
a mile.
You can line yourself up so it looks like you’re perched on an enemy’s head.
You can make it look like you’re sticking out the end of their gun barrel, which is
funny too.
And I have to admit, there is some satisfaction to be had from locating an enemy hidden behind
a bush somewhere, and then from hovering above his position to give away where they’re
hiding to your teammates.
It’s great and all that, but I’d still rather be a person.
Even if people can’t fly.
If all the player slots are filled with real people then, so be it: I understand why you’d
have to become a seagull instead.
It’s still rubbish to be sat there, twiddling with your mouse cord while your teammates
are having a great time shooting baddies.
But when you’re transformed into a seagull when there are still AI-controlled, potentially
playable teammates still alive and kicking is just poor planning, and a sorely wasted
opportunity.
Plain and simple.
As you’d expect, the ones where you become a seagull quickly fell out of favour at LANs,
to the point where there are just a few missions we bother with these days.
The first of these is ‘Return to Eden’- which is an epic showdown where you have 3
full groups to play with, so of course you give each player a separate squad, and then
get all your AI-spare-lives to go prone and to stay out of trouble.
One of two things will happen; either they’ll ignore you and will all get themselves killed,
or they’ll do as they’re told, and you’ll respawn as them, only to discover that they
haven’t moved an inch since the beginning, and then you have to run the full length of
an airport to get back into the action again.
This is an awesome mission- first you must take this hill top, then you push on to the
airfield.
It’s easy once you call in air support, but you must first take out the anti-helicopter
shilka tanks lying about, else your backup will get shot down.
One of them is very, very calm about the whole thing.
‘This is November leader, I’m hit, and on fire.
Gonna have to put her down.
Sorry about that, boys.’
The other…
not so much.
‘This is November two.
Mayday, Mayday, I’m going down.
Don’t think I can hold it…
AARRGGHH!’
Problem with this mission is: there’s only really one way to beat it, and only one direction
that you can approach from.
So it’s still fun to play, but it is still a bit limited.
The other mission where you respawn, and therefore, one that we still replay, is the COOP mission.
This is the classic, first one anybody tries in multiplayer mode.
The opener of LAN parties, and the source of a million new strategies.
This level has been done to DEATH by us.
I can clear that town with my eyes closed.
I can rescue all of the hostages 100% of the time, and this helps cos they serve as 3 extra
lives to respawn as, later on.
And this comes in handy for the second half of the mission, which sees you and your teammates
defending against a counter-attack,
‘SIX, move to 07 16’
…and then attempting to take this town situated just here.
There are 2 enemy tanks here, and if you’ve played it right up to this moment then you’ll
be short of one rocket.
But luckily, these tanks won’t be boarded until the alarm is raised, so with a bit of
sneaking you CAN take out the tank’s crew before they’ve boarded, and with a bit of
luck, you can take control of one of them for yourself, virtually guaranteeing your
team VICTORY in this mission.
We have done it a hundred times.
We’ve tried beating it by running every enemy over.
We’ve tried speed running it!
We are still finding new ways to do this mission.
Once, we even drove in the other direction and relaxed down on a beach somewhere, much
to the horror of the hostages!
It’s one of those wonderful missions that still feels like a bit of a mystery to us.
We swear the timings are always a little bit different.
Did that truck arrive early this time?
Where did that group of enemies go who are normally patrolling in that woodland over
there?
It keeps us on our toes, and it remains feeling fresh and exciting.
And to think, it’s a mission that somebody made 22 years ago in a matter of hours.
If only they knew we were still playing it now, and in this way!
Are we alone in playing it like this?
Does anybody else still play it?
Or is this gaming scenario wholly unique to our very own LAN parties?
‘Damn, 2 is down!’
Every party I have, I promise myself I’ll make my own level for us to play.
And every time, I forget until the next LAN party begins.
That is, until a few years ago, when I finally made THIS epic experience:
Which I hope to shoehorn into every future LAN party that we have.
And don’t get me wrong- it’s great to play an experience like this with friends.
But I’ve made it.
I know it!
I know the enemies I’ve placed- and even adding random variances doesn’t change that
fact.
It lacks the mystery that playing somebody else’s creation does.
Operation Flashpoint was long before workshops and modern modding sites - but there are still
some archaic sites hosting hundreds of custom missions for it.
My friends and I have tried a lot of them.
But it seems as though most are not designed with our small, cooperative LAN experiences
in mind.
It instead caters to much larger, more competitive experiences.
But the playerbases for these have long moved on, while we’re still here, playing the
same few levels over and over again.
All these years, I thought we were the ones playing this game wrong.
But maybe we’re the only ones doing it right!
If only more than a handful of these coop missions had bothered to tick the ‘respawn’
feature.
Sure, all the missions for this game are janky, and I suspect hadn’t been play tested at
all.
But the game is so good, we don’t care about its terrible graphics.
Or janky AI.
Or the clunky mission objectives.
This stuff can even be quite quaint.
But becoming a seagull instead of an AI-controlled teammate?
That is unforgiveable.
That alone has signalled the end of many coop sessions in our LAN parties.
It has left many potentially great missions, unplayed and unloved.
And like I said: that is unforgivable.
As if I need another reason to hate seagulls.