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Operation Flashpoint (series): Difference between revisions
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Released in 2001, ''Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis'' is a [[Tactical Shooter]]/[[Simulation Game|Soldier Sim]] that was quite revolutionary for its time, earning critical acclaim for its innovative open world gameplay and consistent focus on realism (so much so that the engine was even adapted for real militaries to use as a [
Being the first ever game of Czech developer Bohemia Interactive Studios, OFP was a bit rough around the edges graphically and had more than its fair share of bugs, but its gameplay innovations and the sheer scope of the game won it favor with gamers and critics. Two expansion packs and an XBOX port later, its developer Bohemia Interactive Studio and publisher Codemasters split ways; BIS took the rights to the engine, Codemasters got the rights to the name. BIS has since released two sequels based on this engine, ''Armed Assault'' and ''ARMA II'', while Codemasters developed its own "[[In Name Only|official]]" sequels, ''Dragon Rising'' and ''Red River''. Essentially, the BIS sequels closely resemble the original, except they have much better graphics and improved gameplay, while ''OFP : DR'' and ''RR'' feel, well, different from the original OFP, and a lot of old veterans seem to think that it suffers from [[New and Improved]] Syndrome.
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** ''Operation Flashpoint: Elite (2005):'' A slightly modernized Xbox port of the first game that was met with lukewarm reviews on release.
** ''[[Arm A]]: Cold War Assault (2011)'': A free [[R Emake]] (or refurbishing if you will) mega patch (v1.99) for the original ''[[Operation Flashpoint]]'', released in celebration of the game's 10th anniversary by the developers. Because of the whole legal debacle with Codemasters, Bohemia Interactive reclaimed the rights to the assets. Applying this patch to an installed copy of ''OFP'' will therefore rename the game to ''ARMA : Cold War Assault''. The patch also [[Take That|removes the Codemasters-produced]] ''Red Hammer'' expansion and omitts it from new installations of ''Cold War Assault''. '''NOTE :''' Please '''[[I Am Not Shazam|don't confuse]]''' the original ''Operation Flashpoint'' with the ARMA series proper - it's only a predecessor and set in the same universe, but otherwise completely separate. The [[Insistent Terminology|new title]] [[Screwed By the Lawyers|is there only because BIS can't release the patch under the original name of the game, since it's now owned by Codemasters]].
* ''Virtual Battlespace (2002):'' Taking the Operation Flashpoint engine, BIS developed this engine to sell to the United States Marine Corps, the Australian Defense Force, and other military organizations as a training tool. It was eventually sold to [
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* [[Artificial Stupidity]]: To varying degrees. The AI soldiers generally handle themselves pretty well given the complicated circumstances they often find themselves in, but they get confused in tight spaces (sometimes to the point of getting stuck), their driving is terrible and their flying skills are even worse.
** Several mods exist that that "fix" or tweak AI capabilities, and in addition to the latest stable patch (v1.05 as of this writing) BIS occasionally releases "beta patches" whose changelogs claim specific AI fixes, i.e.
* [[AKA
** The only exception to this would be the Czechoslovak national AK-47 variant, the [
** Also played straight with most of the civilian vehicles (Trabants, Mini Coopers, Zetor tractors, Škoda passenger cars), particularly [[Brand X|the brand logos above their grills]].
* [[Anyone Can Die]]: And they do, mostly. The only unique characters are either player characters or simply kept out of harm's way entirely (Colonel Blake, for instance, is only seen in cutscenes). The minor exception is the player's squad in the first half dozen missions. They can die too, but they just reappear in the next mission until they're [[Killed Off for Real|killed off for good]] later on.
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* [[Bittersweet Ending]]: ''Resistance'' has a very [[Tear Jerker|moving]] one.
* [[Broken Bridge]]: If you stray well beyond the initial warning to get back in formation (usually 1km away), most early missions will instantly kill you and justify it by playing weapon fire noises after you die.
* [[But Thou Must!]]: The second mission in the Resistance campaign offers the player a choice to either help the invading troops' army by revealing the location of a member of the titular resistance, or be summarily executed. You can actually choose to help the invaders, and you're even given a unique mission to find the location of the resistance base. When you do, you're again given the choice to join them or carry out the mission. Of course, since the leader of the invading army is not a very [[You Have Outlived Your Usefulness|rewarding leader]], he'll [[Rewarded As a Traitor Deserves|execute you if you carry out your mission]] anyway, so it's pretty much in your best interests to join the resistance.
** Averted the rest of the time - although there's a set plan for each mission, and you'll get constantly nagged over the radio if you don't carry it out, the game never actually ''forces'' you to obey orders. 'Course, those orders are usually given for a good reason, so it's generally a good idea to follow them regardless unless you like [[Have a Nice Death|high-angle shots of your own dead body]].
* [[Cain and Abel]]: A map created by the in-game editor is stored on the disk in a directory. The directory name extension is a code to identify which map a mission belongs to: ''Eden'' for Everon, ''Abel'' for Malden, and ''Cain'' for Kolgujev. The desert island received ''Intro'', and Nogova received ''[
* The [[Cold War]] : The setting of the series, complete with a very "[[The Eighties|Eighties]] Cold War era" feel to it.
* [[Concealment Equals Cover]] : Averted. While hiding in bushes or tall grass makes you effectively invisible unless somebody directly stumbles upon you, giving away your position will still result in enemy troops targeting your hiding place. Hiding behind tree trunks, rocks, buildings, sandbag barriers or even just vehicles or dead bodies is the way to achieve cover (of course, stuff like vehicles can still be destroyed by anti-tank weapons, so they're not fully reliable protection against enemy fire).
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** Usualy played straight with most aircraft, though, as the pilot can set forward-facing weapons to manual fire, but he'll still need other people to use any side-mounted guns.
* [[Distant Finale]] : The final (bonus) mission of the ''Cold War Crisis'' campaign is set 6 years after its events (in 1991) and focuses on a friendly reunion of the four main characters.
* [[Does This Remind You of Anything?]] : The Republic of Nogova Island from ''Resistance'' is invaded by the Soviets on [
** The whole atmosphere of "warfare on sparsely inhabited subarctic archipelagos" is very reminiscent of [[The Falklands War]] (except for the far larger presence of armoured vehicles in land combat).
* [[Do Not Do This Cool Thing]] : Soundly averted, even though there are various [[Bond One-Liner|Bond One Liners]] uttered from time to time, occassional jokes to lighten the mood and some heartwarming [[Fire-Forged Friends]] moments. The message is clear : [[Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped|War is not exciting, it's unnerving.]] You're not a [[Boring Invincible Hero]] and you're [[Fighting for Survival]] as much as you're fighting to win against the enemy. See the [[War Is Hell]] entry as well.
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** Balanced : The US NATO forces (only two types of tanks, but one of them is the strongest in the game; weaker and [[Crippling Overspecialization|overspecialized]] but somewhat nimbler [[APCs]]; better overall airpower, including troop-carrying helicopters of two different crew capacities).
*** However, note that some of the more unique aspects and strenghts/weaknesses of the US and Soviet faction have been balanced out in the final, latest versions of the game by official patches with various official addons by the developer (e. g. the NATO forces originally lacked an AA vehicle like the Shilka, so they were given Vulcan M113s to balance it out; the Soviets lacked a good ground-attack helicopter comparable to the American Apache, so they were given an early version of the Kamov Ka-50, the V-80, etc.). With these changes, the more unique imbalance of the factions from the very first release has been heavily diminished. This made the NATO and Soviet armies a bit closer to [[Cosmetically Different Sides]] - but both of them still have enough strenghts, weaknesses, differing specialties and unique units to subvert the aforementioned trope.
* [[False
* [[Fan Nickname]] : ''OFP''
* [[Fighting
* [[First Person Ghost]]: Averted, with both a third-person view mode and a free look option available in both first-person and third-person view modes, the camera's "pivot" point being at the character's head/neck area.
* [[Fission Mailed]]: In one mission in the first game's campaign, the player's job is to take a major town, Montignac. Regardless of whether the battle is a success or failure, the order soon comes to abandon the mission and evacuate the whole island. In the process of doing so {{spoiler|you're ambushed and end up alone in enemy territory with your entire squad killed in action. You then have to sneak your way about a kilometer through enemy territory to the last remaining safe zone on the island, which is overrun just before you get there. You're then diverted to an alternate extraction point, which is ''also'' overrun just before you get there.}} '''''Then you're taken prisoner'''''.
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* [[General Ripper]]: Soviet general [http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Operation_Flashpoint:_Main_Characters#General_Guba Alexei Vasilievich Guba].
* [[Genre Busting]] : Especially when it first came out in 2001. There were nearly no serious war-themed simulation games back then. [[FPS]] games were still getting the hang of things like vehicular combat sections or adding more realism to the way weapons were used in-game. ''OFP'' already had things like huge continuous sandbox-style maps with no loading during a mission, both stealthy and confrontational infantry combat, iron-sighting, a slew of different ground-based, water-going or aerial vehicles available to the player, and showed the modern battlefield as an eeriely tense and chaotic place, not a big pre-scripted set piece extravaganza centered around the player.
* [[Good Guns, Bad Guns]] : Pretty much averted, particularly in the campaign of the ''Resistance'' expansion pack, where you act as the leader of a [[La Résistance|resistance group]] [[Fighting
* [[Gun Porn]] : A more tame example, but there's still lots of [[Cool Gun|Cool Guns]] to admire (especially if you throw in some quality fan-made addons to expand the game's basic arsenal).
** [[Rare Guns]] : The Russian [http://world.guns.ru/smg/rus/pp-19-bizon-e.html Bizon SMG] and some of the grenade and rocket launchers are pretty good examples. The Bizon is unfortunately an example of...
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** Or, if you have the corresponding mods and available guns, call in artillery.
* [[Improbable Use of a Weapon]] : Completely averted. Unlike in most other action or war games, ''OFP'' actually teaches you how firearms would be used in [[Real Life]].
* [[In Joke]] / [[Shout
** There's also an [[Easter Egg]] referencing [[MASH|M*A*S*H*]]. {{spoiler|You can find it on the medic tent.}}
** One of the most fondly remembered fan-made [[Game Mod|game mods]] added the Communist-era Czechoslovak army to the whole NATO-USSR conflict of the original games. This faction's campaign story was generally... [[Played for Laughs|less serious than usual]]...
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* [[Mook Chivalry]] : Averted 99 % of the time thanks to [[Artificial Brilliance]]. The remaining 1 % plays it straight because of occasonal [[Artificial Stupidity]] on part of the friendly or enemy infantrymen.
* [[More Dakka]] : From light machine guns to large stationary ones to the ones mounted on tanks and [[Gatling Good|aircraft]]. You name it...
* [[Multi
* [[Necessary Drawback]] : The way the game achieves its high level of realism. Going prone while running doesn't make you stop instantly, but allows you to feel the inertia of forward movement. Movements like gun reloading or putting aside your main weapon and pulling out an anti-tank weapon (or even just a pair of binoculars) all take a believable amount of time to execute, much like the ones you'd experience in real life. The rest of the realistic drawback aspects are covered in various entries on this page. Simply put, you don't behave like a run-and-gun superhero, but like a real human being who just happens to be a soldier.
* [[New Meat]] / [[Ensign Newbie]] : Private David Armstrong and tank commander Robert Hammer, the starting protagonists of the first installment's campaign.
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** Then again, you {{spoiler|will have to join [[The Good Guys]] during the campaign}}, so it's more like a double subversion.
* [[Nothing Is Scarier]] : ''In a military shooter game'', [[Genre Busting|of all places]]. But [[It Makes Sense in Context]]. Don't believe it's possible in a non-horror game ? Just wait until you're trapped alone behind enemy lines, your magazines are almost empty and you have to hide in the bushes [[Paranoia Fuel|because you hear an IFV scouting around the area, very close to your hiding place]].
** Also, the [[Wham! Episode]] mission from the campaign of ''Cold War Crisis'', where private Armstrong {{spoiler|manages to hide in a forest after his entire squad has been ambushed and gunned down. His two-way radio is malfunctioning, so he can't contact the nearest NATO camp and hears about NATO forces evacuating the island. [[It Got Worse|Worse yet]], some of the Soviet soldiers readying the area for re-occupation are out to hunt him down. Good luck crawling it out of the forest and then trying to sneak through a highly visible meadow and through several groves and forests to the nearest evac site. It lies several miles from your starting position and is surrounded by enemy-infested terrain...}}
* [[One Bullet Clips]]: Averted. Ammunition is divided into tangible magazines, and if you reload when your magazine still holds any ammunition (even if it's only one round) it goes back into your inventory to be used later when you run out of full magazines. This can be a headache for compulsive reloaders, because they'll soon end up with half a dozen half empty magazines.
* [[One-Man Army]] : [[Zig Zagging Trope|Sort of played straight]] in [[Stealth Based Mission|sneaking and sabotage missions]] - if you're skillful enough. Otherwise completely averted. In the more demanding missions, you can't get much done without some proper teamwork and combined arms tactics.
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* [[Real Time Strategy]]: The game engine can technically handle the player commanding forces as large as battalion-sized, although this is never actually put to use in the vanilla game, which never has the player commanding anything larger than individual squads or tank platoons. There are multiple [[Game Mod]] campaigns which take more of a strategy approach, though.
* [[Redheaded Hero]] : Viktor from the ''Resistance'' expansion.
* [[Red Scare]] : And how. ''Cold War Crisis'' and ''Resistance'' has you fighting a lunatic Soviet general and his army of [[My Master, Right or Wrong|faithful fanatics]].
* [[Reds With Rockets]] : The Soviet troops based on Kolgujev and commanded by Guba that spark the invasions to Nogova and to the Malden islands.
* [[Refusal of the Call]] : Viktor Troska at first. But [[Dare to Be Badass|he soon has a change of heart]], [[Darkest Hour|once he realizes his fellow citizens need him]].
* [[Renegade Russian]]: General Guba is the [[Big Bad]] of the entire series.
* [[Retcon]]: In mission ''Montignac Must Fall'', you might take cover in the forest with other squadmates, but ''After Montignac'' states you are the only squad member left.
* [[The Revolution Will Not Be Vilified]] : Both ''Resistance'' and ''Cold War Crisis'' play it straight, but it's [[Justified Trope|justified]]. The Malden islands and Nogova never provoked the Soviets into attacking and the Soviet Union invaded only to secure its grip in the would-be independant countries. Once the Soviets invade (with official sanction in ''Resistance'' and unofficial in ''CWC''), the locals logically adapt an [[Occupiers Out of Our Country!]] stance, but have no political goals beyond getting their independence back. Despite this idealistic setup, the BIS devs didn't shy away from showing what effects a prolonged and nerve-wracking war would have on said [[La Résistance]]. So, while [[The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized]] [[Averted Trope|never comes into play]], there is a definite atmosphere of [[We ARE Struggling Together!]] in the latter parts of the Resistance campaign. Especially the events of this cutscene, where an argument leads to pointless tragedy (spoilers ahead) : {{spoiler|1=[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXuv_KaGgW0&feature=related\].}} On the upside, [[What the Hell, Hero?|these events]] become the [[Determinator]] and [[Growing the Beard]] moment for the Nogovan resistance groups.
* [[Revolvers Are Just Better]] : The vanilla versions of the games only contain one revolver - a .357 Magnum Smith & Wesson, used as a sidearm by some NATO pilots - but it's the most powerful handgun in the series. It also has the biggest recoil ([[Hand Cannon|really noticeable when firing it]]).
* [[RPG Elements]] : Going with the whole "build up a guerilla army" theme, the ''Resistance'' expansion added new features like the ability of soldiers to gain experience ([[Field Promotion|and get promoted]]) after each successful mission, the possibility to carry over captured weapons and equipment from one mission to the next, and more dynamic management of your equipment stockpile and loadout than in ''Cold War Crisis'' or ''Red Hammer''.
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** Even the [[Lethal Joke Item|comparably small and seemingly obsolete Russian T-55]] [[Lightning Bruiser|can be surprisingly competent]] in the hands of a good tank commander or gunner. Fun fact : Unlike the other tanks featured in the games, the T-55 doesn't even have automatic reloading of the barrel, but [[Tropers/Zemplin Templar|this troper]] once took out ''[[Mighty Glacier|a fully armed T-80]]'' [[Rock Beats Laser|with it]].
* [[Title In]]: The date is shown before the mission, as is the location/title.
* [[Trapped Behind Enemy Lines]] : On many occasions, in many, many missions. But special mention goes to {{spoiler|one of the early missions in the first game, where your character (private Armstrong) [[Wham! Episode|becomes the only surviving member of his squad]] [[Bolivian Army Ending|after it gets suddenly attacked]] by several Soviet platoons ''[[Up to Eleven|and]] an Mi-24 Hind chopper''. [[It Got Worse|Your radio has malfunctioned, so you can't call for help.]] [[Harder Than Hard|You have only a few minutes left to cross a few kilometres of enemy-ridden terrain and reach the evac site on the coast.]] And while you're groveling through a very exposed meadow teeming with hostile soldiers, you overhear from your radio, ''[[Serial Escalation|that the evac site has changed, since the coast has come under attack]]''. You then head to the new site... ''[[Failure Is the Only Option|but you get captured by Soviet infantrymen]] !'' They take you prisoner. ''[[Overly Long Gag|And then]]'', a ''[[Twist Ending|third twist]]'' occurs, when you are rescued by members of the local [[La Résistance]]. You then aid them in two or three missions and they help you get off the island and return to the army.}}
* [[You Are in Command Now]] : During many of the more intense firefights, your commanding officers quite often get killed. So, does your squad immediately rout ? No, not to worry : You hear a "''this is'' (number of troop), ''I'm taking command !''" message on your radio and continue fighting. Your character will do this too, if his rank is the highest in the squad once your superior bites the dust.
* [[Unexpected Gameplay Change]]: And how. While you do spend much of the game as an ordinary infantryman, depending on the mission you can be doing anything from driving a tank to sneaking around behind enemy lines doing reconnaissance to flying various aircraft or any combination of these and more, to say nothing of commanding units ''on top of'' all of the above.
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* [[Unusable Enemy Equipment]] : Completely averted.
* [[Villain Based Franchise]] : Arguably so, since Guba is the only character to appear in all three installments and there wouldn't be much exciting action going on if he wasn't up to his old antics again...
* [[Voice of the Resistance]] : A young and cheery radio amateur [[Known Only By Their Nickname|known under the moniker]] "[[Shout
* [[War Is Hell]] : The games pit you in the role of a [[The Everyman|completely ordinary]], [[Redshirt Army|completely vulnerable]] and [[We Have Reserves|completely replacable]] [[New Meat|young soldier]]... who's fighting in small scale conflicts [[It Got Worse|that could easily spark]] [[World War Three]]... [[Averted Trope|No]] [[Anvilicious|heavy-handed]] condemnations of war or [[Contemplate Our Navels|sombre thoughts of your squadmates]] are ever heard, but the depiction of modern warfare in the game (subtle, yet straightforward) [[Show, Don't Tell|says more than a million words]] : It's nerve-wrecking, [[Everything Trying to Kill You|unpredictable]], [[Finagle's Law|often completely absurd]]. Virtually [[Anyone Can Die]]... And they do - ''[[Dying Like Animals|all the damned time]]''... Despite being war sims, the games never glorify or trivialize war and the way it changes the world, society and individuals.
** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWCfM5oCUSk Made all the more poignant] in ''Resistance'', where Viktor [[Technical Pacifist|tries to convince his friends against going to war with the Soviets]]. He's a recently retired professional soldier who [[Shell-Shocked Veteran|has seen too much death and suffering to count]], so he warns them that their desperate fight to liberate their homeland [[Defied Trope|isn't going to be]] [[War Is Glorious|glorious]] [[Hollywood Tactics|or easy]] [[Averted Trope|at all]]. But even though he's against the idea of fighting at first, [[The Call Knows Where You Live|he gets tangled up in the worsening situation]] and eventually decides to lead the Nogovan resistance cells (because if he didn't, things would probably end up even worse). [[Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped|And to hammer the point of the trope home]], the end of ''Resistance''' storyline [[Bittersweet Ending|is anything but cheerful. The resistance fighters only manage to win at a terrible price and with heavy loses]].
* [[What Could Have Been]] : The game was first designed with the intention of creating a purely non-public military sim, but the devs changed their plans already in the late 90s and made the VBS versions of the game only after it achieved significant commercial success. Also, EA Games and other big publishers declined to publish the original ''OFP'', with the general reasoning being that [[It Will Never Catch On|war-themed FPSs and other games have no real following or future]]. After the release of ''OFP'', a suspicious number of exactly such games flooded the video game market. And the genre is still going strong. The use of "iron-sighting" in [[FPS|FPSs]] also became more popular after ''OFP'' than ever before.
* [[Where I Was Born and Razed]] : Happens in varying degrees in the [[Urban Warfare|city liberating missions]] of the ''Resistance'' campaign. Since all of them involve some tank warfare, expect the Nogovan resistance being forced to shell their own former homes and public buildings in order to smoke out the Soviet soldiers from their well-protected defences and hiding places.
* [[Wide Open Sandbox]]: None of the games have "maps" in the traditional sense. You load an entire island, of perhaps 200-400 square kilometers, and then you play a mission on that island. It's essentially the same concept but on a much larger scale and uses the surrounding oceans, rather than [[Insurmountable Waist
* [[World War Three]] : Subverted. In ''Cold War Crisis'' You're trying to ''stop'' Guba from sparking it at all, since the consequences of him succeeding in his provocation would be [[Atomic Hate|downright]] [[The End of the World As We Know It|catastrophic]].
* [[Yanks With Tanks]]: While the games keep changing the opponents you fight, you're almost always fighting under the Stars and Stripes. Unless you're playing ''Resistance''. Which was awesome, incidentally.
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