Operation Flashpoint – FREE THIS WEEKEND

It’s been many years since Operation Flashpoint, nearly 15 years in fact.

On this very blog we’ve talked about the later title in the series named Dragon Rising but it’s time we gave the original the credit it deserves.

1001 No.92: Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis (2001)

Incredibly difficult; dodgy graphics; controls that were very hard to master; but an experience like no other. It’s not often you can call a game genre-defining – but you’d never have seen the likes of this before. It’s not a game – it’s a simulator.

The first that struck me back in 2001, as I charged down a hill with my comrades onto a Russian-held town, was the biggest sense of vulnerability you’ll ever feel in a game. I mean ever.

Forget Call of Duty – crouching behind a barrel to magically heal yourself – this is war. Shot in the leg? Well unless there’s a medic around you’ll be crawling to the next objective. Shot the head? Game over, hope you used your ONE AND ONLY SAVE POINT in a good place. Forget checkpoints too. Shot in the arm? Forget aiming at anything.

Not that you can hit anything most of the time anyway – realism is the name of the game, either that or you’ve been struck down by the infamous FADE copyright protection system. Enemies are specks in the distance most of the time, and you’ll be all too aware of your silhouette against the horizon unless you grab some cover asap.

Though you soon learn the hard way that crawling down a hill headfirst means… your head is the first place to take a hit.

And the vehicles! Tanks, planes, choppers, jeeps, all dangerously vulnerable and extremely tough to pilot. But when it works… my god, it’s fun – and has led to some of the most memorable moments in multiplayer gaming I’ve ever experienced.

It’s unbelievable as a game, really. And hard to imagine it could exist today. But of course, it does – while Codemasters split from the original team to make ever more increasingly disappointing Operation Flashpoint games, the original team got on with doing what they always did best – creating the most inaccessible but mind blowing games you’ve ever seen, in the series otherwise known as ARMA: Armed Assault.

The original is now renamed ARMA: Cold War Assault. But in our hearts (and minds) it’ll always be Op Flash.

If you never played it, better late than never – it’s free to grab it on steam right now, so do it