I came upon the demo of this game waaaay back in 2001 i think after checking out a story in a magazine about this new and upcoming game that was supposed to be an end all war game. I felt a little jipped after WWII Online, but I thought I would try OFP. I played the demo not knowing what to expect and was quickly suprised by the vastness and overall immersion the game had going for it. The couple of skirmishes were exciting enough. This was way cooler than Delta Force and ran at more than 3 fps unlike WWIIOL. After getting the game and expansions and patches and addons I really must say that OFP is not like other games. It does require some work to get all the things you need to get it up and going. This was made alot easier when the game of the year edition shipped and all you needed was one patch. The addons also were great, but were a headache in the begining as they flooded the forums and nobody could ever play together because of so many patches and addons. In the end it hurt the "mainstreamness" of Operation Flashpoint, but this might have been a blessing because OFP found its way into a special corner of the gaming community where it was nutured and grew into the game it is today. The main game has three part wher you get to play as different roles in the US, Russiam, and then Resistance armies. The main story is complelling and sucks you in to the feeling that you are not a rambo, but just one part of something so much larger and complex. It is very rewarding to complete all the campaigns, but once you go into the online realm there is a huge community that thrives and even though Armed Assault is out OFP is still alive. The online experience is one the isnt matched by any other game due to the fact so many awesome and authentic addons have come out for this game. The only problem is you have to run the same addons as the server you play on or you will not be able to connect. Which is a weak part of this game becasue it takes a little work to do. I recomend ofp watch which has auto addon downloads for servers and is really easy to use. Overall OFP is a realistic war simulator that has a beefy single player, multi-player that is still hard to match, and a community with all kinds of crazy addons. Even in these days of Armed Assault, which supposedly replaced OFP, I find myself longing for some online coop where it might take 1-4 hours to complete a single mission and you better not die, cuz if theres no revive script in the mission, you'll be a seagull flying around above the action. I think OFP is a game that I personally will be playing 10 years from now, it just has that much appeal.
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