Video games - Operation Flashpoint

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	Video games - Operation Flashpoint

Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis (OFP) is a critically acclaimed tactical shooter and battlefield simulator released in 2001. Set on a group of fictitious islands in the year 1985, Operation Flashpoint (OFP) puts the player on one of three sides in a potentially catastrophic conflict between American and Soviet forces. As well as the original game (Cold War Crisis) there are two expansion packs; Gold Upgrade (which contained the 'Red Hammer' Soviet Campaign) and the Resistance campaign, which added greatly to the original game. The main feature of the game distinguishing it from shooters is high realism.

Synopsis

Cold War Crisis

The year is 1985, and Mikhail Gorbachev has come to power in the USSR. While his Glasnost and Perestroika reforms are welcomed by western governments, there are communist hardliners in his own government that are unsympathetic to his cause.

One of these men, a fanatic stalinist called General Guba, is determined to bring down Gorbachev and make himself the next leader of Russia. Guba commands an army on the island base of Kolgujev. Nearby is Everon; an independent republic, and Malden; another republic which has a strong NATO presence. Guba invades Everon, crushes the punitive militia force there, and secretly plans to take the war to the Americans.

The NATO presence on Malden, under the command of the American Colonel Blake, moves in to investigate the loss of contact with Everon, and reports of invasion by an 'unknown hostile force'. When a helicopter of troops sent to investigate doesn't return, Blake orders a full scale invasion of Everon, not knowing about the Soviets, and the deadly conflict that would lie ahead.

During the campaign players take the roles of one of four characters:

David Armstrong - A naive but determined foot soldier in the US army who is training on Malden when the fighting breaks out.

Robert Hammer - A cocky young tank commander who has been called into front line service despite not having completed his training due to a shortage of competent tank men.

Sam Nichols - A Black Hawk transport pilot who is called on to fly Cobra attack helicopters, and eventually an A-10 Thunderbolt II.

James Gastovski - A retired US special forces soldier, Gastovski is called out of retirement to carry out sabotage missions, and settle a score with an old enemy.

Red Hammer

An add-on campaign Red Hammer, which was controversially designed by Codemasters (the company responsible for the distribution of the original game) instead of Bohemia Interactive Studio, depicts the same conflict, but places the player in the role of a Russian rather than American soldier who during the course of the campaign, somewhat unrealistically, switches from his steadfast fight against American forces to battling his own countrymen in order to pave the way for an American take-over of the island. Some fans of the game consider Red Hammer a failure, claiming it has a badly written story and poorly designed missions. Since Red Hammer doesn't include any new weapons, objects, vehicles or any engine updates, players don't need to have it in order to play online. The save game system was altered significantly, making reverting to a previous level impossible in the Red Hammer campaign.

Resistance

Another add-on, Resistance, is set three years before the events of the two preceding games. The player takes the role of an ex-Special Operations soldier, Victor Troska, who has returned to his homeland of Nogova after years in exile serving the US Special Forces. During the first introductory mission to the campaign, the island is invaded by the Soviet Union. Initially, Troska refuses to have any part in the fighting and ignores the persuasion of the resistance pioneers, despite feeling guilty and helpless as his countrymen are massacred by the Russian invaders. One day, a seriously wounded guerilla takes refuge in Troska's barn with Russian troops literally on his heels. At this point, the player is faced with a decisive choice: to deny his presence and fight, or to reveal his presence and become a Soviet agent (in which case, Troska is executed after his first successful reconnaissance mission). Troska has virtually no choice but to lead a ramshackle uprising, and the player must use his/her resourcefulness to salvage weapons and ammunition from fallen enemies to supplement supplies which are continually available at later stages in the campaign. The Resistance expansion pack also updates the graphics, sounds and multiplayer mechanics, adding much more than the Red Hammer expansion and thus drastically improving the original game, even to the extent that a lot of pre-Resistance addons and mods were incompatible with the newer version due to the huge changes. It is now considered a norm amongst OFP fans to own the Resistance expansion. Few 3rd party missions, addons or other material are made today for people still playing with pre-resistance versions.

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Video games - Operation Flashpoint

Synopsis

Cold War Crisis

Red Hammer

Resistance

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