CompuExpert has this back in stock so I ordered and will hopefully be able to give some 1st impressions later in the week. And I can actually talk about the GAME instead of fan sites, hyperbole and blah blah. :)

I also don't have a space age system anymore (450 PII, GeForce 256, 256 megs SDRAM), so I can hopefully give some insight on how it runs on a so-so system. The demo ran fine though I needed to tune down textures.

Bohemia Interactive has a reviews page of European reviews. Probably the most detailed I've read is at Telefragged.

Thanks Geo! The Telegragged review was quite good. I already own the game, but haven't been home for weeks, and thus unable to play. I will arrive home Friday or Saturday, and I am totally stoked to play that kill the Shika mission (I'm sure there are lots of those types of missions). And I think the strong editor, coupled with a patched multiplayer, will make this game unbelievable. I hope you get your copy soon.

OFP best game EVER! Anyway, I actually was able to play OFP on a p2450 with a V5 and 256 sdram... though i had to turn down some of the details and shadows. TnL might help your performance... btw this is the game that forced me to upgrade!

also, I actually have a mission made! Its a Kill the 3 Shilka's Mission (40kb zipped). Heres a link to it! Its called Insertion Red Dusk. Its a long mission, but i made it as realistic as possible!

http://www.operationflashpoint.dk/default.cfm?Page=missions&ID=131

I have an update to this mission that adds more... if you ever like this mission just email me and i can email you the updated version! anyway whats cool about ofp is the missions arent that big, some of the better user missions ive played arent more than 100kb.

etc

Flashpoint patch 1.10 came out today. Here's the readme file. It fixes or adjusts about 200 things, and it seems to address most of the complaints I'd read in reviews. Hopefully for their sake the North American version will be at least 1.10 when it releases. The readme also mentions they plan to release a few free add-ons soon, including new vehicles, weapons, single and multi-player missions.

I think I should have mine tomorrow (Thursday).

I'd like to upgrade too and have some moolah saved up, but I'm not playing anything right now that warrants an Uber Computer. :) It does distress me that 1.8ghz Intel and 1.6ghz Athlon systems go for the same price this 450 did a couple years ago. I know those aren't REALLY 4 times faster than my system, but I feel jealous anyway. :)

mt, how do you install user-created missions? Just curious -- the patch says it has new support and checks for add-ons though I don't think it changes how you install them.

Avonlady Flashpoint FAQ has some helpful info. Hopefully the patch fixes much of what the FAQ goes over.

The first goodies package is supposed to be out tomorrow (Thurs.) night U.S. time.

Bohemia sayeth:

---

Quote:

This will contain new single and multi-player missions, a brand new weapon, and additional vehicles. Players will now be able to control both the Soviet SU-25 "Frogfoot" heavy bomber and the American M-163 "Vulcan" anti-aircraft defence vehicle. Infantry will also be able to engage their enemies with the "Kozlice" dual-barrel hunting rifle and shotgun.

---

Flashpoint Deltaforce posted screenies of the new bomber and Vulcan attack vehicle:

Vulcan AA vehicle

SU-25 Soviet bomber

Good Lord, I hope they introduce a U.S. fighter to combat the bomber. I don't think choppers and A-10 Warthogs will be good interceptors. :)

To install the missions simply copy the .PBO file to your Missions subdirectory. It will then show up in the single mission list in your game.

Yep, that's an M163 alright. I don't know if the real deal can incline the barrel below the horizon or not, but yeah, it would make for great crowd control.

Simply? SIMPLY? That word always makes me nervous with computers. But thanks. :)

I convinced a friend at another forum to get the import version too, so hopefully he and I can take the multiplayer out for a whirl.

well some missions are zipped un-pbo'd... you have to make a mission name folder for those that aren't pbo's but are sqm mission files with other stuff. I dont like to convert to PBO only becuase i like to reedit the imssions alot... there isnt a pbo unpacker that works well with the full version pbo missions unless you have a perl script tool...which pbo files seem to be packed as...

anyway, I cant wait for the new weapons...the vulcan apc will be a good balance for the US forces...since the shilka is imo, a little bit too powerful. though, its weak armor wise it still can lay out the damage faster than any other vehicle. I think they should limit it to something like 50 rounds and then a 5 second cooling period (supposedly a shilka's barrels run very hot if it shoots for more than 10 seconds )... as it stands a shilka can destroy an m1a1 with about 50 rounds in less than 5 seconds. one on one id take the shilka over anything in terms of a vehicle shootout. but a law or russian rpg can take out a shilka with one hit.

etc

pbo? sqm? shilka? rpg? Someone send me a lingo dictionary. :)

One confusion I had in the demo. The semi-game saving of the demo is something that really confused me. In some parts I could save, and in others the option didn't come up, and the load option was not consistently there either. At the start of some battles a big GAME SAVING message would pop up but there seemed to be no way to restart the battle at that point (if I loaded, I went back to the start with my officer outlining the mission). Any ideas? Maybe this was just a demo quirk.

there is one savegame AND the retry positions in the demo. Regardless you should have at least ONE savegame position in the demo. Its the same way with the full version. ALso, if you need more saves theres a save game tool that works for OFP demo and fullversion, where you start up a mini savegame program b4 starting OFP, and whenever you want to resave you just press the "pause" key. Its a sorta cheat... but its there if you need it. Personally i like the one save per mission... none of the OFP missions are TOO Long, and one save actually adds another dimension to tension and strategy. Though I agree with people who are of the "save anywhere" camp... it isnt as much a concern with me. also the speed up key is in the demo.... its the "-" and "+" keys near the backspace key...

etc

I just got confused. To me, Retry means "start over from the beginning" and Load means "start from a savegame point" and Flashpoint seems to work the opposite. The autosave points in the demo seemed reasonable to me once I understood everything.

Must be a Bohemian thing. I read people have similar befuddlement in the full game (people were clicking menu item that made them replay the mission instead of continue the campaign), so they had to put a big message at their site saying what means what. :)

I finally finished the demo, and found it really helped to keep your initial officer alive. He seemed to know exactly where to go, so I just kept close to him. :)

Got my fingers crossed my import copy arrives today.

I tried to get this post in at exactly 2:45 east coast time, but the game was so good I played a little of the next level. I'm only about 6 missions into the campaign and so far I'm impressed, if a little frustrated. I won't give away any surprises, but I will say that the missions are pretty good at throwing in some unexpected, and generally unwelcome by your poor soldier, twists and turns, sometimes leading into a whole new mission.

As far as "frustrating" goes, I just spent a solid hour trying to break through a town, and had to reload at least ten times. My squad was basically walking into an ambush, and I kept getting picked off (or blowing my self up with a rifle grenade - here's a tip: aim far over the horizon to get any arc on it). Luckily the load times were very rapid, and they had a save point just before the ambush. This level reminded me of the second level in Sacrifice. I must have played that level 20 times before I beat it (probably more) but by the end of that level I was an Arch-Mage in skill. I think this level is teaching me how to stay alive (I did finally beat it).

What was great was that every time into the ambush was a little different. Even though I got used to what troop numbers were like, they came at us from different spots every so often. Another great thing was the little details. We were driving up in a truck, and I was in the front seat. I could see both the speedometer and the other -meter (the one that says when to shift- sorry its late) moving up and down as we plodded along. And when we got close to the enemy, sometimes we'ld stop a little before the ambush and sometimes we'ld catch fire driving in. The best one was when the windshield fractured into a hundred cracks. The little things really drag you into the game.

One last thing: I dislike most first person games (I get carsick) but with Flashpoint, I definitely prefer it. When you're running around a forest with hundreds of tree trunks (literally!) you really need to have an unobstructed view. And for some reason this game doesn't make me queasy (strangely enough neither does WW2OL - can anyone explain this phenomenon?).

Anyway, I lived the Qt3 ideal tonight: I was playing late into the night.

Night all,
Rob

ps. I'm gonna re-load Sacrifice sometime soon. That game is amazing.

The sickness thing has to do with a couple of things: most shooters you are in a closed environment that's speeding by you at around 30-40 mph, when you should be going a lot slower running. OFP and WWIIOL model movement rates somewhat based on the real world, though WWIIOL's terrain is half-scale, not a huge appreciable difference.

--- Alan

To add to what Alan said, I believe it's a lot to do with what makes one motion sick in the first place, where the ears disagree with the eyes. In some cases, you see yourself moving slower than what the juices in your ears are feeling, and this disparity results in motion sickness. Hence, in most FPSs, your little avatar blazes along those corridors at speeds akin to vehicles. Your eyes see you zipping those hallways down incredibly fast, even though your ears are all like "WE'RE NOT MOVING. WHAT THE HELL?!?!" And so your head gets all floozy.

The things I took away from Introductory Biology.

Someone else at the office hoarked my copies of OFP and WWIIOL, but Alan's post about those games attempting to model realistic movement sounds right. Yes, programmers know what they're talking about!

-Thierry

You're not calling me a programmer, are you?? :)

--- Alan

I upgraded my RAM, and this game just got twice as good. The graphics are a lot smoother now (great for targeting those pesky Ruskies at 200 meters).

As a side effect, WW2OL is a billion times more playable. It loads in under 3-4 minutes, respawns within 15 seconds, and gives me a playable 25 fps. Its still ugly, but its more fun this way.

For the record: I doubled my 128.

Excellent ! RAM is dirt cheap anyway so there is no reason why anyone should have less than 128.

Games love 256MB's ram.

Ram is just crazy now. I remember when having 16 megs or ram was a big deal. I also remember Win 95 coming out and claiming it could run on 4-meg systems -- notebooks back then, in other words.

I've already committed to buying 512MB of RAM for my next upgrade this Fall. I'm probably going with two 256MB chips and that new NVIDIA motherboard due out soon (which wants two banks of RAM to get total performance it would seem). 512MB of RAM for about $100 is pretty f-ing ridiculous when only three years ago it was somewhere in the neighborhood of $150 for just 64MB.

Consider this... depending how much this motherboard goes for, I'll have motherboard, RAM, Athlon 1.4GHz or better, sound, video and case for somewhere around $500. That's all high end stuff too (video is GF2MX which I'll replace with my GF2 GTS).

Insane.

--Dave

That is insane, and it makes the $300 consoles not look so great anymore as far as price goes. By the time you add in the memory card, extra controller, and DVD remote you're at $400 at least. You can get a pretty loaded PC for $1000 now.

I also can't imagine a 1.4 GHz chip getting outdated anytime soon. That should be good for a couple of years.

Yeah...the two things consoles really have going for them is the large quantity of dedicated and compelling content that they will receive from Japanese and big name US publishers as well as the simplicity of plug it in, turn it on gameplay. Of course, those are two really huge things. =)

The monitor is what really drives the price of your PC now unless you're going Pentium IV at the super high end (or even mid-range thanks to double the price or more for RAMBUS RAM). I can understand why Gateway and others are having a downturn in their revenues. They take in money for these things, but margins are razor thin.

I'm still knocked out that I'll go from a 450MHz processor (well 300A@450) bought in 1998 to a 1.4GHz or better processor three years later. I went from 120 to 450 before. Oh, I also bought this originally with 128MB of RAM (a ton back then), and now I'll go to 512. Crazy...

...and just in case you've read my lamenting 3D games in the other thread and wondered why I'd care to upgrade, well, I'm a sim-racing nut. I need the power to make racing games sing sweetly to me. Though lately that's translated into me playing Grand Prix Legends exclusively (still incredible three years later) which is already maxed out at 36FPS (frame locked) all the time on my 450 w/GF2. Anyone with even a mild interest in GPL, please do yourself a favor and have a look at this page. This carset is absolutely stupendous. It's a complete graphical overhaul for each car that you shouldn't live without. Dan Gurney would be proud.

--(Dave)

Even monitors are cheap. You can get a good 19" monitor for $300. I should know I had to get a new one when my last one started going blurry on me. I picked up the KDS Avitron 19" from Best Buy -- they love me over there, I am like Norm in cheers :). It has the Sony Trinitron tube without the Sony price. If you can get by the two damper wires (as in all Trinitron tubes) it looks great especially in games where you can't see the lines anyway (well maybe in NHL 2001).

-- Xaroc (who has to have the coolest wife in the entire world to let him buy all of this stuff)

Here's an impression: this stuff is hard. I'm trying some Black Ops operations, and I've been killed in every possible way: machinegunned, tank gunned, blown up by my own satchel charge, fallen off a cliff, etc.. I really like this game, but I'm getting itchy to gun down some live competition. Does anyone know when there will be a public server for the game? Or if there already is one, how do I get on it? You need someone's IP address using the current MP setup, and thats such a pain to put a game together.

Flashpoint supposedly works on GameSpy, though you mostly find European players on there just now.

I just wanted to comment that PC Gamer's review of Flashpoint is terrible. Way too much time spent criticizing the game on problems (for example: sound), and barely any time spent talking/praising the game for what it does well (extremely well). The review stunk. I hope the writer is reading this because I'm ready to defend a game that has the sort of intelligence, scope, and fun that Flashpoint has. I believe the reviewer says something flip like, "Oh, better to just wait for Ghost Recon". Did you know that you can't pick up another weapon in Ghost? Its like Commandos or something, you're stuck with your original weapons. Thats just dumb. I'll take Flashpoint, where I can squeeze off my three clips from my M16, pop off my rifle grenades, and then pick up a fallen comrades M60 and finish off the enemy. 70% my ass. If you're reading this then BRING IT. I'm ready to dismantle your "the tank controls are clunky" critique.

70 percent? Idiots. Oh well, they can stick with there 400 meters playing field in Ghost Recon. And I[ll stick with the 10km of island playing and helicopters, jets and tanks with OFP.

BTW, i STILL play this game almost everyday. Its that damn good. This game revolutionizes fps games. At least in Europe it did, where it already sold more than half a million.. Pretty good for a game that was primarily developed by like 6 people from the Czech republic!

I think everybody was expecting Counterstrike/Rogue Spear gameplay with OFP. Its a different experience imo, and for the better.

etc

I agree, this is by far my favorite game in a damn long time. I think the problem I see in the forums is, some people want to play it like a regular FPS and end up getting killed all the time. In the campaign at least, there are many missions where you aren't the star and you will die trying to get the most kills.

I like that. One of the few games that really makes you feel you are part of something bigger.

Chet

It's a great game. My review is in the November issue of Computer Games Magazine, the one with Unreal II on the cover. I liked Flashpoint a whole lot. It's different, it can be hard, but it offers the best "tactical military shooter" experience out there.

Ghost Recon looks good, too, but it's a very different style of game.

PC Gamer - bah - need we really say anything ? They have some of the most inconsistent reviews I have ever read.

As for Flashpoint it is *THE* ultimate infantryman's simulation. I remember playing many hundreds of hours of my old Sniper! boardgame and wished I could somehow translate that play into the ultimate tactical 3D visceral experience.

Flashpoint has done this and more. There is nothing more satisfying than leading your squad into battle with armour and air support side-by-side with rounds flying everywhere, tanks brewing up, and the rattle of continuous MG fire.

OFP is the shit ! :-)

Well, I installed the demo, played about 5 minutes, and uninstalled. Annoyances:

Movement is incredibly strange. I don't mind being slow, but I apparently can't move in a straight line, and the effect of walking on the view screen is really disorienting to watch.

Squadmates yell something every three seconds. Is there a way to turn this off?

No way to pick out enemies at range unless you mouse over them.

Inventory management takes too long, and the interface for such is a pain in the ass.

The overhead map is virtually useless.

These are all "realism" features, I'll bet. Ick.

Wow Jason, what a penetrating 5 minutes. Please, disburse some more wisdom so we can mail it in to PC Gamer for their next issue.

Jason,

Well I was going to respond to your points but then I thought - this guy has only played the game for 5 mins - not worth arguing with.

Maybe when you have played some more we might want to have a meaningful conversation.

Cheers,
Sean.

Jason, stop trolling. How can you review a game in FIVE DAMN MINUTES, and it being a demo?!? I can respect your opinion if you played the demo for at LEAST an hour or two...

bah! whatever!

etc

If I was trolling, do you think I'd write something that bland?

I played the demo, and found it unfun. I've discovered lately that my enjoyment of a game almost entirely matches how much interface and "design" shit I'm required to put up with to play the game. I was thinking about this the other day after playing the Trade Empires demo, which was amazingly boring and derivative, and virtually every fun game I can remember playing had me hooked after five minutes of gameplay.

If there was something I was missing in the above quick post, please, do explain.

'Wow Jason, what a penetrating 5 minutes. Please, disburse some more wisdom so we can mail it in to PC Gamer for their next issue.'

Did you see a complaint from me about sound or graphics quality?

Movement strange? Yes, moving slowly, running or crawling. Took me so long to figure it out. Erik had to come over and pantomime the movements for me. I had never seen crawling before. I might try it myself someday.

I too find the inventory management confusing. Often I want to switch to grenades and I am like, "Damn, I know there is a key to do it, what key changes my weapon" Luckily Erik is still over and we double team the keyboard. I move and fire, he hits the space bar when I need to change weapons. How one person can manage that is beyond me. Kudos for trying.

Again, I agree on the overhead map. It is useless. What with grid coordinates and that north and south stuff? WTF is with that? And all the feedback when you mouse over stuff, how annoying. What kind of map can it be when it doesn't even have a picture of a whale with a blow spout to represent the water area. Cheap bastards.

And once again - you got me, my squadmates yells? Please. I didn't realize how much this game sucks. Now instead of yells from the battlefield, I make sure on all missions I take the mime troops. This way as long as I don't look at them, I never have to be bothered when they spot an enemy for me. And if I happen to glance over, I just see them pointing and acting like they are shooting a gun. I guess I can live with that.

Thanks for the 5 minute review! I concur. The game sucks.

Chet

Whatever, its like saying, "Half Life the first five minutes, nothing happens, its too damn dark, what is this? a game on rails? literally?" hey, so maybe you think the game is overrated or whatever dude ... pretty shallow to base a game on 5 minutes imo.

If i based a game on 5 minute impressions i would have trashed all Looking Glass games Thief and SS2... and pretty much every flight sim. And I dont think you're trolling, do you think id write something so bland? I was joking. Maybe you're just playing devils advocate... or sumtin.

Just name me a game you loved in the first five minutes and it kept that pace and remained excellent thruout. Or name me a game you played for five minutes and SUCKED, and you changed your mind after an hour or two or perhaps days or weeks (some games take awhile to get to liking, you know the ones that grow on you... despite some bad design issues...)

FYI, I HATED the first hour of the OFP demo ... what kept me in was the atmosphere and concept. I basically had the SAME exact impressions you had. The game grew on me... Anyway, i just hope you dont base all your gaming on demos and five minutes of play... Do you walk out of movies after the first five minutes? bah useless... you could just say, "this is not my type of game."

etc

Chet -

:-)

Hilarious stuff, man.

Chet dude. You are going to get me fired. I think my staff thinks I'm about to barf all over my laptop, when in reality I'm just trying to stifle a huge laugh.

ps. How come the funniest stuff always at least has something to do with Erik? That guy must be infectious.

'If i based a game on 5 minute impressions i would have trashed all Looking Glass games Thief and SS2... and pretty much every flight sim. And I dont think you're trolling, do you think id write something so bland? I was joking. Maybe you're just playing devils advocate... or sumtin.'

I thought Thief && SS2 were actually fun in the first five minutes. If you yourself say you hated the first "hour of the demo," why the hell should I bother if I don't even think the "atmosphere and concept" really sounds all that great? Is this like learning to like coffee?

As to games where my 5 minute judgement was different than my one hour/final judgement: none I can think of. Unless you count all the MMORPGs, where it started out fun, I knew I would end up disgusted with them in a few days, played them anyway, and became disgusted with them in a couple days.

I'm pretty confident in saying squad-level FPSes aren't my type of game. Mind you, I haven't played any of the Tom Clancy squad games because fucking Tom Clancy was involved.

"I'm pretty confident in saying squad-level FPSes aren't my type of game. "

Thats all i needed to know, explains your shortsightedness.

etc

That's me, the short-sighted Pancho Villa of gaming. I don't like Operation Flashpoint, and soon I will come for your women.

You know, I kind of agree with Jason.

Okay, maybe not exacly, but -- if I'm playing a game for recreational purposes (ie - not reviewing it) and it's not at least mildly entertaining early on, I'm not likely to stick with it.

If you ask me, the first fifteen minutes of a game are the most crucial. It's like writing -- if you don't "hook" the reader with the intro paragraph, they're never going to stick with you for the entire piece.

If you play a game for five minutes, and the first five minutes just plain aren't fun, then you're totally justified in not continuing. I shouldn't have to beg a game to be fun.

Well, yeah. I agree that some games you know you wont like, but then again, a game i know i wont like i wont even try. Its kind of pointless to give opinions of a game you know you're likely to despise. Meaning why play a demo to a game when you know its not your type of game?

Generally if i know what a game is about, and i know i wont like it, but it gets raves i will certainly try it. For instance, one game i TRIED to like but felt was plain old boring (imo) was Europa Universalis. Yes its complex and has a depth unheard for a historical game... but i found it boring. Maybe the first five minutes MIGHT apply to this situtaion for me. But I usually will give at LEAST an hour or two, especially for a game thats well-received... i know i did for EU.

But anyway, each to his own opinion etc...

BTW, what women were you planning to come for J? You can take Roseanne for all i care!

etc

I'm sorry, but 5 minutes will never cut it. The first five minutes of the demo goes like this: you listen to your squad leader talk, he orders you to get into a jeep, you drive to another position and pick up a LAW team, he asks you to drive, you drive to another position where there's a....

STOP. Thats five minutes. True, you weren't wading through bullets, and rpg attacks, and BMPs, and there wasn't a HIND circling your position, and you weren't able to try out a LAW for yourself (such a cool flare trail from firing one of those at night), or toss a grenade, or put surpressing fire on the village, or pick off the driver of that UAZ, or run like hell from a T-80 counter attack. Nope, that would take slightly more than 5 minutes. But with the exception of the HIND attack, it's all in the demo.

On another note, I've decided Jason is a troll. He trolls quite a bit on other threads, so I'm not going to get worked up anymore than I already am.

'I'm sorry, but 5 minutes will never cut it. The first five minutes of the demo goes like this: you listen to your squad leader talk, he orders you to get into a jeep, you drive to another position and pick up a LAW team, he asks you to drive, you drive to another position where there's a....'

I was counting actual gameplay time of me getting shot at, you yahoo. ;0 It was probably 15 minutes, if you want to get all technical.

I really don't like most games with limited information. Do I really need to pick out a moving single pixel at long distance to find the enemy? Do I really need to adjust for arc on gunfire & grenades? How come the overhead map doesn't have a icon indicating where I am? How come the overhead map doesn't show buildings? Where the hell is my objective listing?

This stuff didn't bother me in Thief II, which I loved. For some reason it does here.

I was hooked from the first thirty seconds of EU, by constrast. I like a few shooters, and like most strategy games.

Constrast: When you don't want your contrast to vary, make it a constant!

Not to keep picking but, the map shows your position and heading. The map shows buildings.

And that big giant thing that pops up on the leftish side of the map listing your objectives? You might want to check there for objectives.

Or is all of this missing from the demo?

Chet

No idea, when I hit the M key to bring up a map the only thing on it was isoclines. I'd forgotten about the objectives being on there, too.

I'm stuck on the mission towards the end where you have to steal those damn documents. Anyone get past that successfully?

I love this game, btw. I love the realism of the infantry part and the non-realism of the flying part. It's perfect for what I'm looking for.

I just wish they had a better multiplayer setup. You go to GameSpy and everyone's running dedicated servers, so you have to go back to the game and type in IPs.

Any developer who thinks forcing gamers to remember/write down IPs and type them in is a good idea should be beaten silly.

Ah, in that one you can go all the way towards the beach and sneak in the long way (the fence is open near the beach), or time your sneak thru the sentry post... though they will detect you if you even kneel, you have to go in prone/crawling. The document is in a building heavily guarded, but if you go in crawling, hugging the building walls, its easy.

Yes, the MP setup is a chore in gamespy. I use The All Seeing Eye, which has the dedicated server list of OFP servers. Its Gamespy without the fluff. Pretty good, it supports other games as well.

http://www.udpsoft.com/eye/

As of now, pretty much the normal ofp game i play online, if any, is less than 6 players... im at 56k so im even more limited then usual.

There are a ton of good missions out for OFP now, and i saw one mp map that had a CTF/RTS gameplay and was really fun online, with a few little bugs though... but the concept worked! you could try it offline too...

http://www.concept-5.com/ofp/snippets/factories.htm

this is a good site to pick up missions, and editing tips. Theres detailed reviews and some user addons.

http://www.concept-5.com/ofp/default.asp

etc

Thanks for the info, I finally got through that mission!

After multiple consecutive 5 minute blocks, I have come to the conclusion that:

1. Operation Flashpoint is a great game, except that...
2. I'm absolutely terrible at it *sigh*

I seem to have a really tough time spotting enemy infantry. Maybe I need to upgrade my machine. (heh)

Oh, and where is the aim point when using the M-16 gunsight? I'm assuming it's at the top of the center marker? The manual doesn't go into much detail.

- Alan

In OFP you have to learn to compensate when you aim, depending on your range as well. USually i aim a bit lower than the tip with the m-16 (in the sights mode) and try to see where the bullet lands... you have to compensate quick and if its too low, aim higher a bit, too high aim lower, and lead the target in case its running. Its hard at first but I got used to it. Some guns have a short trajectory, not as much punch in the long range (ie the HK after the 1.2 patch has a shorter range...) And also, you will always have less recoil when you are prone. its the only way to get 200 meter plus shots accurately. With 500 meter plus shots... expect to raise the rifle a notch. its possible to take out people with an m16 non scoped but you do need to have a higher resolution (1024 +) to accurately see where the bullet lands (or where the dust emits).

the machine gun... thats a different story... the PK pre 1.1 patch was so easy to kill with... it had little recoil. but with 1.2 its about on par with the m-60. with maching guns you really have to pay attention to where your bullet lands as well. and its better to fire in bursts.

the important thing with OFP is that you find cover and concealment ALL the time. you can pause to fire in open cover if the enemy is far (300 + meters), but even then, if you are in open territory expect to be an easy target, especially if youre standing!

etc

It's a devilishly hard game, but a great one. It's about the only game I've seen that simulated machinegun fire worth a damn, among other things. You do need a hefty machine, though, because 1024 or better really helps.

I love picking up a machine, going prone and seeing 3-4 enemy coming. Its devastating. But then I drop it, no sense lugging it around.

For any mission where you are a black op. When you are prone, you are almost invisible, and are invisible to anyone at a decent distant.

Chet

Another cool thing in OFP is how the different firing modes are useful... from single/burst to automatic. I sometimes like to pick up an AK74 just to have the ability of a mini auto machinegun!

But mostly I fire in semi single shot mode with a quick three or four shots. The M16 was made better with less recoil with the US 1.2 patch... made it a greater gun!

etc

My favourite weapon is the AK74. Great sound, punch, and it's accurate.

Favorite gun for me is the HK... though only because its silent! anyway, i like the AK too! nice auto feature for an assault gun and accurate at up to 400 meters!! only thing i hate about the AK guns is the sights... its really hard to sight things farther than 400 meters with an AK...

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