Operation Flashpoint: Elite
2001 called and it wants its game back.
Tags: Operation Flashpoint: Elite Categories: Reviews, Xbox Reviews
Posted by David Hinkle on Feb 6th, 2006
| Title | Players | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Operation Flashpoint: Elite (title page) | 1+ | ||
| Developer | Publisher | Genre | Online |
| Squad-Based Shooter | Yes | ||
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Trial and error is the approach you’ll want to take in Operation Flashpoint: Elite because although the game may visually look like your average supersoldier shoot-em-up, it actually requires a lot of calculation and strategic planning on your part should you wish to walk away from the game’s various conflicts with all organs intact. It’s easy to die from even the slightest mistake, which overall makes the game a bit frustrating, and the game’s severely dated graphics only compound the overall unplayability of the title to anyone who isn’t obsessed with military simulation titles.
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Cold War Crisis, the game’s first single player campaign, has you playing several small missions together comprising one overall campaign. These missions are some of the most difficult and painfully-frustrating segments you’re likely to take part in as the game punishes you to an unbelievably unfair degree for every slip up you make. This adds an almost unbearable amount of weight to every single decision you make from the outset of the mission on to the end. If you’re the type of gamer who hates playing segments over and over again, this is going to cause you to toss your controller against the wall or floor in a fit of anger, but for those military junkies who can stand to have their mistakes blow up in their face time and time again, the difficulty of each mission is rewarding upon completion.
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In the field, the Xbox’s S controller makes delegating duties to your character and troops a snap. It’s easy to aim and plunk off a few rounds into a targets sternum and issuing commands to your followers is intuitively handled with the d-pad. You have a lot of control over everything in the game and the enemy AI is surely going to test how you control under pressure. Moving and firing all feels natural and the control scheme shows no signs of clunkiness or a lack in proficiency.
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As stated earlier, the game’s graphics are severely dated, and rightfully so, considering the game was first released for PCs back in 2001. In making its several-years-long transition to the Xbox, it seems as though very little in the graphics department was touched. All of the character models are dated, the textures show lots of pixelation on everything from the troops to the faces of buildings to the ground you’ll be walking on throughout the game. Credit is due, however, in the area of maps in the game. They’re enormous, and watching it go from day to night as you trek across large amoounts of land is very cool, but lacks the immersion it strives for due to the dated graphics on a whole.
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Play on Xbox Live is…well, it’s just nonexistent. There isn’t a whole lot of gamers online lining up to join matches for this game. We managed to get in a couple of matches where we had 4 total and things were fun. The game itself supports a lot of online combatants per map, but there just isn’t any desire for anyone to rip themselves away from Halo 2 or Battlefield 2: Modern Combat to play this game. The usual games of deathmatch and capture the flag are available, along with more cooperative-based gametypes, but ultimately the online aspect is hollow due to the lack of players.
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Operation Flashpoint: Elite does a good job of bringing over the original PC game to the Xbox, but overall it’s just too little, too late. The dated graphics really make for one ugly game on the whole, and the unrelenting, and oft-times anger-causing, AI just seems to be some cruel addition by the developers in the hopes that you’ll take a cinderblock to your Xbox. Games shouldn’t be a pushover when it comes to the single-player campaign, but they shouldn’t be so hard that they take the fun out of the experience. If you love simulation-style military games, this might be a budget title you’d be interested in, but the rest of us can easily skip this tour of duty.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
|
+ Maps are huge and allow a lot of exploration + Brains over brawn + Multiplayer is fun if you can ever manage to find anyone to play with |
5.0 |
| What Doesn't | |
|
- Difficult to the point where the game isn't fun - Graphics look horrible |
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| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| Maybe for the casual gamer who likes to spend their Saturday mornings doing firearms drills on the front lawn. | |
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Tags: Operation Flashpoint: Elite
Posted by David Hinkle on Feb 6th, 2006 and is filed under Reviews, Xbox Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
