First of all, I'd like to make it clear that I own OFP, ArmA, ArmA2, and as of today, OFP2.

If you guys are expecting the tactical experience and same gameplay as the "original" BIS-developed series, this game will not offer it to you. It is direct console port junk, in my opinion.

First let me start with nitpicking. Sorry, this is going to be a massive block.

Remember, this is what I've noticed, and is mostly subject to opinion.

There is no TrackIR, no side-to-side leaning whatsoever, and the controls are something similar to America's Army 3. There is a pop-up hud, similar to SWAT4 and AA3 for commanding soldiers and requesting orders. Changing a weapon with the scroll wheel disables all input from the mouse and keyboard until you select a weapon. There are "hit indicators," ala-Battlefield 2, around your crosshair when your bullets strike an enemy. The amount of head bobbing and weapon bobbing while moving and sprinting are not able to be changed. The weapon bobbing animation looks very odd, I can't place my finger on it. The FOV when using iron sights, vehicles, and mounted weapons is very, very narrow. There is no zooming into your iron sights on your weapon, mounted weapons or vehicle cockpits, making it near impossible to lay the sight over a far away target that appears as small as a pixel or two. In other words, the FOV and level of zoom does not change at all when shouldering your weapon. You cannot move your head. You cannot lower your weapon. You cannot salute. There are no planning stages to multiplayer, aside from choosing your class. You cannot individually select equipment in your loadout, just a generalized class and kit pre-round (AA3). You have 30 seconds to choose your class, or you're stuck with something you didn't want. If your class is taken, such as the coveted sniper class, then there's nothing anyone can do about it, not even the server operator. As of the moment, the server operator cannot start the game until every person has "readied up" -- a typical console feature. Since there is no planning, or much organization for that matter, there's no function or need to sit down or lower your weapon pre-mission. Both teams are dropped right into the multiplayer map, about 300-500 meters from the objective, on opposite sides. The VOIP is not divided into multiple channels. Everything is orange and sepia tones, at all hours of the day and any section of the map; everything is washed out and colorless aside from these two colors filtered over everything. The sun glare is brighter and more annoying that ArmA2's. There appears to be little to no bumpmapping on surfaces; textures look bland, undetailed, and low resolution. Enemies can't hit you in singleplayer to save their life. Bullet spread is arcade-like and unrealistic. Bullets stray by four feet or less from their target at 200 meters with a SCAR, and crouched. You have the ability to die in one hit; the AI can take two to the head, and even more to the body. Get shot and enjoy a postprocess effect where your screen slowly turns black & white and blurs, until you are unable to see anything at all for the last few seconds before you die and turn into a ragdoll flopping and rolling on the ground. This is apparently what bleeding to death looks like. The mission editor is a completely separate program that you must run outside of the game. There is an option for "single mission" aside from "campaign," but you must unlock these missions by playing through the campaign to be able to play them. So you're stuck looking at the first mission, and unable to experience anything besides the orange glow of the first mission. Flying and driving handles very BF2 arcade-style. The flight model is very arcade. Helicopters are god-like vehicles that are whored and fought for, as they rack up your kills like no tomorrow. There are no planes. Getting into the spot you want in a vehicle is a hassle, thanks to the vehicle entry points and hud. There is no compass or watch. The hud compass (very similar to CoD4's) has no bearing numbers. The grid reference on the map is a horrid system (FA1-U7GQ for example), though it will hardly ever be used. The map is virtually useless since you have waypoints and start off far too close to the objectives. The view distance is very low, and the LOD of objects at far distances is comically blocky. What is the point of 22 square kilometers of terrain if you can only see up to one kilometer in any given direction around the player? The player models, specifically around the vest area, are very blocky and undetailed (one cube polygon should not be called an ammo pouch). The first person grenade throwing animation is extremely poor and gives no sense of where you are going to throw, or how hard you are going to throw. Building destruction effects are very poor. One second, the building is there. The next, half of it is destroyed with no transition. There are no bullet hole effects on vehicles. Just a small spark effect. There is no third person. You have no legs; you are disembodied set of arms. You are somehow able to carry a knife, a pistol, a SCAR, a SAW, grenades, binoculars, and all the accompanying ammo at the same time. There's no need to drop weapons to make room for another. Did I mention, there is a knife in a tactical first person shooter? Even the latest, less-than-tactical Rainbow Six games don't have a knife. Hardcore mode. Why does there need to be a hardcore mode? The game should already be hardcore -- yet another thing to please the CoD4 masses. You cannot change your face, appearance, or voice. There is no anti-cheat protection from what I can see.

The very few good things. The map is huge, as in OFP and the like. But, you will not be traveling across much of it at any given time. Missions and multiplayer maps take place between a very, very limited area of space on this island. It isn't exactly freedom when you are restricted to a small area of it. The generated voices from the previous games are much, much improved. This game finally has that right and it sounds more than convincing. The music is good. The opening intro to the campaign is also well-done. Until it gets annoying to read, anyway, since the intros are "wordswordswords." There's no jumping, or bunnyhopping to accompany it. It runs extremely well on maximum settings with 4xAA & 16xAF. Stat tracking is alright I suppose. Explosions and smoke effects are alright. The guns sound half-way decent. Too bad they only shoot half-way decent. The cooperative is seamless, but nothing that ArmA2 doesn't already do, including save on checkpoints.

Felt like I was playing Call of Duty 4, America's Army 3, or Battlefield 2. Most everything that made Operation Flashpoint into what we've come to know and remember it as, is gone. This game bears little semblance to the original. I played the first two missions, three rounds of multiplayer, and gave a quick look at the mission editor. I immediately uninstalled afterwards. It was massively disappointing. I personally can't even see TKC wasting their time on this game.

Please, wait for a demo before buying it this week. It's completely, utterly different from what we all know to be OFP, but some of you may like it I guess...

I would link to an excellent video displaying some of the major problems, but I cannot post links due to my post amount.