I have never played any PC game that has given me so many different reasons to gripe. I originally bought the V1.0 North American from Best Buy (who knew?) and subsequently downloaded the updates for the game and weapons, once I figured out I needed to. Let me tell you, nothing has improved and I can't seem to use most of the weapons upgrades anyway. I'm typing this now because the game just caused (once again) my computer to crash, to lock up, so that I had to (once again) re-boot. Each time this happens, my system configuration files have to be re-configured, which tells me something ain't right since I last played OFP, minutes ago. If this ain't enough, I've watched so many times when the T-80 slid silently sideways uphill, or when I've killed a BMP and it overturns and bounces upside-down for several minutes. like it's a nerf-ball. And the Tank scenarios (Heavy Metal/Commander) give you no control of anything except direction and speed. You can't aim, you can't fire, can't communicate, you're at the mercy of the program's descisions, which usually makes you vulnerable to enemy fire (you're history) or, and this has happened several times, you're face to face 20 yards apart, with a T-80 and he doesn't see you and neither can blast away at the other. I have numerous times just crashed into the T-80 or the BMP and pushed him around and neither of us could fire a round at each other. This happened once with all four of my tanks surrounding the T-80 and we all just sat there until I got tired of pushing him around and terminated the game.
The AI is interesting, to say the least. Although there does seem to be some intuitive action taking place, many times infantry will simply dance around or run aimlessly, even in the face of a deadly threat. And vehicles sometimes can't seem to stop crashing into each other or into buildings, as though they don't know how to back up and turn away.
In Bomberman I once made it into the town, searching for the last of the Russian garrison. I peeked into the open door of a barracks building and decided to look inside. It was a small room with two windows on one side and two doors on the other. When I found I couldn't get through either of the doors I turned to go back out.....and there was no door where I had entered! I was trapped inside this room with no way out. I guess the program forgot there had been a door there.
Don't get me started on the helicopter scenarios. The Apache is too hard to fly (even with a joystick, which doesn't really work well with this program) and the Chinook is just simply boring. Vulcan was interesting the first half-dozen times, then became so routine and the outcome usually so predictable, I don't bother with it anymore. And Steal the Car drove me nuts until I figured out that the yellow indicator of the direction and distance to the car is completely bogus and has nothing to do with the actual location of the car. I thought for a long time that there was no car.
Downloading and playing the player-created scenarios doesn't seem worth the trouble. Either they won't download and execute or there is no end-game, no real mission. Of the three I could download, two woudn't work at all (missing or corrupt files) and the third gives you no choice of weapons, can't take a vehicle, can't give orders to your team, and plays pretty much the same way each time. Not much fun when your own Vulcan APC starts out a burned-out wreck.
All of these complaints refer to single-player mode.....I don't think I'd dare to try multi-player with the kind of problems I've encountered.
Time for a major overhaul of what could be a superior combat simulation. There are so many glitches, even with the patches and upgrades, that you'd think it was still a Beta version. I wonder what Industrial Light and Magic could have done with this........
