I have been playing Operation Flashpoint/Armed Assault series off and on since the initial release. This weekend I went on a marathon playing for well over 14 hours combined across Fri/Sat/Sun. In particular, I have been addicted to the Evolution series of cooperative scenarios. No other game has done such a great job of satiating my desire for large scale coop madness.
For those that do not know, the Evolution missions cover the entire island of Samara and requires the team to conquer multiple cities across the area. Each city has a garrison force, a commanding officer, and a communications tower. The goals are to 1) blow up the tower so no reinforcements can be called, 2) capture the officer to force a surrender of the garrison, and 3) neutralize any remaining hostile forces. The cities can be attacked in any order, there is no requirements to deal with one before another. It does make it easier to traverse the island though.
Typically a player starts out as a lowly private and has to work his way up through the ranks. As you gain rank you also gain access to better equipment, more powerful vehicles, and more useful support options. Players can request side missions such as ambushing a convoy or taking out an armored element in order to gain points or can simply go straight into a fight. Players can group together to form squads or can recruit AI soldiers to help them out.
This game is not for those with short attention spans. During one attack we only had about 10 guys on the server. Of those 10, only about 5 were coordinating with each other. It took us damn near two and a half hours to finally take the city. What a glorious time it was.
In the near future, both Operation Flashpoint 2 and Armed Assault 2 are going to be released. Both look to be beautiful sequels that hopefully expand upon the capabilities of the originals.
The only way this could be topped is if MWLL evolved to provide this capability. Then I would have a hard time pulling myself away from the keyboard.
