Some tactical shooters skimp on story and atmosphere, instead giving you piles of real-world weapons and gear, hoping that alone will suffice to hold your interest. Not Bohemia Interactive's Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis, which generated a big buzz in the shooter community and earned lots of critical praise and awards when it was released last year. Operation Flashpoint let you play as an individual soldier, but it also let you command other troops, drive trucks and tanks, fly attack helicopters, and much more. It included dozens of interesting missions and a powerful mission editor. Just as importantly, it took great advantage of the scene-setting and storytelling techniques found in the best traditional single-player shooters, creating a memorable fictional world. Sometimes Operation Flashpoint's attempts at immersing you in that world fell flat, but the game definitely earned an "A" for effort. That same dual focus on immersion and complex military action returns in force with Operation Flashpoint: Resistance, a large and entertaining expansion pack for the original game.

The island of Nogova feels like a living, breathing place.

Operation Flashpoint already received one expansion pack of sorts, the Red Hammer campaign found in the Gold and Gold Upgrade editions of the game. Unlike the Red Hammer campaign, Resistance goes further than simply adding new missions. Requiring the original Operation Flashpoint to play, Resistance incorporates all the patches so far released for the original game and also includes a number of other significant upgrades. The visuals have been improved, and the multiplayer code that caused problems for more than a few people has been tweaked, too. You also get a new 20-mission campaign, five stand-alone missions, nine multiplayer missions, new vehicles, new weapons, and a huge new island on which to battle.

As with Operation Flashpoint, an interesting story ties the game's combat encounters together. Resistance plays out a few years before the story of Operation Flashpoint, letting you assume the role of Victor Troska, a former Special Forces soldier. Having grown weary of fighting, Troska retires to the sleepy, provincial island of Nogova, a fictional area that readily calls to mind the Balkans. The sympathetic Troska's peace and quiet don't last long. A split between hard-line Communists and reformers causes Nogova's government to collapse, whereupon Soviet forces led by a brutal commander arrive to establish a puppet government. Only Troska is capable of organizing and leading a militia resistance.

The story is told through the same kind of lengthy in-engine cutscenes that were hallmarks of Operation Flashpoint. The extensive opening sequence, for instance, introduces you to Victor's quiet, cozy life and the tranquil simplicity of Nogova. This makes it all the more dramatic when the Soviets rush in, guns blazing. While Resistance deserves credit for taking such a cinematic approach and often succeeding, some problems mar the storytelling. Sometimes the cutscene direction can look pretty clumsy or resort to hoary clichés like focusing on a sped-up clock to indicate the passage of time. The cutscenes also suffer from long load times, and the scenes themselves can be overly lengthy to the point of tedium.

Still, the storytelling works well overall, thanks to some dramatic twists and bloody surprises, as well as some tough decisions you have to make. Early in the game, for example, you'll have to decide whether to betray a partisan fighting against the Soviets--doing so might save some friends from imminent execution. Do you reveal the partisan's location, try to talk your way out of the jam, or run for a gun?

Calm before the Soviet storm.

Even outside these sorts of dramatic turning points, your decisions will often carry over from one mission to another. Since you end up leading a ragtag militia of ex-soldiers and simple country folk, weapons and reinforcements will be in very short supply. You'll need to scavenge gear and, more daringly, steal tanks and other vehicles from the enemy, all while treating your men as irreplaceable assets and not simple cannon fodder. All at once, this adds realism, heightened drama, and some interesting tactical decisions to the game. Do you spend precious time collecting weapons from dead enemies to stash for later use, or do you leave the weapons and flee before more enemies arrive?

If you don't find or bring along the right weapons during a mission or if you lose too many men, you'll need to restart earlier in the campaign to have a chance of success. On the other hand, you'll sometimes spend time filling crates or trucks with all the guns and ammo you can scavenge, only to find to your dismay that none of them are accessible in the next mission, after all. Making things even tougher, your comrades aren't particularly bright, so preserving your men can be more difficult than necessary. (For that matter, AI pathfinding remains an intermittent problem, too.)