zoidbergmerc, 27-Oct-09 »

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zoidbergmerc » Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising. A review by Peter "Zoidberg" Nowell Developer: Codemasters Publisher: Codemasters Released: October 15th 2009 Rating: M 15+ Platforms: Xbox 360, PS3 and PC Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising (OFP:DR) is the new Tactical Shooter from Codemasters and for all you ladies who think CoD4 was hard when you had to hide behind a wall before slaying your enemies, you're in for a big shock as this game dishes up a big reality check for all you duck jumping, belly flopping, bunny hopping n00bs out there. The box art for Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising. OFP:DR is the sequel to one of the best games you've never played, Operation Flashpoint. Which was described as "As close to war as you'll ever want to get", this saying rings true with the sequel. So enough talking about how much this game will kick your ass and make you feel like a n00b, lets play it! Fire up the game and you're greeted with some pretty sweet looking menus in which you can select to jump into the Campaign, play a single mission, play multiplayer or look at some options. I chose the options and quickly bumped all the graphics settings right up to max as I'm playing OFP:DR on my PC. OFP:DR manages to look amazingly good looking while still maintaining a very good FPS thanks to it's EGO Engine, the same engine codemasters have been using in all their latest games such as Grid, Dirt and Dirt2. So the system specs are as you can imagine, you'd want to have at least a Core2Duo that runs 2.4gHz, 1 GB of RAM, GeForce 7600GT or higher, that's the bare minimum. I'm running a Core2Quad Q9450 @ 2.6gHz and a GTX 285 and that runs it perfectly above 50 FPS the whole time which goes to show that some time has been taken into optimizing this game. Quite often you're given the opportunity to call in Artillery support so call it in and watch the show! When you're finally ready to play the campaign you're rewarded with a very cool and understandable intro where in lots of dramatic music plays and big words appear suddenly on the screen. This intro really helps you understand the politics behind the mission and just how long this conflict has been going on. The game takes place on an island called Skira, which has been occupied by the Chinese because they claim they had orignial ownership even though the Russians have been living there for a good few decades. The island where this all takes place looks remarkably like an island called "Kiska Island" in fact it is actually the same place. The map it's self is HUGE, so big it'd take 9 hours to walk from one end to the other, but unfortunately you're unable to test this on the console versions as you're restricted to the combat zone. The campaign in OFP:DR is pretty straight forward, Chinese forces have occupied Skira and the Russians are really unhappy about it. The US send in some forces and you are the fire team leader for a small squad of 4 USMC troops. The campaign takes place over 3 days and there is a pretty cool timeline that indicates when each mission in the campaign takes place. In the campaign you really get a feel for the mentality behind a USMC soldier which is quite insightful and interesting. This is mostly due to the voice acting which is pretty good seeing as there arn't any big names in the line up. To control your Squad in game you use the voice commands which are very nice too and arn't jerky or sound like a constipated call center robot unlike the original. The voice commands are easily accessible through a circle style menu which is pretty basic and easy to learn so you can reel off commands quite quickly. The only thing that gets me down is when you tell your men to move to a new location it tells them to move to the grid reference rather than just saying "Move northwest 200 Meters", it just seems like a round about way of doing things. With about 50 differnt Land, sea and Air vehicles in the game it's a shame the campaign doesn't give you many opportunities to pilot them! The actual gameplay it's self is pretty slow when you compare it to games like CoD but when the action is on in OFP:DR, it gets pretty hectic and you'll be running around, finding cover, telling your squad what to do, calling in mortars and still find time to shoot off a quick volley or two from your rifle. It's this style of gameplay that really makes you need to plan your encounters and think about what angles you decide to engage your enemies from which is a welcome difference from the more linear style of play you get from other FPS games. Getting shot in this game is almost a game ending situation, if you get a minor wound you're given a few seconds to find some cover and dress your wounds before you bleed out and die. A more major injury will result in you wriggling around on the ground screaming out for a medic and hoping he'll get to you in time before you die. But more often than not, catching one volley of bullets will finish you off instantly and you're forced to start again. As a USMC (United States Marine Corps) soldier you only get to spend time in the back on Black hawks and there isn't any part of the campaign where you'll get to pilot any of the vehicles, even though they are very well modeled, the huds in the vehicles are very well designed too, quite close to the real thing. This is because the designers of OFP:DR spent some quality time with the USMC modelling all their guns, uniforms, equipment and vehicles as well as doing a lot of motion capture work that is displayed when you reload, place a weapon on your shoulder as well as other combat animations such as assembling the javelin rocket launcher. Speaking of rocket launchers, there are quite an assortment of weapons in OFP:DR but unfortunately you'll only ever get to use about a dozen of them in the campaign but some of the ones you do get to use are pretty special, the MK19 with M203 grenade launcher is awesome and the Sniper rifle you get in the mission "decapitation" is nothing short of freaking amazing. The night ops scope is nothing short of just cheating though, you almost feel bad for using it... almost. The night vision in this game is pretty cool though it's pretty far from realistic, but using the night vision combined with the laser pointer is a great way to point out targets and objectives to friends in multiplayer. An in game shot featuring the full fat HUD from easy mode. The Multiplayer community for OFP:DR on PC is still quite underdeveloped and this isn't helped with the games lack of dedicated server support. I can't speak for the console multiplayer though, I'm hoping that will be a lot better as most games on consoles don't run off a dedicated server. OFP:DR would make a perfect LAN game with it's 4 player co-op campaign mode you and 3 mates can play though the campaign together which will take around 12 hours if you don't fool around and kill each other. Even playing this game over the internet OFP:DR still has brilliant rego, great lag compensation and in game VoIP which will make for a pleasant online experience. In conclusion, OFP:DR is a very good game that ticks all the boxes. It's good looking, has nice movement and rego as well as having a realistic and believable story line. Plus it's a damn good challenge as some of the missions get pretty hard, especially when you play on hardcore mode. It's also a nice change form the mainstreamed FPS shooters we've been seeing of late. The only down side is how short the singleplayer campaign is, only 11 missions which will provide about 12-15 hours of game play. But there is a mission editor so PC gamers can make their own campaigns and there are promises of some DLC in the future. OFP:DR is the perfect mix of a combat simulator and First person Shooter which is perfect for people who are looking for a step up from CoD but ARMA is a little too hard. If you liked any of the Rainbow Six games, you'll love this. I give it 4.5 out of 5 Stars. TLDR Version + Pretty good looking + Good Challenge + Nice Change from CoD - A little Short.

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Category:	Game Reviews
Posted:	27-Oct-09 10:35:04 pm
Author:	zoidbergmerc