Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising

Phonesis said:
Zen, be good to form a fire team with you btw. I will be playing this co-op on PC from day one. We should make sure we form an OcUK clan (if the game has clan support of any kind).


Edit: Hmm forget that. I just realised you are all mostly going to be hitting this up on the 360.
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I'm picking up both the PC and 360 version (PC for any mod's and 360 for Live!).

Only downside is that I don't have the PC to play it on yet (but will have for Windows 7)!
 
Yeah defo get something going on here when the game comes out.

Right guys I got a text translation of the PC Gamer Sweden review. It isnt word for word but i'm wondering if its OK to post it. If a senior member could jump in and advise I'd really appreciated it. The review is fantastically written and you guys would love it :cool:
 
Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising
The art of finding a balance between realism and entertainment.

I'm lying flat on the woodenfloor as I reload my weapon. Ahead of me the darkness of the room is broken by sunlight that enters through an open door. The only thing I see in the light is a hand that rests against the floor, a hand that's drenched in blood and dirt. The calls for help that could've been heard from outside died out a few minutes ago and I'm feeling very lonely and vulnerable. My weapon is now loaded but the ammunition won't last long. I should be able to crawl to the door and grab the fallen soldiers equipment, but that would reveal my position. The steps outside the door makes me cuddle up even more. It sounds like I'll have another visitor. How could this go so wrong?
The answer isn't really that Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising is "as close to a war you'll ever want to get", like Codemasters PR-guys has been saying since the game was first introduced. Neither was it my aggressive style of play that got my fireteam killed. The latter isn't impossible though i guess after my long sessions of more arcady action games. No, my virtual soldier's destiny depends on that the mission isn't really balanced. With a few weeks to release it looks like I've encountered one of the last balance-bugs, a problem that has already been noticed and shouldn't reach the shelves. Except for that I haven't really encountered any problems. No crashes, weird AI-script errors or objects hanging in the air. Could this really be Operation Flashpoint?

The Curtain Rises!
Magnificent and dramatic music gives a good atmosphere while the player is bombarded by headlines and pictures. War is coming and the way it's presented brings my mind to a novel by Tom Clancy. The story feels a bit unbelievable but the authors still manages to anchor it to reality by bringing today's economic crisis in the background. It's the growing superpower China that's on the warpath after experiencing a negative effect on their exports in the diminishing world market. The Chinese are hungering for resources and the top men looks greedy on a tiny spot on the map that until now has been insignificant. The island of Skira earlier belonged to China but under centuries of war the locals have been forced to change flag several times. After WW2 they ended up under Soviet flag but when it's later discovered that Skira lies on top of a huge oil reserve, the Chinese government decides to retake the island. This is where the story gets a bit silly. What does the proud Russian people do when the conflict is getting serious? Of course they're calling the Americans! Why? Because otherwise the game wouldn't sell very well in the US. Either that, or the authors wants to distance themselves from Tom Clancy's "The Bear and the Dragon".
When the intro is out of the way it's time to act. I don't know who I am or who my fellow squad members are. This is a pure war game with an heavy campaign and the focus is on the military goals rather on the characters. No soldier will show me pictures of his wife and three children to later get shoot in slow-motion to lairy music. All 11 missions are about taking Skira back. Even your first lesson that's held in the games interface helps pushing the story forward.
Here I'm leading a group of four soldiers to destroy a Chinese radarcamp a few hundred meters away. If I succeed, the Americans would be able to fly in troops and materiel. The controls feels really logical and the interface is user-friendly. Orders are issued via a quick menu that adapts to what I'm aiming at. Therefore, ordering soldiers to their positions and tell them to support you is quick. The AI is doing very well on this point, but it's important to not have a to tight formation when things starts heating up. The enemy also shows that they can use the terrain in a good way, but sometimes it feels as if the Chinese soldiers are programmed with more uncareful tactics. They seem to act as a moving wall of meat that's only good to chew some led. At other moments I find myself in deep trouble though. I've seen great proof of intelligence, they send people to flank us among other things.
The campaign is really entertaining with great diversity in the missions. At first you're a bit under the leash of your commanders. Most of the targets must be destroyed in time and this makes sightseeing a bad idea. Later on everything opens and that makes it possible to take a roundabout and solve the issues the way you want. Anything else would've been a waste of resources when there's a map of 220 km2 to explore. I was especially impressed on a mission were i was to save the crew from a crashed helicopter. The targets change as you proceed with the searching, which takes place over a huge area. In these type of missions it becomes clear that the developers has put down a lot of time and money into the voice acting. Codemasters delivers a game with high productionvalue.

It's still real to me, damn it!

There has been a lot of discussions wether Dragon Rising is real enough to carry the name Operation Flashpoint. That's actually a stupid discussion since the original was far from a real milsim. Bohemia has taken a big leap towards this with ArmA and ArmA II though. The question is wether this was the way to go or not for that series. Codemasters has put a lot of effort into realism, but not at the price of entertainment. The bigger part of the audience seem to be scared off by such a narrow product as ArmA II. What sells today is Call Of Duty and other titles that takes a way that's more lightweight. The hunt for that crowd is pretty obvious sometimes and therefore the realism in Dragon Rising is realism on a diet.
One area that has been adjusted that way is the damagemodel. It's only when luck fails the player that one bullet actually puts you down. I've managed to push through missions with bulletholes in both of my arms, the leg and in the chest. When you're wounded you have to grab your first-aid kit and stop the bleeding before you run out of blood and thereby dies. This far I have no objections. But when you reach a checkpoint the wounds disappear. Luckily there are harder gamemodes which counter this.
Another thing I don't like is the damage system on vehicles. It's completely possible to blow out all tyres on a truck and it will still run like nothing has happened. Above that any soldier can grab their screwdriver and repair even the most serious damages that can happen to a vehicle. As long as it's not on fire it can be saved.
When we're talking about fire. Most of the missions are designed so that it will explode and smoke as much as possible. Even here, the realism had to step aside. The world is full barrels that explodes violently after it has been hit with more than three rounds. I'm not an expert in any way, but isn't it very stupid to put out barrels like these on such sensitive positions? On the other side I can reveal that Dragon Rising will offer a lot of big explosions and smoke effects.
The adapted realism sometimes makes it possible to get out of hard situations by just running and shooting a lot. There are two harder game modes that can be activated from the very beginning though. The hardest is only recommended to real Ascetics. I the game mode "Hardcore" you will lose all of your HUD. There is no indication of how badly hurt you or your comrades are. You can't know if that last shot hit the target or not either. Everything except your weapon vanishes out of sight and this makes it challanging for real. The only thing I dont like here is that the compass also disappears, but on the other hand it is more realistic to not have it out all the time.
One of Operation Flashpoints strengths is the ability to play coop. The developers understand this and they've designed the game around this game mode. There is room for four players, one for every soldier in your singleplayer fireteam. The one who hosts the server will act leader and I guess that's pretty fair. The other multiplayer style is similar to the usual "Team Deathmatch" which will probably be appreciated. Codemasters also provides a ladder for online gaming but of course that was empty when I tested it. How steady that is remains to see when more players connect.

Easy to use toolbox

What makes me remember Operation Flashpoint today with such joy is the tools. I've spent many nights trying to create the perfect mission for a lonely soldier and his stupid AI friends. Bohemia deserves an applaud for delivering the game with the tools. But as usual someone should have told their programmers that user friendly things isn't something you should fear. The editor was a disaster and worst of it all was the scripting that would never tell you when something was wrong. Sure, it was a lovely feeling to alt-tab out to notepad and hack, but it's funnier if you don't have to fight the editor.
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Codemasters work makes Bohemias to shrink here. Dragon Rising is shipped with a wonderful and intuitive editor. After just a few minutes I was ready to go and started planning a a mission involving a big military convoy and attack helicopters. The editor warns you of errors and as icing on the cake the script-language LUA is used instead of some homemade and bad documented crap. This makes it possible for skilled modders to throw themselves into the design at once. The process of making a pretty good mission is fairly fast, but players that become really good at this can bind several missions together and create their own campaign.Codemasters have to get the modding going here. It's a great editor but lots of supportwork and learning material will be required to get the ball rolling.



Judgement!

Well, is Dragon Rising the "real" sequel to Operation Flashpoint? The answer is no. ArmA and its follower feels more like the original. Bohemia melted our hearts eight years ago with an advanced and insanely buggy product. They haven't changed that pattern and haven't taken care of the horrible inability to ship complete games to the shelves. ArmA is exactly that hardcore that Flashpoint once was. It's a heavy game that demands a lot from its audience and the computers that's going to run it.
Dragon Rising is beautiful and polished in comparison and it feels like a part of a completely different game series. It's also a more mainstream game that is probably going to find a bigger audience. The realism is there but the developers hasn't gone that far so that they throws any player but the warsim fanatics back to the stoneage. Personally I would rather have seen the game with another name and that Bohemia could've kept and continue with the name. Codemasters product is so good that it can stand on its own legs. Apart from that we wouldn't have the eternal ArmA II vs Dragon Rising debate that probably won't die even after both games can be purchased.
Myself, I'm to tired to play superbuggy games that will only be playable after a number of patches. ArmA II is barely playable on my computer while Dragon Rising runs like a dream. All that is left to see now is if the game gets a big audience enough to grow.

Conlusion
+ Open Gameworld
+Strong graphics-engine
+Impressive Campaign
+Voice acting
+ The tools
- Exploding barrels
87% A superb soldiergame with impressive campaign.
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Helios said:
Another great review released today, and this time it's from PC Zone magazine in the UK.

The game scores 90% in the review along with a coveted PC Zone "CLASSIC AWARD".

Check out a few small quotes from the review below


• “This is a game of exploration and options, where the solution isn’t just “go this way or not at all”. It’s challenging and hardcore, but always accessible.”

• “Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising has achieved the singular feat of being a military simulator that’s actually fun to play on more than just a ‘Look how much stuff is here!’ way. Codemasters have remembered that the most important thing for a game to be is fun.”

• “It’s a stormer.”

90%
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When creating your MP game you'll have an option to turn friendly fire either on/off, and also there is an option to allow you to auto-kick teamkillers. With you being able to set up upon how many instances of TK'ing a player gets kicked from the game
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So close now!

Just have to make sure I get my 1000 GS on Batman by this weekend so I can trade in for this next Friday!

Don't think will be spending much money on games for a while after this, as I am hoping will llove it enough that it will take up most of my gaming time.

Must start playing some other FPS games before next weekend though to get back into practice :)
 
ffallic said:
So close now!

Just have to make sure I get my 1000 GS on Batman by this weekend so I can trade in for this next Friday!

Don't think will be spending much money on games for a while after this, as I am hoping will llove it enough that it will take up most of my gaming time.

Must start playing some other FPS games before next weekend though to get back into practice :)
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Yeah I actually just cancelled my pre-order for forza 3 as with this game out I really wont be playing anything else for a long while. Going to pick up forza for christmas instead.
 
Another person that had problem with finding this thread, any reasons why this is not in the PC Game section? After all, this was originally a PC Game ! :)
 
There is, but everybody slates it whenever I post there. All the Arma2 brigade will shoot it down. They don't think to look here. I will be getting it on pc when it comes out. Anybody got any scans or text of the PC Zone review of DR?
 
physichull said:
There is, but everybody slates it whenever I post there. All the Arma2 brigade will shoot it down. They don't think to look here. I will be getting it on pc when it comes out. Anybody got any scans or text of the PC Zone review of DR?
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There were some about but they got removed. I'm keeping this thread general when it comes to formats so I'll keep it updated with all PC info as well as console.
 
Rotter, will the bonus pre-order missions eventually become available as DLC in the future?

It just strikes me as a bit unfair to all customers, even those (like myself) who loyally purchased your product by pre-ordering, that they are missing out on those other missions that CM worked hard on, that are only available through the other retailers.

I can see why you have done it, but it still means that everyone, in one way or another, is missing out on the other 4 bonus missions.

When I buy half a dozen eggs, I expect 6, not 5 and an empty space where I have the choice to upgrade to 6 eggs in the future.
 
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