There's a war going on out there, and it's being fought with über-detailed military simulations. On one side you have Operation Flashpoint 2 - the official sequel to one of the most popular and influential war games of all time; on the other, you have ArmA 2 - the spiritual sequel designed by Bohemia Interactive Studios, the guys who coded the original OpFlash. VideoGamer has already spent a bit of time with this latter game , so it was with keen anticipation that they travelled to Leamington Spa earlier this month on a mission to check out Codemasters' effort.
Twinfinite's Henry McMunn revisits Codemaster's military simulator and realises it was actually really great all along.
Dragon Rising wasn't bad, but it had a lot of questionable design choices. Red River was just horrible in every aspect, huge step down from DR.
Yup, Dragon Rising had some potential, but it was way too restricted from what I remember. Red River was indeed horrible. Wish I hadn't wasted the money on that one.
Ugh I just remembered this game and it makes me want to me sick in a bowler hat and drown myself in it....
The only good thing about this game was borderlands was out a week later!
Dragon Rising was a really great idea but with Codemaster's typically shoddy execution of anything not racing related. Their poor handling of the criticism, bugs and outright lies on the packaging was eerily similar to EA's BF4 flustercluck. The game was a breath of fresh air in many ways and was really the only truly tactical, open map shooter of it's kind on consoles. Anyone who played the original Flashpoint or ARMA games would feel pretty comfortable with Dragon Rising. It's just a pity Codemasters dropped the ball completely on the online portion, allowed several annoying bugs to remain to this day and lied about features in the game and later charged for these promised features as DLC. With the way they handled the whole situation, Codemasters earned the first spot on my ever expanding list of developers that I refuse to buy anything from them. Again, much like BF4, you can easily see the awesome game it could have been and yet it's still totally out of reach.
There are games wich shine with light. However, not all games have the same opportunity to receive support from their editors.
This results in remarkable games, even outstanding, which have been forgotten or, unfortunately, were never known by the mass audience. Even their reviews, do not capture the true quality of the title, since most anticipated games, are unfortunately better received in the newsroom.
Part I: Hidden gems in First Person Shooters
"I’m tired of the need for more 'realism' in games. I don’t want to hear about how realistic Call of Duty is while you’re cowering behind cover watching the red Kool-Aid disappear from your screen. I don’t care if Battlefield 3’s bullet drop somehow makes it a better shooter. Does it really matter if you play Forza Motorsport, Gran Turismo, or Need for Speed? They all look and feel fantastic; why does it matter if one is more realistic?
"You want to see a realistic game? Go play Operation Flashpoint on the hardest difficulty. After you’ve gotten out of the fetal position, tell me how enjoyable it was. Unless you happen to be a masochist, I’m going to bet you didn’t have a very good time. That’s realistic.
"We use video games as an escape, just like movies, literature, and music. They tell us stories, let us make our own, or let us live out an experience. I can’t drive a race car (heck, I don’t even have a license), but that doesn’t stop me from playing Need for Speed. The cor...
Exactly. I love the fact that you can jump and shoot with a .50 cal sniper rifle in COD. That adds to the fun whereas realism reduces the fun and makes the gameplay boring. Games aren't suppose to be realistic, we as human beings are very limited when it comes to abilities and powers and such and having game designers implementing what we fantasize the most in terms of technology and surreal action in video games make us people happy cause we get to experience our own "world", the world of fantasies and joy in those games which brightens our imagination and give us something to think about. If I wanted realism, I would rather stick to the life outside of home and drive a real car instead of playing GT5/Forza for instance. Realism ruins the fun, fun is surreal or simply like our folks at Epic Games call it, Unreal.
Some people would like the opportunity to "be" a soldier, so to speak, but without having to risk their life to do it. In that sense, realism in games is wanted. Some people would like to hop around in a land full of giant mushrooms and clouds you can stand on, and that's where "unreal" games come in. There's a place for all types of gamers in this world.
Doesn't an escape from one reality into another make all the more magic though?
Operation Flashpoint on hard is BOMB! I loved it! Intense! One of the few games that was genuinely hard and not just cheap like playing COD on veteran.
Most of my favorite games this gen are unrealistic
Valkyria Chronicles
Tales of Graces F
Disgaea 4
Atelier Meruru
Mass Effect 1
Very good review with lots of new information!
"Operation Flashpoint was one of the first games I ever played where it genuinely felt like you could handle a mission in any way you liked. It was endlessly enjoyable – and pretty damn tense too, thanks to the fact that you could die in seconds. No recharging health malarkey here; one bullet was enough to kill you, if it hit you in the right place"
-That its why i love OFP & ARMA.
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"However, the clever part is the way you dish out orders to your men: holding down RB/R1 summons a radial menu with commands that can be given by pushing the d-pad in the corresponding direction"
-OOOOOOOHHHHHHHHH SWEEEEET!!!!!!
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"Storming in with your gun blazing will get you killed in seconds. Instead you have to pick your way slowly through missions, keeping an eye out for movement in the distance. It pays to remember that your weapon is an assault rifle, not an uzi; aimed shots are the order of the day, not panicked sprays. Having said that, it’s actually quite hard to take down your enemy when they appear to be little more than a splodge on a far-off hill. One of my abiding memories of the original game was of being mildly terrified of an enemy I could barely see, and this sequel seems to have that same tension in spades"
-Yup! is like that you feel like this its serious you don't wanna die
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"Oh, and it’s also worth mentioning that you can even be killed by the bullets that miss you, since ricocheting shots are just as deadly as those that hit their target"
:)
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"The game-world in OpFlash 2 is 220 square km while the one in ArmA 2 is 225km, and both landscapes have been constructed using real-world satellite data. Opflash 2 has 70 accurately-modelled weapons, while ArmA 2 has roughly 80."
Those are big sandboxes to play with some big toys eeehh! :)
My two favorite FPS War Games in the same year aaaaaahhh.... Sweet! :)