Operation Flashpoint 2: Dragon Rising is one of the finest tactical first person war games released in recent years because while other titles such as Ghost Recon are linear by nature Codemasters have created an open world environment with strong focus on giving the gamers (you guys) total freedom of choice. Excited? you should be.
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
Getting this instead of MW2. I hope its not a mistake. Im up for something new. I've already had my share of chaotic intense action in Killzone. Maybe this will quench the strategic side of me.
I've always preferred Rainbow Six Vegas over COD4 simply for its gameplay, I like tactical Heat-style shootouts much more than arcadey run and gun. This game looks to be a combination of Vegas, OP Flashpoint/Arma, and a hard Mature version of Bad Company. Its a free roaming FPS with indoor and outdoor shootouts, non-scripted AI, destructible enviornments and gore. Sounds perfect to me.
If nothing else the single player will be twice as long (if not more) and nowhere near as restrictive/linear as the levels MW2 will have to offer. (That is if its anything like the first one) Plus Dragon Rising doesn't have PS1 style canned death animations circa 1997 or limit the gore to scripted sequences.
I've got a lot of respect fore Codemasters for releasing this so close to Modern Warfare 2 considering the preorder figures, but I know its only because they're confident this game is one of the best shooters in years.
Lol. This game is $39.99 CAD on PC and $70 CAD on consoles.