[HEADING=1]Operation Flashpoint 2: Dragon Rising Review[/HEADING]
By MurderousToaster
This review is based on the Xbox 360 Version of the game
Right. Earlier this week my grandmother (the kind soul she is) bought me this game for my Ecks-
Bawks (Despite me not asking her to, she still bought it for me since I didn't have any money on
my person at the time). It wasn't too expensive, £22.98 (Not sure whether it was pre-owned or
not, mind you), as there was a sale on. I had been wanting OFP2 since I'd had the decision of it
or Dragon Age: Origins the week before (I chose Dragon Age, obviously. I don't have two copies of
the game) and personally it was a game I had been looking forward to for a long time for the
reasons that it's the only ?realistic'-styled shooter for us console tards. It had received a lot
of hate from Bohemia Interactive's crowd pre-release (ARMA II PWNZ DIS SHAT LOLZ!1!!1oNe!!1!!) due
to its' close relation to the ArmA series. It was a game I'd been a bit ?hyped' about , which is
quite rare for me,so it's fair to say that I was looking forward to Codemaster's shooter.
Let's start the review then, enough rambling on aboutshit excrement nobody cares about.
[HEADING=2]Gameplay[/HEADING]
I decided to do this first, because, it quite clearly being a game, the way the game is played is
quite important to its overall levels of success in the universe of shooting lots of people in the
face.
This being the kind of game where you, using a firearm, insert several projectiles into the
unsuspecting bodies of enemies, the gunplay is important. Dragon Rising uses your average
crosshair to Aiming Down Sight system. The crosshair tends to be less accurate than looking down
your weapon's scope, and your crosshair's size fluctuates as you switch between the three
positions of standing, crouching and prone. Firing also makes your reticle expand exponentially,
thus encouraging the budding young soldier to stop hipfiring like an idiot and look down the scope
provided.
Given that Codemaster's game is based around being realistic, let's get down to the health system.
In a rather CoD-like move, there's two modes - "Normal" and "Hardcore". Normal provides regular
health, a reticle, ammo counter and all the other Heads Up Display acoutrements you'd expect from
a modern shooter. Hardcore removes these and lowers your health a bit (I think) and provides for a
n alltogether more intense battlefield experience. If you take a round, you start bleeding, which
can be stopped using your Field Treatment Kit or something along those lines. However, the wound
(displayed on the little man at the top right of your screen) does not go away until a Medic-class
ally treats the wound. These wounds can have various effects (E.G, a leg wound prevents you from
sprinting, a wound to the face -note FACE, not brain. If you take a bullet to the brain, you die
instantly- will make your aiming worse etcetera etcetera).
The missions are usually intense and tactical, although they can be frustrating (being blown up by
a gunship repeatedly whilst possessing no anti-air capability is NOT good game design,
Codemasters) and co-op makes the experience even better. The great thing about the missions is
that you can tackle them from any angle you please, which adds a new level of strategic planning
to the game.
By far, the worst thing about playing solo is the friendly AI. In a game relying so heavily on
squad-based combat, you'd expect the AI to be clever. You'd expect wrong. The AI is utterly
retarded, barely ever doing what its told, barely ever hitting anywhere near an enemy and for
some reason there's a glitch whereby if you tell your medic to heal a wounded teammate, the
wounded man will continually walk away from the medic. This is immensely frustrating at
times when a man is wounded and you need to get him some help, but they just refuse to let the
medic help them. This wouldn't be a problem if you got to be a medic, but as far as I'm aware
there's no option. As another AI-related note, you need to hold their hands like babies in order
to get them to function. Medics only heal themselves by default (they make no attempt to do
anything else medic-wise unless you tell them to) and unless you tell them to get to cover they
will very often stand out and get shot to pieces.
[HEADING=2]Visuals[/HEADING]
If you've taken an interest in this game, you'll probably have heard of the hugeness of Skira
Island, the island where the game is set. These figures are pretty impressive, which makes it
quite irritating that all of the missions are set within very specific areas, so you never get the feel that
Skira is this sprawling island landscape instead of isolated mission areas.
[HEADING=3]A screenshot from the 'stealth' mission where you get a thermal sight [/HEADING]
The texture quality, on the whole, is pretty average. There's nothing all too special and
sometimes textures can seem stretched, but on a whole it's an allright-looking game. You won't be
wowed by anything other than the scale, but the visual quality does an OK job of keeping you in
the game world.
When you hit an enemy in Normal mode, you get a hitmarker, but regardless of Normal or Hardcore
you're rewarded with a very distinct splash of blood. It's nothing Gears of War worthy, but
it lets you know your shot found its' mark fairly effectively.
[HEADING=2]Multiplayer[/HEADING]
Now, Operation Flashpoint's Multiplayer is a strange beast indeed. There are a total of eight
players, four on each team in the regular Annihilation mode. There are four squads. But, each and
every squad is filled out with AI regardless of human input. So that's 32 total 'people' running
around the field. Yet, humans get the choice to join another human's squad, so this results in the
godawful AI being left to their own devices (Given that a lot of the time people will rush to the
'Sniper' squad). When in control of a squad, the AI will do nothing less than (out of combat) ape
the nearest player's actions. In combat they have their own unique AI patterns etc., but outside
they merely follow you.
There are aircraft in multiplayer, but it's basically just helicopters. I do not understand why
Codemasters included helicopters but decided to not include any form of anti-air class in
multiplayer. There are AA weapons which I've got my hands on in Singleplayer, but they're nowhere
to be seen in the Multiplayer modes.
Also, the weapon choice isn't very varied, but it's varied enough to keep you interested in the
gun you're using.
One major issue I've found is that damage can be very, very glitchy. I once shot no less than ten
sniper rounds into a car turret gunner and he didn't go down. This may have been connection-based,
but it was certainly very annoying.
I don't know precisely why they made it 8-player instead of going the whole 32-player hog (Which
would have been far more intense and fun), but it's still pretty enjoyable to start waging
pseudorealistic warfare on enemies online.
[HEADING=2]Verdict[/HEADING]
A fun, if flawed, game. It can be glitchy at times, but the overall experience is worth it. If
there's a next OFP game, I hope it's given more time in the cooker to work out bugs and fine-tune
everything about it, as I believe its' competitor, ArmA II, probably tops it a bit.
[HEADING=3]Final Verdict: Buy, or at least rent.[/HEADING]
By MurderousToaster
This review is based on the Xbox 360 Version of the game
Right. Earlier this week my grandmother (the kind soul she is) bought me this game for my Ecks-
Bawks (Despite me not asking her to, she still bought it for me since I didn't have any money on
my person at the time). It wasn't too expensive, £22.98 (Not sure whether it was pre-owned or
not, mind you), as there was a sale on. I had been wanting OFP2 since I'd had the decision of it
or Dragon Age: Origins the week before (I chose Dragon Age, obviously. I don't have two copies of
the game) and personally it was a game I had been looking forward to for a long time for the
reasons that it's the only ?realistic'-styled shooter for us console tards. It had received a lot
of hate from Bohemia Interactive's crowd pre-release (ARMA II PWNZ DIS SHAT LOLZ!1!!1oNe!!1!!) due
to its' close relation to the ArmA series. It was a game I'd been a bit ?hyped' about , which is
quite rare for me,so it's fair to say that I was looking forward to Codemaster's shooter.
Let's start the review then, enough rambling on about
[HEADING=2]Gameplay[/HEADING]
I decided to do this first, because, it quite clearly being a game, the way the game is played is
quite important to its overall levels of success in the universe of shooting lots of people in the
face.
This being the kind of game where you, using a firearm, insert several projectiles into the
unsuspecting bodies of enemies, the gunplay is important. Dragon Rising uses your average
crosshair to Aiming Down Sight system. The crosshair tends to be less accurate than looking down
your weapon's scope, and your crosshair's size fluctuates as you switch between the three
positions of standing, crouching and prone. Firing also makes your reticle expand exponentially,
thus encouraging the budding young soldier to stop hipfiring like an idiot and look down the scope
provided.
Given that Codemaster's game is based around being realistic, let's get down to the health system.
In a rather CoD-like move, there's two modes - "Normal" and "Hardcore". Normal provides regular
health, a reticle, ammo counter and all the other Heads Up Display acoutrements you'd expect from
a modern shooter. Hardcore removes these and lowers your health a bit (I think) and provides for a
n alltogether more intense battlefield experience. If you take a round, you start bleeding, which
can be stopped using your Field Treatment Kit or something along those lines. However, the wound
(displayed on the little man at the top right of your screen) does not go away until a Medic-class
ally treats the wound. These wounds can have various effects (E.G, a leg wound prevents you from
sprinting, a wound to the face -note FACE, not brain. If you take a bullet to the brain, you die
instantly- will make your aiming worse etcetera etcetera).
The missions are usually intense and tactical, although they can be frustrating (being blown up by
a gunship repeatedly whilst possessing no anti-air capability is NOT good game design,
Codemasters) and co-op makes the experience even better. The great thing about the missions is
that you can tackle them from any angle you please, which adds a new level of strategic planning
to the game.
By far, the worst thing about playing solo is the friendly AI. In a game relying so heavily on
squad-based combat, you'd expect the AI to be clever. You'd expect wrong. The AI is utterly
retarded, barely ever doing what its told, barely ever hitting anywhere near an enemy and for
some reason there's a glitch whereby if you tell your medic to heal a wounded teammate, the
wounded man will continually walk away from the medic. This is immensely frustrating at
times when a man is wounded and you need to get him some help, but they just refuse to let the
medic help them. This wouldn't be a problem if you got to be a medic, but as far as I'm aware
there's no option. As another AI-related note, you need to hold their hands like babies in order
to get them to function. Medics only heal themselves by default (they make no attempt to do
anything else medic-wise unless you tell them to) and unless you tell them to get to cover they
will very often stand out and get shot to pieces.
[HEADING=2]Visuals[/HEADING]
If you've taken an interest in this game, you'll probably have heard of the hugeness of Skira
Island, the island where the game is set. These figures are pretty impressive, which makes it
quite irritating that all of the missions are set within very specific areas, so you never get the feel that
Skira is this sprawling island landscape instead of isolated mission areas.
[HEADING=3]A screenshot from the 'stealth' mission where you get a thermal sight [/HEADING]
The texture quality, on the whole, is pretty average. There's nothing all too special and
sometimes textures can seem stretched, but on a whole it's an allright-looking game. You won't be
wowed by anything other than the scale, but the visual quality does an OK job of keeping you in
the game world.
When you hit an enemy in Normal mode, you get a hitmarker, but regardless of Normal or Hardcore
you're rewarded with a very distinct splash of blood. It's nothing Gears of War worthy, but
it lets you know your shot found its' mark fairly effectively.
[HEADING=2]Multiplayer[/HEADING]
Now, Operation Flashpoint's Multiplayer is a strange beast indeed. There are a total of eight
players, four on each team in the regular Annihilation mode. There are four squads. But, each and
every squad is filled out with AI regardless of human input. So that's 32 total 'people' running
around the field. Yet, humans get the choice to join another human's squad, so this results in the
godawful AI being left to their own devices (Given that a lot of the time people will rush to the
'Sniper' squad). When in control of a squad, the AI will do nothing less than (out of combat) ape
the nearest player's actions. In combat they have their own unique AI patterns etc., but outside
they merely follow you.
There are aircraft in multiplayer, but it's basically just helicopters. I do not understand why
Codemasters included helicopters but decided to not include any form of anti-air class in
multiplayer. There are AA weapons which I've got my hands on in Singleplayer, but they're nowhere
to be seen in the Multiplayer modes.
Also, the weapon choice isn't very varied, but it's varied enough to keep you interested in the
gun you're using.
One major issue I've found is that damage can be very, very glitchy. I once shot no less than ten
sniper rounds into a car turret gunner and he didn't go down. This may have been connection-based,
but it was certainly very annoying.
I don't know precisely why they made it 8-player instead of going the whole 32-player hog (Which
would have been far more intense and fun), but it's still pretty enjoyable to start waging
pseudorealistic warfare on enemies online.
[HEADING=2]Verdict[/HEADING]
A fun, if flawed, game. It can be glitchy at times, but the overall experience is worth it. If
there's a next OFP game, I hope it's given more time in the cooker to work out bugs and fine-tune
everything about it, as I believe its' competitor, ArmA II, probably tops it a bit.
[HEADING=3]Final Verdict: Buy, or at least rent.[/HEADING]
