operation Flashpoint 2

alles Gut !!

First of all, a bit of history lesson and a few facts about this new title. For the benefit of maybe some of the younger readers here, and those living under a rock, the original Operation Flashpoint Cold War Crisis was released way, way back in 2001, developed by Bohemia Interactive. After many patches, upgrades, an expansion pack and a rumoured sequel, Bohemia fell out with Codemasters. Bohemia Interactive then went on to produce the critically acclaimed Armed Assault and more recently, not surprisingly Armed Assault II. With both Armed Assault titles, Bohemia basically produced the spiritual successor to Operation Flashpoint and pretty much was a sequel in everything but name. However, as Codemasters still had the rights to the Operation Flashpoint name and franchise, they decided to produce an official, full on sequel of there own and hey presto, we now have Dragon Rising!

 

In Dragon Rising, Codemasters once again have the action set on an entirely fictional island, this time around on a place named “Skira”, which sounds more like a planet from Doctor Who than a fictional island, if you ask me. The island is 220km square in size and the really impressive thing is that this is completely loaded into main memory on both console and P.C versions at mission start. It’s entirely possible to walk your virtual soldier from one end of the island to the other in real time, but this will take you something like 9 hours to achieve. This also offers some stunning views as you can see along the length of the island if you go to a high point on the terrain (and of course you have the graphical detail turned up to max).

 

The basic scenario setup is that you play as a soldier part of a U.S force that’s tasked with fighting off a Chinese invasion of the island. The setting is near future as opposed to the 1980’s cold war of the original, so modern, very cool weapons, armoured vehicles and aircraft are employed by both sides. I particularly like the TOW anti-tank missile launcher that has a devastating effect on armour. This brings me nicely onto the subject of realism and Codemasters are keen to point out that this is a realistic military shooter and not a run of the mill FPS where you play a Rambo type character. On normal setting, the game is very challenging with a few hits normally killing you or your squad mates, but you have an onscreen HUD and indicators for how injured you or squad mates are. In hardcore mode, there’s no HUD onscreen at all and the only indication of the state of health for you or the squad is through audio clues of actual physical indicators (i.e. you or the other guys may limp or breath heavy etc when wounded). It’s all very authentic stuff and apparently this is a feature that fans of the original Operation Flashpoint were screaming out for. You also only get one save point at the very start of the missions, so if you mess things up, you need to start over again.

 

On the P.C preview disc I received, there were two playable missions from the full game. The first one called “Dragon Rising” is kind of a tutorial with hints that pop up during play about the major features such as the orders system or using the medical kit etc. The objectives for this mission are to first destroy the enemy radar and then to take out the enemy SAM launchers. The second mission has the player securing a beachhead and protecting and escorting landing AAVPs (basically amphibious APCs) as they move inland. Both missions gave me a very good indication of how the game actually plays. Right from the off when you load a mission, the game oozes atmosphere, with the screen gradually fading from a blurred effect as radio messages can be heard and there’s lots going on in the form of helicopters buzzing around and the sounds of battle in the distance. The graphics look absolutely stunning and the Ego engine ran just fine even on my modest P.C setup. The terrain of the island of Skira has authentically modelled grass and al sorts of fauna and dense wooded areas. The controls were very intuitive, with standard WASD setup for moving around and mouse look for aiming and looking. All the squad controls are accessed via hitting Q and all the standard, expected orders can be found here. You can also give orders via the real time map. In fact, upon initial play, Dragon Rising does remind me a little of the original Ghost Recon game (not Advance Warfighter, but the very 1st one!), as it really almost feels like you are a soldier in the thick of things. The missions seem quite dynamic and it’s up to you how you how you approach each objective. The combat system feels very realistic and if you get hit, you slowly bleed to death and if you don’t use the medical kit before the red indicator disappears, the screen fades to grey and you die. This also applies to squad mates if they get hit, so you need to give them first aid in these situations.

 

Despite the realism, there is one design choice that has me scratching my head at this early stage. The game is very much first person and you cannot go 3rd person by hitting enter like in Armed Assault. However, when you get in a vehicle, you do not seem to be able to move your head around with the mouse, but you can hit enter and go to a 3rd person view while in the vehicle. I hope that this aspect is very much work in progress as it’s odd that the realism and immersion is broken with this oversight.

 

The final game will also feature a full multiplayer game, with all the usual modes, plus the option to play the entire campaign cooperatively with three other people, arranged as a squad. The P.C version will also ship with a fully featured mission editor, where the player can also create missions for the Chinese forces as well as the U.S, so expect to see some very interesting user created content for many months (if not years) after the games release this September.

WAU !!! tiesiog niekaip neis jo zaisti su nekokybiska garso sistema.zmones tiek stengiasi,kad mes tai isgirstume,bet kazkas galbut losia per mono telika ,kad ir per stereo telika,cia reikia tikrai ne stereo garso.

Gal yra video kur su snaiperiu saudo?

na daugiau video kol kas nera.juk zaidimas dar neisejas,tai juk dauguma ginklu turi optika,buvo galima matyt per ankstesnius video,o kokio dar reikia video? na cia tau ne ARMA2 kur gali savaitem lakstyt po laukus su dragunovu.cia tokios visiskos laisves nebus,taciau manau kad dauguma misiju teks butent naudoti optika kad pasalinti priesus per atstuma,nes jie tai tikrai ta naudos pries tave.

labai idomu. taigi jie mazdaug sukure kaip galetu vystytis ten viskas po keliu metu ,pagal tos salos praeiti..hmm idomu