Operation FlashPoint: Red River

Operation Flashpoint: Red River Gets Blown Apart

Fun's not something that's previously figured in the Operation Flashpoint series, but it's front and centre of this year's instalment, Red River. Taking as much inspiration from Left 4 Dead and traditional RPGs, it's a brave new step for the authentic military shooter and one that should open its charms up for a new console audience. Creative Director Sion Lenton took us through the philosophies behind the changes as we bring you an exclusive new look at Operation Flashpoint: Red River.

 

IGN: Over the next few months we've got some high-profile games like Bulletstorm, Duke Nukem Forever and obviously Codemasters' own Bodycount. Does this more exaggerated type of first-person shooter suggest that people are getting tired of the military angle?

 

Sion Lenton: I totally agree that there's this emerging type of game out there, but I agree and disagree with you - I definitely see a fatigue with the run 'n' gun, whack-a-mole-style military shooter. Everyone likes a challenge and everyone likes to think and I think that's one of the big things that Flashpoint brings to the table. It's more about what's going through your head and what decisions you make.

 

IGN: Since we last spoke Medal of Honor and Black Ops have both come out. What was your take on those games?

 

Sion Lenton: I liked the zombie game in Black Ops, that was pretty good, and I thought Medal of Honor was a good crack of the whip, as it were – it had some good stuff.

 

I think Medal of Honor came into the fray and was really similar to Bad Company and Call of Duty – I don't know how you differentiate them really. I played through it – it's a new episode and a new story, and some of the multiplayer modes were very similar to the kinds of thing I used to play in Counterstrike. I just don't see them innovating. I hate to use the word formulaic, but that seems to be where they're going.

 

To be honest, a lot of the reviews I read and heard had echoes of that too. People want something a bit different, and the OTT shooters are one way of answering that. People want a quick fix, and the trailers I've seen of some of those games look like a lot of fun.

 

Fun's what people are about at the end of the day, and that's what we've spent an awful lot of effort trying to get into Flashpoint.

 

IGN: Fun's not necessarily a word that would come to mind when thinking about the Flashpoint series, but has that been a byword this time round?

 

Sion Lenton: Absolutely, from day one. With Dragon Rising what we learnt is that you can't appeal to all people, you have to choose what you want to be and to me it's flagrantly obvious that we didn't have the time, the tech or the inclination to go down the military simulation route. That's firmly my opinion too; they're engaging, they're appealing but they're not fun. We've got scores in Flashpoint, we've got XP, we've got you working as a team and we've tried to make the controls more accessible too. From day one fun and accessibility have been the watchwords too.

 

IGN: And what would you say to the traditional Flashpoint fans who aren't necessarily after that kind of experience?

 

Sion Lenton: We've got some of that – but there are games out there that fill that gap. People who want a high-end PC experience and very authentic detail, to be honest there's products out there that cater for that exclusively and we're trying to create our own franchise and innovate. You've got to innovate in the games industry, you've got to change – you can't keep recycling the same thing as everyone else. We're pushing it and trying to do something different with the franchise.

 

IGN: There's a neat mechanic that's spoken about in the video with your fire team and their enhanced personalities – is it possible for one member to be shot and lost forever?

 

Sion Lenton: No, I wanted that and they wouldn't let me do it. I wanted it to be like Steel Batallion where it wipes your save! We've got difficulty modes which cover things like checkpoints and spawning in – on the starter mode if you lose three of your guys, you hit a checkpoint and you'll get them back, and that changes as you ramp up the difficulty levels.

 

But really the idea is to give it that variation and replay value. I've described them as kind of the fighter, magic user, wizard and dwarf, and that's how different we want to make them. Again, it's a real return to basic gameplay stuff – it's choosing your class and honing it.

 

IGN: Red River doesn't have traditional competitive multiplayer – seeing as it's aiming for the same space as the Medal of Honors of this world as opposed to the Arma 2s, does this handicap it at all?

 

Sion Lenton: No, not at all. From my experience, everyone I've spoken to, if they get it they love it. I think Flashpoint's going to be an 18 game, it's a game that's aimed at the adult market and I know that that's not what happens but for me these gamers as an age group like playing with friends as opposed to playing with a group of strangers. That's certainly my experience. I've got a feeling that this teamwork and this co-op is going to start to take off and it'll be as big as competitive multiplayer.

 

Operation Flashpoint: Red River is out later this year on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC

tai dabar Flashpoint bus Fun...??!! na karinio shooterio kuris nori lygiuotis i adult kategorija negaleciau pavadinti fun. ir be to flashpoint niekad nebvuo cod ar MOH,bet matyt taps. kad butu fun...damn it..

Operation Flashpoint is "thinking man's" FPS, ArmA 'no threat'

Codemasters' Adam Parsons is in 'complete disagreement' that Bohemia's ArmA series is a thorn in their side; they're no "direct competition whatsoever".

 

He says in our interview that a "small portion" still compare the two, but Codemasters are "offering something unique" with OpFlash. Not a "mil-sim in any way."

 

We asked what 'key points differentiate' Operation Flashpoint from their main competition ArmA from Bohemia. However Codemasters don't consider the two franchises in the same genre or league as each other. ArmA 'caters to a PC niche'.

 

"I completely disagree, I’m afraid," began Adam Parsons.

 

"We have never considered them as direct competition whatsoever, they are much more simulation focussed, hardcore and PC only."

 

"A small portion of the PC community continues to compare us, but in all fairness I think they are well served by that franchise. They want a hardcore, realistic military simulator, which isn’t what we’re offering, and don’t believe many consumers want."

 

Parsons goes on to explain how the two are so very different. "We’re interested in offering something unique – something that is much more authentic than other FPS titles, and provides a tactical challenge as well as testing your FPS skills," he said.

 

"We see ourselves much more as 'the thinking man’s First Person Shooter', and don’t regard ourselves as a mil-sim in any way."

 

"We want people to have fun in the context of authenticity, not to have fun constrained by it, resulting in a sterile experience shackled by scientific exactness."

 

"In today’s games industry, you’ve got to keep innovating and striving to improve. The Flashpoint series is over a decade old, and gaming has moved on in that time."

 

"We feel we’ve brought the franchise bang up to date and what we have produced is a more accessible, authentic, tactical squad-based experience that is great fun in co-op or single player," added Parsons.

cia jie tikrai teisus, kad ju OP jau net arti nebestovi prie Arma serijos dabar. ir tai cia jiem gerai tipo?..nesuprantu as kazkaip ju. konsoles ir taiop neturi ne vieno tokio zaidimo. tai matyt del to ir nereikia. geriau bus kaip visis kiti shooteriai. arba toks lievas kokia buvo ankstesne dalis, kuria na lyg ir norisi zaist, bet paskui kazkaip neiseina lost. ir nesupranti kodel. ne rimtai teks gryzt prie pc zaidimu matyt. bent jau kas liecia kai kuriuos zanrus. kol juos dar kuria aisku. nes is konsoliu jau tiketis galima tik holivudinio popso kuris gerai parsiduotu.na beveik.

Na si dalis nebus simuliatorius, labiau Fun, o gaila, tokiam reikaluj yra COd MOh ir dar visoki, o realistic shooters nei vieno, bent ant konsoliu...

Codemasters gave the order today that Operation Flashpoint: Red River will be released for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 on April 26th in North America (April 21st in Europe). In honor of the new release date, Codemasters has released the new gameplay trailer you see above, “which introduces the game’s conflict in Tajikistan from the perspective of Corporal Ryan Balletto”

atrodo neblogai tas gameplay tikrai..matosi kad tokios open vietoves, nesijauti niekur ispraustas.

Hands-on Preview – Operation Flashpoint: Red River

 

The Operation Flashpoint series emphasises survival and 4-man teamwork over run-and-gun gameplay. We posted a short Red River gameplay trailer the other day – it doesn’t really do the game justice. Much of the joy lies in coordinating tactics with your team and hunting for the enemy. You can’t just blindly barge past doorways or around corners. You will die. It only takes one shot to knock you to the ground and another to finish you off completely. Respawns are limited by your mission progress so if you get taken out early and often, be prepared to sit in spectator mode for a long time and hope that your teammates can hit the next goal without you.

 

We played Red River in the perfect set-up; 4 large hi-def screens and Xbox 360s in a cosy darkened restaurant booth. When it comes to co-op gameplay, nothing beats having your mates over with a few beers and taking the piss. Leaping into a humvee and pegging it down the road at full speed while your team-mate runs helplessly alongside trying to get in? Hilarious! Shooting your buddy in the ass because he’s crawling around the dirt and slowing down the team? Motivational tough love! You’ll heal him up when he agrees to play ball.Try to pull off the same moves with strangers on Xbox Live and you’re just a twat who’s ruining the game for everyone else. As is the sad current trend, there is no split-screen co-op so headset communications over online play will have to do for your average gamer.

 

Red River features a variety of different modes: Combat Sweep for seek-and-destroy, Rolling Thunder has you escort convoys, Last Stand covers area defence and Combat Search and Rescue or CSAR is the toughest set of co-op missions that task you with rescuing downed pilots in hostile territory. Our team proved appalling at the convoy escort – admittedly due to the aforementioned hi-jinx – but absolutely stormed it through the Combat Sweep competition map thanks to the fine leadership of Daily Joypad’s Stephen Butler.

 

The level design favours open maps over corridor shooters and the partly-autonomous AI behaves slightly differently every time, keeping the Fireteam Engagement (i.e. co-op multiplayer) maps fresh. Well, fresh enough that it felt different when we played the same map 3 times in a row, at any rate. Sure, your enemies will be hanging around the same places but sometimes they’ll be up on the roof, sometimes inside this building or occasionally sneaking around behind you. We gave the game a good test run, both working collaboratively and running around like headless individual chickens. I can confirm that individual attempts at heroism will really penalise your team.

 

There is, of course one exception to that rule. Should you find the rocket launcher, feel free to dominate the Last Stand map. The sound quality and explosions generated by that thing are just awesome.

 

As well as four game modes (plus the campaign), you have 4 combat classes:

 

* Grenadier: short range weapons and explosives

* Rifleman: general-purpose infantryman

* Auto-rifleman: heavy weapons

* Scout: squashy but fast long-range specialist

 

The game also incorporates a bit of RPG feel, earning experience points to rack up skills like assault-rifle training to improve your accuracy. Normally I’m against that sort of thing in shooters but in Red River’s case, it only takes a couple of hours to max out one or two specialist skills and does give you that little positive hit of achievement every few matches.

 

If you’re into your military weapons, Red River should keep you very happy. There’s a good range of “authentic” weaponry available in the game, inluding but not limited to…

 

The MP5A4, the ever-popular M1014 combat shotgun, an M4A1 carbine rifle, a Shoulder-launched Multipurpose Assault Weapon (SMAW), an anti-tank FGM-148 Javelin, the particularly insidious M18A1 anti-personnel mines and the Mk19 Automatic Grenade Launcher.

 

Of course, these aren’t all available right away. You gots to earn your good toys.

 

Operation Flashpoint: Red River is a great experience with friends – worth considering if you’re into cooperative team gaming. It will be released on 21st April on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC. Hit up the official Operation Flashpoint site for more news.

4 zaideju co-op ,atviri mapai,priesai elgiasi siek tiek random. co-op split screen nera.

pusantrinis stovejo pasiruoses laukus art.. o siaip grazu,ir tikrai gana open. saviski is vieno suvio nukale

kazkaip manau kad nuo praeito daug ka pataise,kas ir yra gerai,grafika ne esme siaip.jei bus idomiau lost ir padorios misijos tai tikrai idomus geimas bus.

jau patinka vis labiau ir labiau...

biski juokingai lose, pirma is bet kokio atstumo saude i beleka.na as tikrai nemaciau ka jis ten mate per ta optika.o po to is belekiek ir su pistiku pradejo saudyt..fail krc..kurejai geriau jau nelostu savo zaidimo, ir nepasakotu koki bonusa gavo..normaliai galejo sakyt va stengiaus ir nusoviau sraigtasparni. tipo lose kaip koki fun geima cia pasaude pasaude i beleka. na jie sake kad dabar kuria ne realistini o fun..krc nesuprasi ka jie kuria. bet as matau kad man idomus geimas,tik atakuot tai tikrai jau galima is arciau. juk ne snaiperis jis yra. suprasciau jei duotu gera snaiperine puska.buvo galima uzimt ta miesteli bent dali jo ir tada normaliai atakuot ir arciau.

va va isjungt visiskai HUD cia tai bus geras ,kad ir ant normal bus galima. ir pagaliau pasirint klase bei ginklus. tas tai tikrai nervino per dragon rising,kad lakstydavai su vienu ginklu visalaik. normaliai bus galima bent jau pasirinkt kas nori but ir su kuo saudyt..