Gaming Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising Review

The co-op campaign is a blast to play and truly likely where I will spend 90% of my time. Doing so you can skip the console based ordering system and actually attack an objective with precision (the friendly AI is trigger-happy).

I played it last night with a friend for only a few hours, so there are some things that Joe has mentioned I haven't seen. I will say that the combat itself is quite fun. I do wish for loadouts, however.

As far as patching or modding out the inadequacies I am not sure, but I think it can and will be polished a bit more before its all said and done.

All in all, I think at this point I would give it a 7.

 

I think it is a nice game but it definitely has a case of consolitis. The biggest issue right now is that there are no dedicated servers.

The reviewer is right that the game is schizophrenic. It's trying to be a hardcore milsim for consoles? Codemasters might be bringing a lot of console gamers into the hardcore milsim genre and that's great but I think if they had just made a great PC exclusive milsim with dedicated servers and a more complex map with towns then the game would have (guessing) sold much better. They could then cut it down for the consoles much like Battlefield 2's console port Battlefield:Modern Combat.

I don't know why reviewers aren't mentioning the lack of dedicated servers. It's a big issue for the multiplayer game.

 

Man, I was really looking forward to this game. ARMA II being buggy was a real turn off and I thought OFP II would have brought more to the table against ARMA II. There may be some hope for OFP II just not at the moment as its pretty obvious its geared towards consoles. I'll give it a month or two before I make my final decision on either getting OFP II or ARMA II but I'm very disappointed.

*fingers crossed for OFP II improvements*

 

Well I might be able to help you decide.. Both games have big drawbacks. So it's a matter of picking the lesser evil. A2 demands a powerful PC with a very fast video card. OF2 doesn't. A2 has lots of bugs, OF2 has less. A2 can feel very clunky and the AI is pathetic too often. OF2 seems to have better AI. Both games are NOT PvP, but PvE (player versus environment).

The best alternative to both of these games is Project Reality mod for BF2. It's massive. It's huge. It's far more polished. It plays better than both A2 and OF2. I suggest you definitely check out Project Reality if you haven't already. A big update is due very soon, too. PR has a learning curve but so does A2 and OF2. PR is the best of the three for PvP and also for urban combat. Also PR has insurgency mode which is incredibly fun and challenging and no game has anything like it where you search & defend caches randomly placed around the map. PR is the best of the three.

 

"it managed the game just fine on the highest settings, holding things at an average of 50 fps" What is the point of this sentence? Rig well detailed *TICK*, FPS given *TICK*, no resolution given *FAIL* 50 FPS at 800x600 or 2560x1600? It makes a difference, please tell us the res you were using.

 

@Quake1-rules, Arma 2 does need a powerful graphics card, but unfortunately this statement is both fact and theory. Hundreds of users (yes hundreds) have reported vis the BI forums that there is literally no difference between say a 9800gtx+ and a GTX285 in most cases, although quad cores do better in the CPU stakes. There are people who have upgraded from say a GTX260 to a GTX285 and noticed no fps gain, literally scores of people have complained about this. The game doesn't run very well on low and mid range cards but after a certain point, seemingly for a mind boggling reason, completely diminishing returns set in.

As for PR, well I have to disagree that it is better than Arma II. For starters the game is now over-run by the same infants that over-run BF2, spawnkilling, destroying vehicles, camping, not observing team work etc etc. Then you have the pompous lot who are (or claim) they are in the Army and take it so seriously they literally spoil it for everyone else. When I played it last year I remarked to the rest of my squad that a real Vodnik was in fact amphibious, and some cretin calling himself 'Royal Marine Joe' kicked me from the squad and said i should do and play BF2 if I wanted to BS. I'm pretty sure that he was the ideal person though to be enlisted by the armed forces to go and fight imaginary terrorists and protect oil pipelines though.

 

1920x1080 on my rig and thanks for asking so nicely.

 

pre-order cancelled, thanks for saving me some cash...

 

Well I have just been playing it and you can definately tell its a lazy xbox port. When you are in 3rd person the mouse controls are all backwards. The command menu is geared for consoles. You would of thought that they would have converted this to the mouse to make it easy. There is no MP dedicated server so a game last about 5 minutes before you get cut off. The fornt end menu is dire. Typical of a gamepad menu. Graphics are not too bad. Gameplay is too slow. Going between stances takes far too long. Stupid buttons for choosing weapon selection and you keep pulling up the wrong weapon.

I have to agree with Bit-Techs review. In fact i'd drop thier score to 4/10.

Shame on Codemasters. Heads should roll for this. I thought highly of them until now.

Anyone who preordered i'd advise you to cancel.

 

I had to register just to comment on this review. After I read this review I had to go over and read the ARMA2 review. 9 and this a 5? WTF? Why wasn't the ArmA2 review just as detailed and harsh? If this gets a 5 then ArmA2 MAYBE a 6. The AI in ArmA2 is attrocious. Plain and simple. That's the only reason I stopped playing. Add on to that the evil command menu. Yes Op2 is simpler but it makes for funner gameplay in my opinion. I haven't had problems with the AI in this game yet other than they can't drive for ish. It troubles me to see people not buying this game because of this review alone. And over at the codemasters forums, it's a bunch of the same BS. I don't know if it's Arma2 fanboys, or just folks living in those countries and they're scared money will be taken from their mouths. I feel if you're gonna review this harsh then give the same equal review treatment to ArmA2.

 

This is a fair review. I have had the game for a few days now and I like it. It's not perfect and I agree with just about every point reviewer mentioned, but I wouldn't call it a "mill-sim". Maybe tactical shooter is a better label for this game. At the end of the day when I'm in the mood for some lite gaming I'll be playing OPFDR, when I have more time and want to play something a little more involved I'll be playing ArmA2.

 

Yeah good point on the graphics card. Yes A2 seems CPU bound, not GPU.

Regarding the vanilla BF2 infants invading PR, there is some truth to that. I experienced that last night to some degree. That's a matter for server admins and game rules to address and it can and does work, but it can't always. But since you mention team work, I'd say that PR squads cooperate far better than any other online shooter, including ArmA2 (except perhaps private servers). The way PR is designed it greatly rewards squad teamwork, instead of being indifferent like most games, including OFR. Most squads use VOIP effectively. I played ArmA2 for the first 30 or so days it was out and didn't experience much squad cooperation at all. It was the opposite really. Squad leader isn't bestowed much responsibility, or at least the user interface (UI) doesn't make it easy.

Royal Marine Joe was a jerk, certainly. Just join another squad. I have bad & good squad days too.

No, sorry, ArmA2 has huge issues. As far as I'm concerned, ArmA2 doesn't approach PR on several important fronts. Neither does OFR. But they are different types of games, I think. A2 is more PvE and PR is PvP. But OFR is even worse, due to there not being dedicated servers.

 

doesn't sound good, but then again i enjoyed playing GRAW & GRAW2 so i might like it.

 

wtf..

Yeh same here, overrating Arma 2 (by a LOT), and underrating OFP2 by a similar stretch. The critisicms in the review did in no way point to dropping 5 points for this game, and most of the comments made were distinctly immature, plus there was a distinct lack of detail regarding MP - which is where the strength of this game is meant to lie, not in it's SP campaigns. I can't help but smell a foul review, and it's disappointing to hear that people are cancelling pre-orders based on this skewed opinion that flies awkwardly into the face of an average press rating in it's 8.0s.

 

Well the MP is a disaster, for the most part. The coop is the best part and that's limited to four players. The whole MP interface is consolized. That's a bad thing. It isn't designed to be used with a mouse. For example, you can't double click a MP game to join it. You have to click it then click the bottom 'enter game' button which isn't clear at first.

PvP MP is worthless with this game. No dedicated servers. Period, no further discussion needed.

 

Oh and by the way, since the AI is pretty good in this game (better than ArmA2), coop is indeed the best part of MP but the big problem is that people disconnect during the game. But new people can't join to replace disconnected players. OFR does not support joining MP games in-progress. That's a fatal flaw, aside as I've said numerous times already, no dedicated servers.

The one feature that I like in MP is that the game supports spectating. I love that. But there is a problem with it in that you fly as a ghost around the map between players and it is rather slow to get from player to player. And you can't just click a player name and jump to that player to spectate him, no. Remember, the MP interface is entirely designed around a gamepad and it is clunky with a mouse.

 

Thanks Q1-rules, that's actually more detailed than the review. I'll judge for myself the MP problem tonight, the pvp mp should have been where this game rocked. Hopefully in time a lot of the creases will be ironed out.

ps. QW rules

 

Anyone else not had their copy from play yet? They posted it Thursday but it hasn't turned up

Was looking forward to giving this a go over the weekend

 

Agreed I played vBF2 from the day it came out racked up around 200hrs on it, but always felt it lacked something. When I found PR it combined the BF2 smooth game play with the bits which were missing for me. Its true that you get alot of vBF2 players come and play when a new release is out, this is because EA/Dice display it on load up on multi-player in vBF2.

If you find a good and well administrated server its a great, stick to the server rules and use VOIP and join a squad or start one with sole purpose of team work. Personally PR has gave me and extra 250hrs out of BF2 so far, not bad for £35.

 

Hi Baz! and people I met at your stag/wedding.

I read the review you guys did of this and I have to say i'm a bit dissapointed. I know from a PC point of view this game could of been so much better. With regards to consoles though i have to say i'm very impressed. I bought it on friday for the PS3 and have spent most of the weekend playing it. Half of that time was spent punching anything that i came into contact with due to it being extremely difficult with a joypad. There are alot of annoying niggles and they are going to be patched in the next few weeks. Such as telling one of your guys to man a gun position and then 2 minutes later you see him legging it towards the enemy, he then dies. Eyes roll, and reload from checkpoint

I think saying the SP campaign is rubbish is a little harsh too. I'm on mission 5 and so far i've been entertained all the way through. The MP aspects for the PC are dissapointing and so are the numbers for the consoles, but i didnt buy this for big games against loads of other people. I bought this to play with my friend doing a MP campaign.

I would say if you are on the PC stick with Arma II if your a console user like myself then I recommend this to anybody who liked the original. I was worried when I bought it after reading some reviews. But I feel for what i paid for it I got excellent value for money. I can see myself playing this for some time. Once the bugs have been sorted I can see it being even better.