Matts Blog

I have followed this game for a while, and have been under no disillusion about its namesake and past events. The first Operation Flashpoint (OFP) at the time was developed by Bohemia Interactive (developers of Armed Assault and Armed Assault II (2)), yet it was published by Codemasters (CM). It seems there was a falling out of sorts, and the developer got to keep the engine – but CM got to keep the rights to the name.

Hence I think where a problem starts, they initially marketed and hyped the game as the sequel to OFP – but in all reality a game made with consoles in mind probably will not get that close. So if you are or will likely be disappointed with the game, is if you buy it expecting it to be just like OFP – when in reality ArmA and ArmA2 are the ‘true’ sequels… in more than just style (the engine is heavily reminiscent of OFP – launch bugs included).

So I would probably liken this game nearer to Call Of Duty (Activision), or Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Vegas 1/2 (Ubisoft) – except the magic healing is non-existent in OFPDR, for this you do rely on a medic and your own bandages (the latter used to stop bleeding, the former used to cure wounds). Although any blood spilled on your character remains (graphically) until your mission is complete. It is also possible to bleed out if you do not get to cover and bandage up quick enough. Not the most realistic, but a step up from magic-regeneration.

If you love your graphics then this game is not particularly challenging to any modern cards – my HD4850 runs it at highest settings with shadows turned down a couple of notches to smooth it out. Its probably the first game I have noticed ripping – causing me to enable v-sync, a rare occurrence. The PC graphics are vastly improved on over the consoles – grass goes as far as 200m to 300m and proves to be quite thick (obstructive at times). Though you will notice bushes and rocks popping onto the landscape if you are moving fast enough (usually in a helo).

One of my biggest worries was the sound department, I don’t want to hear helicopters if they are 3km away – the same goes for ground vehicles. This never happened – in fact CM seem to have surpassed my expectation, explosions in particular have a speed-of-sound applied to them. Bullets zipping overhead and hitting the wall you are sheltering behind – even on one occasion I was the Fireteam leader in multiplayer (as host), the character I played was talking away only for me to hear a *zip – thump* and he cut out. I had been hit by a very precise round while traversing a hill… it hurt, and was in a crazy way my epic death.

This brings me neatly to atmosphere, the missions in the campaign are well made and well structured – events such as smoke screens, artillery pounding enemy positions and having your armour rolling in cannons firing; they all add to the feeling of being in a battle that means something, yet you mean so little. If this was what Codies meant by realism, then they succeeded – but there can be deal breakers, the AI in particular.

Artificial Intelligence in this game can be quite lacking, no doubt your troops move in and cover each other as they move from rock to rock and rock to tree. But when you are trying to get a bead on a machine-gunner entrenched, only to have a fellow squad member (not of the same fireteam) pop one in the back of your head… it is not pleasant. Furthermore smoke screens rather than stop the AI from seeing you and shooting at you, increases your chances of not being hit through the smokescreen. Though that can be forgiven if you look at it as above, more like a very interactive Saving Private Ryan or Black Hawk Down than a game trying to simulate realism.

Multiplayer on the other hand, the online aspect has proven quite a flop thanks to some server problems from their partner Quazal. They still appear to be existent and not much new is being said – the most surefire way is to join a LAN match – which works over the internet, at the loss of rankings but the benefit of low pings and connectivity (dependent on hosts bandwidth). I can’t say much for the versus type modes, it really wasn’t my interest – but the co-op on the otherhand I have enjoyed immensely so far – proving for me that the AI isn’t quite up to scratch.

Summary: while this game has its problems, both in the engine and bugs area – as well as its rough launch of multiplayer – it has quite the potential. With more coming from Codemasters in the coming months such as DLC and patches, this could prove to be quite the shiney gem of a game. Just don’t go in expecting a perfect military simulator, or the bestest next gen graphics – but a smooth game engine with some fantastic co-op playability is currently offered, and with some ironing it can only get better. The added Mission Editor on the PC really helps sell it a little, just be prepared to learn scripting to make things work.