Geek4ever

Hardcore tactical sim Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising is the sequel to the original Operation Flashpoint that was a PC only game made wayyy back in the day. The hook with Operation Flashpoint is its focus on realism and the giant massive maps that are literally miles wide.

The story revolves around China making a play for some Island owned by Russia and then America has to step in because of some dodgy treaty they signed ages ago.

The game itself has you doing all sorts of missions such as night missions, storming entrenched positions and massive firefights with AI from both sides as you battle to retake the island. You can drive vehicles and fly helicopters. Some missions even have you in a tank.

The game allows co-op through the campaign so you and some buddies can take on the AI or you can command your AI buddies to do various tasks.

So what's it like? In short the experience is quite intense and amazing. You can die from just a few bullets from enemy weapons which gets the adrenaline pumping as you don't know when you are about to take fire.

There are a few graphical and AI bugs here and there, but given the scope of the game these were easy to forgive. At the end of the day the game needed more polish.

One of the most memorable missions was where you had to rescue POW's from a convoy and then hike for kilometres overland as you made it back to the extraction point. Along the way you run into a special ops patrol in a valley and an intense firefight breaks out. Then when you get close to the extraction point you see that the buildings are patrolled by enemy soldiers and you have to clear them from the LZ so the rescue helicopter can extract you. The catch here is that you have to clear ALL the enemies from the buildings and as you are clearing the area, you might just turn a corner and be killed by a lone soldier. By the end of the level my heart was racing and as the rescue helicopter came in, more enemy soldiers were spotted in the distance and we had to keep them at bay while the helicopter landed and only after seeing the mission completed screen was it possible to finally relax.

While being able to die at a moments notice can be frustrating, there are decent checkpoints throughout the levels to balance this. The checkpoints don't spoil you though, as they only appear after you complete a section of the game and in one short level there wasn't any at all.

Overall:

This is a great thinking mans shooter. Not the usual 'run and gun' of most first person shooter games, it is an intense FPS that delivers where it counts. Highly recommended.