(Which is a much better subtitle than Dragon Rising, I think.) Following up on my interview with producer Sion Lenton from last week, I thought I’d better catch up on the Operation Flashpoint 2 footage. The first piece is particularly illustrative of the sort of thing Lenton was talking about, as it shows off “hardcore mode”, in which the game removes all HUD elements and player assists to create a rather more realistic and demanding experience. I spent some time reading up on this over the weekend, and I’m wonder if the game will come as more of a surprise to console players than PC players. We are, after all, getting used to the notion of an open world FPS, where the linear or the multiplayer-map are still the most explored. I’m seeing lots of mentions of Modern Warfare 2 and Battlefield with reference to Operation Flashpoint, which, of course, aren’t really relevant to how the game will play out. Also, I suspect – as Kieron mentioned the other day – both this and ArmA are being introduced to a modern audience that never played the original Operation Flashpoint, and has little idea what to expect. Anyway, three videos of the game in motion sit beneath the click.
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It all looks OK, but it ain’t no Flashpoint. It definitely has some nice touches but it’s just not going to be as large-scale is it has to be, and so much is odd, like the recoil, weapon sway etc.
Arma2 is about to be sorted out by the first release of the ACE2 mod, and whether or not I’m interested in DR depends on the mods that appear for it. As it is, it looks dull and consolified, from a hardcore OFP fan’s point of view, and probably looks great from any other gamer’s PoV.
The more people bitch about this, the more convinced I am it will be a well built up package and deliver exactly what they’ve set out to achieve.
Dracko: A BF2 competitor.
But seriously, whenever I see this, I see BF2. Something about the graphics and the bad infantry animations make it look a lot like BF2.
Doesn’t look like it plays anything like it, though, so it’s a silly comparison.
And it doesn’t look anything like BF2 either. Nothing at all.
I think this looks pretty good so far, but it’s definitely a different beast to ArmA2. This is a semi-realistic tactical shooter designed for accessibility and multiplatform support, wheras ArmA2 is the civillian version of a military training sim.
One is a game, functional and accessible, and one is a whirring, grinding machine built to teach people how to be soldiers.
I just think it’s rather cheeky that they’re labelling this OFP2, when they don’t even have the level of physics-driven body awareness that made OFP1 stand out so well against the Rainbow Sixes of the time.
mmm raven Shield’s lean and door opening abilities. Why was that improvement lost to time? I haven’t seen a game since that used the mouse wheel to slowly open doors (or shut them) or slowly lean out so you can expose just a little bit of your body without popping your entire torso out when it wasn’t required :P
Will Raven Shield go down on history as the first and only game to have such a perfect lean/door opening system? I loved opening the door just a little bit and tossing in a flash bang or grenade or gas grenade. If you think about it , it makes a lot more sense than just kicking the door open and hoping no one is standing there with a gun pointing at you when it opens all the way :P (also there were a few times where I’d just blown the entire door up and stun everyone inside, that works pretty well too) Sadly the D2d version I have has some sort of error in it where I can’t plan out the missions, makes it a lot harder lol.
As far as this game goes I’m really sure why everyone is split between the two games. Why can’t you just buy and play them both ? o.o
Maybe because it hasn’t really been required since?
Hmm… I’m wondering about the destructibility of the environments. I’ve not seen anything to convince me that there is any at all. Even a semi serious soldier sim needs to have a realistically smashable landscape when the Battlefields of the world are including them these days. If they can’t keep up with the kids on that particular battlefront then it lacks credibility as a sim I reckon. Tanks that cant smash sheds are having a reality hemorrhage in the sim stakes.
It’s been confirmed that all buildings on the island can be damaged and destroyed, and remain in that state throughout the campaign. Unfortunately, it’s a somewhat simplistic damage model (three damage states, rather than a full Red Faction: Guerrilla style demolition system), but I think it should suffice.
Just some quick comments after reading all this:
*) Analysing a video game trailer is like analysing a coca cola commercial. Everyone just wait 4 months, then search for “Dragon Rising gameplay” on youtube.
*) “Thank you, codemasters, for paying attention to what the fans REALLY want!”
Fans are fanatics. What they REALLY want is form an angry mop and burn someone alive.
*) There is no hardcore without triple penetration.
@Dracko – Not required? Not required?!?! :P It is ALWAYS required, or at least very helpful. I would love to have been able to lean like that in a lot of other games I’ve played and would REALLY have loved to be able to open doors that way at the very least. I’d also like to be able to go prone and peek up a bit without standing up all the way (say just go up on your elbows instead of laying all the way down) I actually think I have played a game with that ability recently but I can’t remember what it was :P Obviously wasn’t very good.
As far as Track IR goes I believe you can lean around corners in Arm A with that very well and as well as nodding your head and stuff to communicate with other players. One thing I love about Arm A is that if you talk into your mic in game the character’s mouth moves. I know it is just eye candy but that was also extremely immersive to me. On one mission on line we’d stolen an enemy plane that could only fit 1 person but took 5 people to do the mission so the other 4 of us were sitting around talking on the mic as our evac got shot down not 1 time, not 2 times, but 3 times (the third time we were inside it on the way back to base)
It looks as if it was made by someone other than Russian coders who care not for bugs or playability. That is a huge plus.
@Serondal
Yeah, I do lament the fact that Raven Shield has been lost to history. The evil, wicked things Ubisoft did to that series after RS just don’t bear thinking about.
Even SWAT 4, a fine, fine game, didn’t have RS’s level of lean-ability. It shall be missed.
@Bookwormat Funniest Typo of the month, Angry Mop :P Watch out for the angry mop it’s coming for it! RUNNNN
Bookwormat, he speak truth about all things.
About the civy version of military simulation software aspect. I find a simulator of foot solider interesting. Cars, tanks, fighters, they are machine, you use machines to sim machines, fine; how do you make simulator in which a people sim a people via a machine? Is there enough function? Does shooting involve your aim skillz with mouse(or sim-gun), or an environment-depending dice-throw determine whether you hit the target? Anyone seen an actual military grade shooter in action?
http://virtualbattlespace.vbs2.com/ – this is the military training package that we know as ArmA 1/2. And while it won’t teach you to shoot (obviously), I’d imagine that it’s largely there for teaching tactics and maneuvers.
The military version definitely seems more flexible. They’ve also got more character/unit packs for it – I’m guessing their middle-eastern set will be used in the upcoming ArmA2 expansion.
re: the building assault:
If you’d tried that in OpF either you’d have been shoot half a mile away through the wall or by the time you got through the door (no mean feat) the enemy would have completely ignore you.
OpF wasn’t really that good at interiors, but hey, it was bloody great at the great outdoors.
I am amused that in a video containing the phrase “as hardcore as it gets”, the player appears to get shot on numerous occasions, and not once was the player incapacitated as a result. Combined with the apparent lack of reaction by the enemy to the building assault, it all made for some remarkably poor choice of footage, given the supposed focus.
The resulting impression was of a game in which you can charge headlong into a group of enemies without being fired upon, and if you do happen to get shot, it doesn’t have any ill effects. “As arcade as it gets”, in other words.
I’m sure that’s not actually the case, but it would seem that the Codemasters video production department are in dire need of a little constructive criticism.
Dragon Rising is the for-popular-consumption version of Arma 2. There’s an inherent problem with that, but you’d have to have played and understood what the original Operation Flashpoint was about. It’s nice to think they could smash together a generic shooter — Counter-strike or one of the Battlefields, Farcry, whatever — with Operation Flashpoint and end up with something good. I don’t believe that though. Flashpoint has its own charm, and so does Counter-strike, but throwing them together is an abomination. If you buy this game I hope you die. Not really. I don’t care if you buy it. I’m just saying, it’s not “the good of both games put together”, it’s just the degredation of both.
Also, MOUT without leaning is crap. Peeking around corners is essential.
And to whoever it was upthread who complained about Arma 2’s menus, you’re not supposed to re-read them. You’re supposed to familiarize yourself with them. It’s a hassle at the benefit of having way more options than without the system. I’m happy to have a more complicated system with more options at my fingertips.
@CaptainEnglishPants
If by “for-popular-consumption” you mean there is a chance that it will WORK, then sure. At least if someone else is making a military, tactical game there is a chance they will have spent more than 14 seconds on the AI and the SP campaign, unlike BIS.
But you enjoy your macho, hardcore (snigger) game with your utterly unintuitive menus, broken AI, unplayable single player, uncontrolable vehicles and the least realistic physics system I’ve seen in some years. No really. Go. Enjoy. Have fun.
Yeah, fuck those plebs who want to sit down and play games! How dare they!