By Quintin Smith on March 10th, 2011 at 9:25 am.
Here at RPS, we love the Chinese. Steam buns? Alright by us! The Great Wall? Heck of a wall, that. Mr. Miyagi? What a guy. But what if you hated the Chinese? Well, then I guess you’d get a kick out of the latest Operation Flashpoint: Red River trailer, which awaits you below and introduces the Chinese army as enemies. I want to go on the record as saying that while RPS will shoot the Chinese in Red River, we won’t enjoy it. Nuh-uh. Not one bit. Thanks to Bigdownload for the video.
You know, I’m even half-inclined to agree with China’s government-enforced MMORPG regulations that make sure kids won’t want to play them for more than 3 consecutive hours by enforcing time limits as to how much character development you can do each day. But that’s probably an article for another time, when I’m more awake.
10/03/2011 at 09:34 DSR says:
“I want to go on the record as saying that while RPS will shoot the Chinese in Red River, we won’t enjoy it. Nuh-uh. Not one bit.”
This is true.
Thanks to Codemasters, no one will enjoy Operation Flash Duty : Call of Point.
Even if they put in lighsabers, pretty unicorns and Hummer-on-a-rail chase sequence on top of the rainbow.
10/03/2011 at 09:50 Okami says:
You know, there are a lot of people who actually enjoyed the new Operation Flashpoint. There are even people who really liked the original, but just had more fun with new version of the game. Because it worked better as a game.
You’re not only elitist but ignorant as well, since you wouldn’t compare these games to Call of Duty otherwise.
10/03/2011 at 09:56 Juiceman says:
Considering millions of people enjoy games like MW2 and Blops, I’d say you are on the wrong side of the “who will enjoy what” argument.
10/03/2011 at 10:04 Anonymous Coward says:
I’d agree with Juiceman but i actually enjoyed all the call of duty games (except black ops, it just felt too much like a console game) and absolutely hated operation flashpoint dragon rising. i think you can’T compare the two too much!
10/03/2011 at 11:39 Madlukelcm says:
Sorry but if they included unicorns there is no way it wouldn’t be awesome.
10/03/2011 at 11:43 dangermouse76 says:
Sorry my friend loved that game flaws and all. Still play the on line campaign with my mate every now and then as the pacing is brilliant. I really feel the fire fights and the tension of the game.
I do not love the save system though but that’s because I need to be a better soldier…sir
10/03/2011 at 16:06 Joshua says:
You would have said the same about ARMA II if you had seen just the ingame trailer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jmdz-Ka1O4Q&feature=fvwrel). Like you did here.
10/03/2011 at 09:34 Bilbo says:
They shot that poor cameraman’s dog tags off! But he’s alright. Lots of pseudo political science talk. People firing guns. Nothing whatsoever that can be called “new” or “exciting”. No, I think I’ll pass on this one.
10/03/2011 at 09:59 Anonymous Coward says:
The dog tag thing must be the worst intro i have ever seen in a video game or a trailer for a game. i can’t quite explain why but this just seems like a bad idea…
10/03/2011 at 10:02 Bilbo says:
I guess they were trying to illustrate the whole “one shot kill thing” that codemasters have boiled flashpoint down to. It’s all the phony video recording artefacts on the screen that blow it for me, and yeah, if you shoot somebody it doesn’t generally make their dog tags fly off. Whole thing is silly.
10/03/2011 at 10:14 Man Raised by Puffins says:
Someone please tell me I’m much mistaken in thinking that rock is supposed to be shaped like a dragon’s head, otherwise I think I might spontaneously haemorrhage my insides at the crassness of it.
10/03/2011 at 11:31 bascule42 says:
I think the camera man was on a quest to deliver the dog tags to the gaming press, (there was a recorded interview with Sion Lenton on there…which we’ll never get to see now – shame), having just shot 27 chinese soldiers until one of them dropped said dog tags. Luckily, there was another party memeber who was able to pick them up and hand the quest in. Shame he didn’t have a res ability though.
10/03/2011 at 12:23 Gap Gen says:
Yeah, holy shit, is their company intro animation really a reporter(?) being shot? What next – “nVidiaaaaa… *PFC simulates sex with a naked POW*” ?
10/03/2011 at 13:22 Bilbo says:
I for one would applaud if they were genuinely being that edgy, but I’m not convinced that’s the case
10/03/2011 at 09:41 rei says:
Mr. Miyagi? What a guy.
So all Asians are the same to RPS, huh?!
12/03/2011 at 03:59 MycoRunner says:
Yep I noticed that too… And you’d think that by linking to wikipedia they would have actually read the page at least…
10/03/2011 at 09:52 TheFatDM says:
Are the Chinese portrayed as the bad guys? I wonder if that is a smart decision, from a marketing standpoint, considering the share of the market? Maybe they dont have good or bad sides, just sides.
10/03/2011 at 10:04 Bilbo says:
I’m not convinced China is much of a territory for marketing western games in – but I can’t say I’ve bothered looking at the numbers
10/03/2011 at 10:18 Tei says:
I bet germans buy WW2 games, and british people would play versions of Total War where you control the colonies.
10/03/2011 at 10:27 Anonymous Coward says:
I’m german and i never had a problem with killing tons of german soldiers in ww2 games. If fighting against your own nation drives you away from a game maybe you are taking games too serious.
also killing nazis is awesome since i hate them so much (also i hate all the people that join the bundeswehr today) and i believe many chinese people also hate their gorvernments and the armies they control…
nowadays playing a call of duty game and killing iraki soldiers seems to be like a patriotic act for many americans, which just sickens me and drives me away from those kind of games more than anything else!
10/03/2011 at 13:11 bagga says:
Yes, Anonymous Coward, I hate to be that annoying Liam Fox voice of moralisation standing in the way of the unstoppable march towards realism (especially given how many hours I spent on MW2), but it doesn’t quite sit right with me that games are being made about ongoing conflicts whose main market is the children of the aggressors. At the least it’s very tasteless.
There’s something quite disheartening about a 1st world teen in front of his HDTV, enthusiastically playing at killing in a virtual Afghanistan, while on the other side of the world real people are being killed in the same conflict.
At best, a modern manshoot will sometimes pause to give you a ‘war is hell’ moment, but usually these games veer somewhere between full patriotic propaganda and unquestioning acceptance. I don’t think there’s any way a game set in a current warzone can pretend to be apolitical without tacitly endorsing the conflict it’s inviting you to participate in. Slavoj Zizek says that it’s impossible for movies to show a subject without glorifying it; that’s doubly true for games.
10/03/2011 at 14:28 TheFatDM says:
@Bilbo – You could very well be right and that would make my previous post a non-issue.
@Tei and Anon – I am not convinced that the comparison is fair though I guess I see your point. The thing is that with WW2 games that includes germans as the enemy it feels like it’s the nazis that are the enemy (I do know that not every soldier in the german army was a nazi) and not the germans per se. Also it’s a conflict taken from history where all sides are now friends whereas a game with the chinese as an enemy is an invented conflict.
The idea may be to make no side the evil side. I cant remember which iteration of the close combat series it was but one had the eastern front, germany vs soviet and neither side felt portrayed more or less evil but both are often featured in many games as the bad side with allies or us as the good side.
10/03/2011 at 14:29 Dances to Podcasts says:
Now I want a game where it creates a bond between you and your squad mates only to have one step on an IED and you have to listen to his screaming for 15 minutes until the medivac arrives. Just to make a point.
10/03/2011 at 14:32 DJ Phantoon says:
Such a game would surely be art.
And horrific.
10/03/2011 at 09:53 andtriage says:
shooting people is inherently fun. er, in video games. regardless of their race. let’s not be discriminatory. :)
10/03/2011 at 10:03 Marshall Stele says:
Am I missing something? I thought Mr. Miyagi was Japanese.
10/03/2011 at 10:41 Quine says:
> RPS has gained faction with: China.
>
> RPS has lost faction with: Japan
10/03/2011 at 16:36 The Innocent says:
Okinawan, actually.
10/03/2011 at 10:04 GenBanks says:
If we don’t want to shoot at the PLA we can always hold out for a game set in ’89 where you get to play as the PLA and you shoot at protesting countrymen in Beijing.
10/03/2011 at 10:49 fer says:
Well, you could always buy OFPCoDMoH:DR and wait for its flourishing mod community to deliver that particular scenario to you. Oh wait …. no … that might not happen.
10/03/2011 at 10:06 hjd_uk says:
Mr. Miyagi is Japanese, not Chinese.
10/03/2011 at 10:34 Voidy says:
And the Great Wall was in Berlin, not China. Uh-huh. Stop being silly.
10/03/2011 at 10:49 Anton says:
@hjd_uk : Was about to say the same thing…
10/03/2011 at 11:15 sneetch says:
The Great Wall was in Dublin, the last time I played Civ anyway.
I suspect Quintin is aware that he’s Japanese and is making a Fr Ted style joke at his own expense. especially as the page he’s linking to says that he’s Japanese.
10/03/2011 at 11:27 bascule42 says:
I thought Father Ted was Armenian?
10/03/2011 at 11:32 Quintin Smith says:
Sneetch: As I don’t want to claim credit, it’s actually almost a quote of the Father Ted joke.
10/03/2011 at 10:55 WJonathan says:
You guys said “fap.” Huhuhuhuhuhuh.
10/03/2011 at 14:36 westyfield says:
Tee hee.
10/03/2011 at 11:09 roryok says:
I couldn’t watch the trailer to the end because of that voice-over. Guuuh. also nothing exciting seemed to be happening
10/03/2011 at 11:42 Madlukelcm says:
That was my main problem aswell. That voice over was horrendous.
10/03/2011 at 14:34 Dances to Podcasts says:
“nothing exciting seemed to be happening”
It aims for realism! :)
11/03/2011 at 20:41 Scandalon says:
How come nobody’s mentioned the green laser/blaster shots!?! I’m pretty sure those aren’t standard issue yet…
13/03/2011 at 07:38 DSR says:
Perhaps those are tracers. Planes used them to see if they’re firing into the right direction during the hectic air fights.
Well, I guess, those people wanted to be pilots as kids…
YEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH