By Jim Rossignol on April 11th, 2011 at 3:02 pm.
Ah-ha! This is what we like to see: a trailer made of lots of game footage that details exactly how things will play out. It’s a glimpse of 4-player co-op mission from Operation Flashpoint: Red River in which the players perform a search and rescue operation for downed pilots in a river valley. It gives a good (although jumpily edited) impression of how the co-op will work, and how the missions might play out. Disappointingly, it appears to be 360 footage with a touch of auto-aim. Sigh/boo.
11/04/2011 at 15:15 CMaster says:
The idea sounds like it could be great.
In practice that looks a lot less tactical than a game of L4D, with the players just running around and easily killing anything they come across. I’d like a coop game where you have to think and plan, without necessarily being as “simmy” as ARMAII. This doesn’t look like it is going to be it.
Also, what’s with the Star Wars laser-style green tracer fire?
11/04/2011 at 15:32 Jesse L says:
You can probably adjust the difficulty though, right?
11/04/2011 at 15:58 Luminous Nose says:
I can understand why the realism has been toned down. To be fair, the multiplayer mode poses many difficulties for any game aiming to be a military simulation that involves planning. Who makes the plan? You need people, often 14 year old boys, to obey a commander and work as a team. Good luck with that…
On top of that, a realistic game requires patience. Lives are so precious that you can’t run in blazing. I imagine there’d be a lot of creeping around huge maps with open fields of fire. Large portions of the map could be locked down by a single sniper or MG. Game rounds will take more time and players will want to leave and join mid round. This totally screws any established team dynamic. Someone will constantly be filling in new players about their role in the team and etc.
What happens if someone dies? There’s no respawn point; they’ll just have to sit out the rest of the round or leave. The main problem is how easily somebody can die in a close to realistic simulation. A multiplayer game is bound to be either a frustrating grind or frustratingly brief for the players.
In the real world, there’s a lot left to chance. This is going to frustrate players. A lot of players will probably die unluckily or maybe because their teammates didn’t do their job. Of course, there’ll be the rare heroic feat but ultimately, most people hate playing games in which their characters have little or weakened agency.
Once you add a little realism, the complexity of the game increases by several orders of magnitude. It might become a special game for a few, but it’s never going to earn the money the developers want it to earn.
11/04/2011 at 16:17 CMaster says:
@Luminous
I said I wasn’t after realism per se – if you want that, then ARMA II has you covered. What I was after was something where you have to say, have a good look at the village through binoculars first to see the enemy positions. Where you might need to lay down supressing fire to cover your teammate as they move up.
Not where you and your 3 buddys wander around the middle of open fields, largley ignoring each other and gunning down target dummies that show you where they are by shooting into the sky, which is what this trailer demonstrates.
Edit: Something a little like Delta Force 1 & 2 I guess, although being able to supress enemies would be nice,
11/04/2011 at 18:14 Viper50BMG says:
Re: Green Tracers
Actually, the former ComBloc countries and weapons have used a green phosphorous in their tracer rounds since WW2. Hence, the star wars laser effects.
11/04/2011 at 18:49 CMaster says:
@Viper50BMG
Interesting. That explains where it comes from – the effect in game is surely a bit over the top for daylight though?
Edit: Found a couple of youtube videos. They were all twilight, but yeah, green tracer is really bright.
12/04/2011 at 02:55 lurkalisk says:
“I’d like a coop game where you have to think and plan, without necessarily being as “simmy” as ARMAII”
So… Raven Shield then? If so, I would enjoy nothing more. Even if only because of how small Raven Shield’s community has gotten (that is, usually 0).
11/04/2011 at 15:15 Juiceman says:
I think this looks great. The concept is a solid change up from the normal FPS multiplayer I usually engage in. Here’s hoping there are a lot of different maps and they are as fun to play as this video makes it out to be.
Although I’m sure there will be some cynics. For some reason, people on this site are more apt to judge a game before playing it than others.
11/04/2011 at 16:19 WebFusion says:
Unfortunately, the character animations in this (and every other tactical shooter) are eclipsed a great deal by the recently released Battlefield 3 footage (which, IMO, sets the new bar as afar as animation goes). Couple that with BF3′s emphasis on the PC side, destructible environments, and an obviously superior engine (at least, visually), and I’m not sure this will be a good value over waiting for BF3.
Not that graphics are everything to game play, but I don’t really see much that stands out in this title (and the auto-aim that console players need is laughable).
Frankly, I’d love for sites like RPS to adopt a “console port = no coverage” policy, but I doubt there’d be much to cover if they did. At nay rate, this looks like title for console players, but doesn’t seem to offer anything innovative for the PC (or if it does, I’ve missed it so far).
11/04/2011 at 16:39 dustygator says:
Maybe it’s just me but what little gameplay footage there is of BF3 (the 3 fault line videos) looks very much like a COD clone. Another big budget, corridor shooter where you follow “squad members” and take part in “interactive cut-scenes” is not what we need. Obviously, the Battlefield franchise has been all about multiplayer so we’ll have to see what that looks like. That being said, I wouldn’t be surprised if Red River ends up being shit and BF3 amazing but judging only on these preview videos, Red River looks a lot more interesting.
11/04/2011 at 15:22 skurmedel says:
They missed the potential for some Arnold voicework in the end there… “TEAM, GET TO DA CHOPPA!”
11/04/2011 at 15:24 Arclight says:
What happened to the recoil? Oh, right…
Looks decent enough, wish they had stuck with the realism a bit more.
11/04/2011 at 15:42 Baka says:
Hated Dragon Rising, now looking forward to this one.
You are bleeding. Hold A to patch wounds.
11/04/2011 at 15:58 DrGonzo says:
You are wounded, scroll through an unintuitive menu and select heal.
11/04/2011 at 15:47 lazysuperhero says:
Hmm, as stated above, it does seem like 4 dudes running and gunning, not THAT much need for tactical thinking or execution. Hopefully that will be needed on harder difficulties?
Meh, will prob still give it a whirl.
11/04/2011 at 16:06 fiezi says:
Is that a Life of Agony reference in the headline there? If so, nice one!
11/04/2011 at 16:31 Navagon says:
The very fact that it’s a non-racing Codemasters game makes me cautious. They hate patches with a vengeance. Unfortunately they don’t hate unfinished, buggy games with nearly the same passion.
Other than that concern the idea of a game like ARMA that doesn’t have a context menu for exiting a vehicle, in the name of… realism… Well yeah, what I’m trying to say is that ARMA with more logical, intuitive, tried and tested controls would be nice.
11/04/2011 at 16:44 skurmedel says:
Bah, there is nothing better. Take off in your A-10 only to hit Eject instead of Raise Gears and scream as you hit the ground at 500 km/h… thankfully if you have a joystick with many buttons you can map some of them to the usual functions.
11/04/2011 at 18:35 Commisar says:
wait, you means this games ISN’T ARMA 2 Operation Arrowhead with the realism practically removed??? Ah well, looks like Arma 2 will remain my milsim game of choice then.
11/04/2011 at 16:41 Warth0g says:
The accuracy of their shots was ridiculous – making one shot kills from hundreds of meters using little more than iron sights…. hmm.. and he threw that grenade for miles. I’m not bothered about super realism in my shooters, but that looked really silly….
11/04/2011 at 19:33 Joshua says:
Those guys were closer then you make it sound. Looking at how they handled hte sniper rifle, it actually has good ballistics (Bullet drop, for one).
You can be even more accurate in Arma…
11/04/2011 at 21:52 P3RF3CT D3ATH says:
That’s bull-crap. Nobody could hold a rifle steady while crouching and hit people from that distance. Did you even see the marksman rifle kill some PLA soldiers while the guy was moving. This game is just unrealistic bullshit.
11/04/2011 at 16:42 SuperNashwanPower says:
This game reminds me of another game I once played. It had men with guns in it and I shot them. True story.
11/04/2011 at 16:43 Nick says:
Having read the words of the lead designer, I can safely say fuck this game.
11/04/2011 at 16:58 Electricleash says:
I’m an avid ARMA2 player and as such, I just don’t need this on PC…
HOWEVER
Were I able to play this 2/4 player coop SPLITSCREEN on my flatmates PS3 I would consider buying it, as this is a niche that it would fill well.
Of course splitscreen’s not going to happen so…
E
11/04/2011 at 17:15 NYMinuteMan says:
I think it’s great that they “destroy” the downed chopper with a 40mm grenade…
11/04/2011 at 17:48 Love Albatross says:
I may be wrong, but didn’t Op Flash Dragon Rising have a stupid restriction to the co-op where you couldn’t move more than 250m from another player? I’m sure I remember it crashing the one time I tried to play online and decided to move away from the rest of the squad.
11/04/2011 at 22:08 Jesse L says:
I heard about that restriction for Dragon Rising and steered clear of the game from then on. Whether they’ve removed that limit is my main question about the sequel – has anyone heard anything about that?
And if anyone gets a chance to do a preview or review, would you please test this?
11/04/2011 at 18:13 GunFox says:
Marines refer to helicopters as Helos. Big no-no to call them choppers.
12/04/2011 at 00:38 bascule42 says:
What I love most about comments about “the all new” flashpoint games, is that there is always the word Arma. I like to think that this pisses Sion Lenton off no end. Please nobody spoil that for me.
12/04/2011 at 01:23 kibayasu says:
It seems like a decent enough compromise between a sim and the typical FPS, and probably the direction Codemasters needs to go without going back into near-full simulation. But its only one trailer.
12/04/2011 at 08:58 syntax says:
http://imgur.com/H9jmA
That was the worst ‘shock’ effect I’ve ever seen.
13/04/2011 at 17:59 mollemannen says:
i hope they add midmission saving in this one. me and my buddies tried the first one out but restarting from the beginning 15 minutes in a mission made us give up.