Rock, Paper, Shotgun

The promised Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising downloadable content, which is free for PC users, will be available tomorrow along with the new patch. Codies info and trailer below.
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British wheel-game experts Codemasters specifically delayed the PC release of Dirt 2 so that they could inject DirectX 11 tech into the sinewy torso of their offroad racing sequel. Is that a good thing? We’ve got literally no idea, but we’re willing to venture a “probably, if you have a brand new graphics card, and happen to like racing games”, and then offer this new DirectX 11 trailer for your consideration. Can you see the eleveness? Also, there is some mocking.
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Codemasters’ soldier sim sequel, Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising, hit the shelves this week in the US, and is out tomorrow in Europe. But is this open-world shooter as tight and tough as we’d hoped, or is it all bravado? Here’s wot I think.
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I’ve alt-tabbed out of a game so I can write this post. It looks suspiciously like an unreleased military shooter. Hmm. Perhaps I’m playing it with a view to writing a critical analysis of its workings in the near future? Who can say! In entirely unrelated news, I’ve just spotted a new trailer for Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising, which just happens to be released in the UK on October 9th. The footage shows helicopters, smoke, big guns on armoured vehicles, “CONTACT!”, dudes getting shot, and other military things that are a complete mystery to me. Go take a look.
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There’s an element of military titillation in this latest Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising trailer (below), with the development team get a bit hyperbolic about smoke, impact effects, environmental detail and visual feedback for the player in this contemporary soldier game. I’ve seen the game running on PC a couple of times during its development, and it has impressed me each time, particularly with these battlefield smoke effects and other war-grime detail. Also: the dying. There’s a lot of that. Go take a look, anyway, and hopefully we’ll have a verdict on the game for you in the next few weeks. It’s out on October 6th in the US and October 9th in Europe.
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(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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A few weeks back I went to see Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising at Codemasters HQ. While I was there I had a chat with executive producer Sion Lenton, who had quite a lot to say about Codemasters’ take new on the military shooter. What follows is my transcript of that conversation, in which Lenton talks about the balance of realism in the game, the “documentary” feel, the horror of war, and responsibility of making a serious war game accessible to the majority of gamers.

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Beneath the grimy click are ten million videos of DiRT 2 doing its thing. The one you probably want to watch is an interview with Codemasters’ veteran and Chief Game Designer Matthew Horsman talking about why the game has benefited from the work the team did on GRID. He chats a bit about the one hundred events the game contains, and explains why multiplayer enables players to have a lot more freedom in the kind of game they play, particularly with mixing up car and track types – allowing you to race buggies around the spectacular Battersea power station Rallycross track, or traditional rally cars around the deserts of California on the game’s wide open “raid” stages. Oh, and it’s all a bit pretty, too. Go and judge with your eyes.

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The Modern Warfare 2 Ultro-Nerd Edition famously comes with a pair of functioning night-vision goggles, and now it seems the Uber-Geek Edition of Codemaster’s not-actually-Operation-Flashpoint-2-is-it Operation Flashpoint 2: Dragon Rising will come similarly laden with head-mounted silliness. Specifically, a full-size army helmet that’s roughly 48 million times larger than the game CD itself. What next – Mafia 2 Special Edition, complete with freshly-severed real horse’s head?
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Cricket, the profoundly popular bat-and-ball sport beloved by my fellow countrymen, is in the depths of The Ashes, a contest to see who is the best in the world at not being too badly injured by a rock-hard ball thrown at a 1000mph by buff men. Spectacularly British development and publishing company Codemasters is making a game of it, where no one will be bruised, and to celebrate this achievement they will be providing us with a bat signed by Kevin Pietersen (which you can then use to fight off zombies) as well as some copies of the game. That’s the game version of Mr Pietersen up there. Sadly, this is another competition open only to the Britons, sorry international types, we’ll have some stuff for you to win soon. Read on for details.

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