Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising review

First, let me apologize for our long absence. Everyone has been busy with school, new jobs, or new projects, but I'm back and I've got this review for Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising, the sequel to the hardcore military sim released back in the day. Operation Flashpoint puts you in the boots of Marines fighting on the fictional island of Skira, based and modeled after a real life Japanese island named Kiska. The Chinese have invaded for oil, and the Russians (who own the island) appeal to the United States for help. The US sends in the Marines.

Dragon Rising is the second in the series, and the hardcore controls and interface have been streamlined and simplified for the current generation, and to make it easier to translate to the consoles (the XBOX 360 version is the one I am reviewing). Everything about the game is made to seem slightly more true to life - weapon sway, bullet drop, the ground shaking even from distant explosions. Every piece of equipment that your squadmates are using is accurately rendered on their bodies. Your team calls out enemy positions and manoeuvrings, bullets whiz past your ear like cars on the speedway, missiles pound into the ground like the fist of God punching the Earth - the game is really well built and immersive. Everything about the game is meant to bring you into the experience.

The game revolves around the Marine's mission of harassing and pushing back the Chinese off the island; the objectives can variate from assassinating key members of the People's Liberation Army, assaulting and capturing an airfield, bringing down a key command structure, rescuing hostages, and other situations that could be pulled from real life. The game progresses in a day-by-day structure, and you perform a few missions per day, playing as different Marines from different companies, performing different roles. You could be playing the role of an infiltrator, or an assaulter, or a support team - it all depends on the mission.

Visually, the game may seem bland, but the engine is competent, with terrain deformation, building destruction, and great particle and explosion effects. Some complained that the game looked "bland" but this was mostly because of the setting, a grassy volcanic island. The modeling on the characters and weapons was excellent and realistic. The terrain deformation and building destruction is not arcade-y like other games (namely Crysis and Battlefield: Bad Company); it takes a lot - like an arty strike - to bring a building down!
Sound was definitely the strongest point of the game - the distant shouts of Chinese, the thumps of artillery and the vibrations of explosions, gunshots that reverberate through your entire sound system, and the death rattle of your teammates - all brilliant. Whoever did the sound engineering for this game deserves an award.

The difficulty and realism of the game is something that might turn off most gamers, and that is why I - and most reviews - should stress that this game is really for people who are fans of the military sim genre. Even though the game is slightly more simple than its predecessor, it is still very hard. I played the game on Normal, and it was still intensely difficult, and often frustrating at times! On Normal, you still get quite a few assists - your teammates will respawn at checkpoints and your injuries will be instantly healed, once an enemy position is called out, it will appear on your HUD's radar, and the HUD itself is comprehensive and informative. On the harder difficulty modes, these assists get taken away, and in Realistic (the hardest mode) you have no HUD whatsoever. Sometimes your team AI is as dumb as mud, and other times they manage to pull of shots that would never be able to. This inconsistency sometimes makes it frustrating for the average armchair Patton who wants to formulate strategies with his AI counterparts.
Overall, I found the realism to be a bit welcome after playing very arcade-y games like Call of Duty 4; a shooter that made me use my mind was a refreshing change of pace. Calculating shots at a great distance, using terrain and buildings to the best advantage, enveloping enemies using a flanking team, it was all quite fun. Some might find the realism a bit off-putting, especially times when you equip and load an anti-tank weapon like the Javelin or Queen Bee, and it takes 6 or 7 seconds of you standing out in the open as you load a round into the launcher. Very tense, especially when you're facing off against a tank!

The best part of the game is definitely the co-op - you basically play the mission as you would in single player, except the host plays as team leader, and your co-op partners replace your team. It's so much better because a human player is able to instantly respond to your commands, work in tandem with your strategies, and generally it's a much less frustrating experience.

In the end, Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising is a competent, fun, albeit sometimes frustrating military shooter, but it's one that I would definitely recommend to the sim crowd.

4/5