War, no matter where you look, is ever-present. It's been glorified by the media for years, from the sanitised World War Two blockbusters to the brutal-but-hokey releases of recent times, like Saving Private Ryan and Black Hawk Down. And the games industry is no stranger to war either; with franchises such as Call of Duty, Medal of Honour and Battlefield, developers have focused on real life conflicts without presenting a realistic representation of the battlefield.
But then eight years ago Operation Flashpoint emerged, developed by Bohemia Interactive and published by Codemasters. The game presented the most realistic military action ever seen on PCs and quickly generated a devoted following (Ed. - It really did, I was one of them). Five years later Bohemia split from Codies and released its own sequel, ArmA: Armed Assault which was followed up in June this year with ARMA II. There was much debate following the Codies-Bohemia bust-up as to which game would be the true sequel to Flashpoint. ArmA certainly retains the feel (and bugginess) of OFP and after all, it was made by the team behind the orginal Flashpoint. But, from what we've seen of Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising, only a fool would write off Codemasters.
We've been eager to get our hands on Dragon Rising ever since the early gameplay videos leaked on Youtube and we finally got the chance to play the fully supported four player co-op mode as well as the single player game.
Lets start with the single player. You play through the game with three AI squadmates. Being the Alpha team leader you are given tactical commands taken straight from the American Army Corps training manual. They range from movement, formations and spreads to attack and defence commands. The orders are accessed via a multi-level radial menu which, although initially daunting, works very well. To begin with at least (before you inevitably memorise the button patterns for orders) you'll simply need to take cover because you won't last long standing out in the open, browsing your menus.
Anyone familiar with the orginal game will know that realism is at the heart of Flashpoint. One bullet can and often will kill you. Don't expect to be able to charge headlong into the enemy - this is a tactical shooter and you'll need to suppress and flank the opposition to succeed. I won't deny it took me a while, and many respawns, to realise this while playing the game. While you may be pretty tasty at Call of Duty, Op Flash demands a different approach and every decision can have huge implications. If you are grazed with a shot you will start to bleed and it's up to you to equip your field dressing and stop it before you lose too much blood to continue. Even when you have stopped the blood that doesn't necessarily mean you're healed - if your wound is in the leg, you'll be unable able to sprint with the HUD showing your leg in a critical state.
Of course, that's assuming you have an HUD to look at - the game sports three different "difficulty" levels you can choose between. That's not to say that on the easeiest settings you'll have too much help - the unforgiving damage model is the same in all of the settings. What the difficulty level does change is the amount of info you have on screen. With Normal you have a basic HUD, while in Aided you're provided with markers telling you enemy positions and objectives. However in Hardcore there is nothing, no objective markers telling you where to go, no indication on how hurt you are or how much ammo you have left. It's you and your squad against the world and while punishingly difficult, it's undeniably thrilling and is likely to be the setting of choice for the hardcore Op Flash fan.
The realism extends to all aspects of the game - for example, when you run your gun feels heavy as it sways from side to side in your arms. However after sprinting for long periods you begin to lose your breath, you can hear your soldier breathing heavily along with the controller vibrating to mimic his heart beat.
The weapons in the game are all accurately modeled and feel all have a distinct feel to them. You'r enot limited to your initial load-out either - you'll find weapon and equipment caches throughout the missions and when you assault certain objectives. You can also search the corpses of fallen soldiers, change your load out and equip different weapons if you like.
