Operation Flashpoint 2 Review

Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising (also known as Operation Flashpoint 2) is a “military simulation” first person shooter game released in October 2009 that was advertised as being a game that is “as close to war as you ever want to get.” Developers boasted of its assortment of real-life weaponry and vehicles, advanced combat system, and it’s extremely large island battleground.

The main premise of the game is a war between modern day superpowers in a fight over the island north of Japan, named Skira. The United States has teamed up with Russia to overtake the island from China. China has claimed the land as their own to hoard the natural resources that the island has to offer. The player finds themselves as a leader of a special operations marine squad on Skira. This game strives for realism, and is very unlike other common first person shooter war games, such as Call of Duty 4. In Operation Flashpoint, military style tactics are required for advancing in the game. The player needs to go slow, listen to commands being ordered via the radio, and think about where they are in their environment and where they need to go. Running around with your gun or knife, quickly amassing head shots does not work in this game. There is a very steep learning curve for players who are used to the popular first person shooter games.

One of the areas where Operation Flashpoint really shines is its environment. The sheer size of the maps is impressive, and the game’s graphics have a sort of dark, dingy look to them. The buildings are also able to be destroyed, which makes it satisfying to call in a howitzer cannon to demolish a small section of a town.

Other small details add to the realism of the game, making it feel like the player is actually fighting in a war. Just as in a real war, one shot can kill you making it that much more important to be aware of your surroundings. The trajectory of the bullets also adds to the realism. In the game, when shooting from a long distance, the player must shoot above the target so that the arc of the bullet is accounted for. The missions are well designed in that the route that is given to you, and commanding a squad adds an interesting element to the game that other first person shooters don’t usually have. Since strategy plays a key role in this game, every move needs to be given thought and be well executed.

Unfortunately, the features that could make this a great game do not work the way they were most likely intended. This review is for the PC version of the game, and one of the most frustrating problems is that the squad controls seem to be built for a console. Whenever the player opens the quick command menu to give their squad orders, it stops you in your tracks. The player is unable to move at all while fumbling through the menu trying to find the command they want. The same is true for even switching weapons. There is also yet another menu separate from the quick command, which is specifically for calling in air strikes and howitzer cannon shots, and is by default the right shift bar. It is obvious that the two menus were intended for a controller, because to navigate through these menus, the player must press the W, A, S, and D keys for up, down, left, and right; something that would be much easier with a joystick.

Another major problem that Operation Flashpoint has is a lack of useful artificial intelligence in the player’s computer controlled squad mates. The computer controlled military men are supposed to be able to follow commands given by the player, but often, they do not. This poses a huge problem, simply because the game’s main focus is using teamwork and strategies in order to accomplish missions. For example, if a player takes too much damage, they will become incapacitated on the ground, unable to do anything other than call out for help. Eventually they will die if a medic doesn’t come to their aid. The dying process can take quite awhile, leaving the player to yell out “medic!” over and over again, while the nearby medic obliviously carries on whatever task they were doing. This can be very frustrating, not only because the player can see the medic plainly ignoring a team mates urgent cries for help, but because it takes forever for the player to finally die. When you do die, you are re-spawned at a point in the game an hour or so earlier.

As mentioned earlier, this game has a huge environment, which really adds to the realism. The only problem with this is that the player spends most of their time running everywhere. Vehicles are hard to come by, which forces the player to spend the majority of their gameplay time running around. The game’s many weapons were also hyped up by the previews, but after the first few missions, the weapons that are given to the player are the same for a lot of the levels. Actually, one of the hardest parts of the game is trying not to run out of ammunition. Also, a few levels require you to use your best stealth to advance through the game, but it seems like the enemy can spot you no matter if you are hiding behind a tree or a brick wall. When using smoke grenades to hide your position, it actually does the opposite, because you can no longer see the enemies but they can somehow see you. They shoot you through the smoke, and you quickly die.

This game strives for realism, and the voice acting seems very authentic, at least to someone who has never been in an actual war. While adding to the realism of the game, it also makes the objectives of each level extremely confusing. Most of your orders are quickly barked over a crackling radio, using all sorts of military abbreviations and code words, most of which sound like Latin to a common civilian who has never experienced a real war. There are no translations of these words in the instruction manual, so the player either figures out what they are supposed to be doing via trial and error over several hours, or pauses the game to decipher a random word or phrase using Google.

Overall, Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising has a lot of good things going for it. The attention paid to every small detail with the focus of making this a war simulation game is obvious. It is also obvious that so much time was spent on the small details that many key game play elements are broken or missing. The computer artificial intelligence is lacking, the controls are clunky and obviously made to be used with a console controller, and were later quickly modified to work with a keyboard and mouse. The island environment is huge and impressive, but a pain to traverse. The online play had so much lag that it was impossible to move. There are a wide variety of weapons, but most of them are revealed at the very beginning of the game, with nothing new or exciting to look forward to later. The gameplay in general has a very steep learning curve for someone who is used to playing first person shooter war games such as Call of Duty 4. The tactics required for Operation Flashpoint are totally different and take a lot of getting used to. After many hours of playing, the game did eventually start to make sense and objectives of each level became clearer, but it was not clear whether the amount of time and energy it took to figure the game out was worth it. Perhaps this game will appeal to a section of gamers who are looking for a realistic war simulation game, but for the average player who wants to run around and quickly kill other players, this game will be too confusing and slow.

Final Verdict: 6 out of 10.