Mike Channel from OXM UK writes:
"We like to think of it as tough love. Spend ages sprinting across a field toward the enemy emplacement only to get a bullet planted deep in your melon when you're still 200 meters away, breathing your last in a foreign land, far from home and surrounded by hostile troops.
Anybody who's grown used to "going Rambo" and charging up to enemies in Call of Duty is in for a very speedy learning experience in the first couple of missions in Operation Flashpoint."
Verdict
So compelling, you'll forgive its quirks
Uppers
* Massive, atmospheric location
* Satisfying long-range combat
* As close as you want to get to war
Downers
* Sometimes gets confused
* Haphazard checkpointing
Twinfinite's Henry McMunn revisits Codemaster's military simulator and realises it was actually really great all along.
Dragon Rising wasn't bad, but it had a lot of questionable design choices. Red River was just horrible in every aspect, huge step down from DR.
Yup, Dragon Rising had some potential, but it was way too restricted from what I remember. Red River was indeed horrible. Wish I hadn't wasted the money on that one.
Ugh I just remembered this game and it makes me want to me sick in a bowler hat and drown myself in it....
The only good thing about this game was borderlands was out a week later!
Dragon Rising was a really great idea but with Codemaster's typically shoddy execution of anything not racing related. Their poor handling of the criticism, bugs and outright lies on the packaging was eerily similar to EA's BF4 flustercluck. The game was a breath of fresh air in many ways and was really the only truly tactical, open map shooter of it's kind on consoles. Anyone who played the original Flashpoint or ARMA games would feel pretty comfortable with Dragon Rising. It's just a pity Codemasters dropped the ball completely on the online portion, allowed several annoying bugs to remain to this day and lied about features in the game and later charged for these promised features as DLC. With the way they handled the whole situation, Codemasters earned the first spot on my ever expanding list of developers that I refuse to buy anything from them. Again, much like BF4, you can easily see the awesome game it could have been and yet it's still totally out of reach.
There are games wich shine with light. However, not all games have the same opportunity to receive support from their editors.
This results in remarkable games, even outstanding, which have been forgotten or, unfortunately, were never known by the mass audience. Even their reviews, do not capture the true quality of the title, since most anticipated games, are unfortunately better received in the newsroom.
Part I: Hidden gems in First Person Shooters
"I’m tired of the need for more 'realism' in games. I don’t want to hear about how realistic Call of Duty is while you’re cowering behind cover watching the red Kool-Aid disappear from your screen. I don’t care if Battlefield 3’s bullet drop somehow makes it a better shooter. Does it really matter if you play Forza Motorsport, Gran Turismo, or Need for Speed? They all look and feel fantastic; why does it matter if one is more realistic?
"You want to see a realistic game? Go play Operation Flashpoint on the hardest difficulty. After you’ve gotten out of the fetal position, tell me how enjoyable it was. Unless you happen to be a masochist, I’m going to bet you didn’t have a very good time. That’s realistic.
"We use video games as an escape, just like movies, literature, and music. They tell us stories, let us make our own, or let us live out an experience. I can’t drive a race car (heck, I don’t even have a license), but that doesn’t stop me from playing Need for Speed. The cor...
Exactly. I love the fact that you can jump and shoot with a .50 cal sniper rifle in COD. That adds to the fun whereas realism reduces the fun and makes the gameplay boring. Games aren't suppose to be realistic, we as human beings are very limited when it comes to abilities and powers and such and having game designers implementing what we fantasize the most in terms of technology and surreal action in video games make us people happy cause we get to experience our own "world", the world of fantasies and joy in those games which brightens our imagination and give us something to think about. If I wanted realism, I would rather stick to the life outside of home and drive a real car instead of playing GT5/Forza for instance. Realism ruins the fun, fun is surreal or simply like our folks at Epic Games call it, Unreal.
Some people would like the opportunity to "be" a soldier, so to speak, but without having to risk their life to do it. In that sense, realism in games is wanted. Some people would like to hop around in a land full of giant mushrooms and clouds you can stand on, and that's where "unreal" games come in. There's a place for all types of gamers in this world.
Doesn't an escape from one reality into another make all the more magic though?
Operation Flashpoint on hard is BOMB! I loved it! Intense! One of the few games that was genuinely hard and not just cheap like playing COD on veteran.
Most of my favorite games this gen are unrealistic
Valkyria Chronicles
Tales of Graces F
Disgaea 4
Atelier Meruru
Mass Effect 1
Not a bad review. I think they still mark it down too much for just not being everyones cup of tea, Op Flash is hard, get used to it :P. I'm getting on day of release :)
This is not SOCOM or GRAW or COD4 or any other type of Shooter.
This is more realistic. One shot kills. This game is hard. Its real life combat. Hard. Massive.
If you are use to running and gunning like most FPS games. If you're use to some forgiveness in games like Socom and GRAW...Don't buy this game.
Got this pre ordered and looking forward to it =D
A Rent for sure!
I agree for some its a rent if you're not use to this type of tacticle shooter. This is no Socom or COD4.
Once you get use to this type of shooter, you will laugh at the other tactical shooters.