Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising

Developed by Codemasters, Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising is an tactical shooter that tries to depict modern infantry combat. Released on the PC, PS 3 and the 360, thus I booted up the game expecting it to be another dumbed down shooter made for the consoles, the expectation was dashed when I looked into the graphical settings and found the holy grail settings of PC gaming, the anti-aliasing and the other standard graphical settings. Setting everything to max, I started the Campaign. Upon firing the first shot and hearing the clear and crisp sound of the gunshot, I know this would be quite an enjoyable game.

The plot is explained in a simple storyline format and is fairly simple, the PLA invades Russia’s Skira for its oil reservers and the American were called in to evict them. This takes place on Skira a fictional island that is based on Kiska on a landmass that is as large as Singapore over 11 missions consisting of support/infiltration/search & destroy/search & rescue scenarios set in different lighting conditions.

Thermal night scopes are very very scary

OFDR plays out like a Battlefield game on normal diffculty, however in the campaign your in charge of a fireteam and is required at times to use that fireteam to engage targets you couldn’t, or simply they are expendable in normal difficulty. There is even a map that you can bring up with command menus just like that in Battlefield 2 commander play. However, the game is at times brutal as stray bullets fired from 300m away can hit you and instakill you in one shot, this combined with on screen dirt-like effects that occurs when a round lands near you and eargasmic gunshots effects make it exhilarating when dashing from cover to cover with green enemy tracer rounds zipping pass. The typical engagement when you encounter enemy troops usually occurs at around 100-300m and involves you going prone behind cover and returning fire, cause cover is just that important in this game. Reloading animations are well done and it is usually a tactical decision as reloading a weapon or setting up a SMAW is usually thrilling as it takes a few seconds to do so. This hybrid between Battlefield 2 and Armed Assault makes this game stand out well in these days of modern first-person-shooters.

Tactical map

Close quarters combat, messy business

Locking on with the Javelin

Splash one enemy tank

Get to da chopper!!

Medic packs, don’t go to a war without em

I would give this game a 8/10 score for being an excellent hybrid between the battlefield series and serious military infantry simulators like Armed Assault. Its gunshot effects are simply gorgeous but however, the gray cinematic tint of war a little overdone at times in this game. Also, the only flaws I see are that medic packs are still all purpose and there are the occasional sudden jerk of screen upwards when moving around in prone or that robotic sounding voice coming from your character when you use commands.

My crappy campaign playthrough stats