Operation Flashpoint 2 - Dragon Rising

Stump · 2009/10/15, 12:53

So, the game is out for a few days already, anyone played the PC version, can give any feedback? I am downloading the game atm and have read alot of disappointing reviews about this game.

norealskill · 2009/10/15, 13:53

My roommate rented it on 360. I haven't played it enough to be fair, the hardest parting for me is discerning enemy from friendly. I know for a fact I am going to like Modern Warfare 2 a lot more. This is a much more slow paced, "extreme realism" type game for people who want that simulated battlefield feel without the risk of death. So if you're looking for guns a blazing mode, wrong game. If you want the feel of being dropped on an island, with objectives, and you can pursue your own route to accomplish those objectives, you should at least enjoy this game.

It's not a bad game though, it's just a very niche game.

Stump · 2009/10/15, 14:18

Well, in my profile in MO forums it's written "I am all for realism in games". I played the first operation flashpoint and really fell in love with this war simulator. Expected something much better in the second part, where you are just a simple solder and single bullet can be enaugh to kill you... Simulator, that's what makes adrenaline pumping! It's more like a tactical shooter, not action, that's what was expected from this game. It's not like I don't know anything about this game...

norealskill · 2009/10/15, 14:33

In that case you may love it. But all I can offer is my peer review. It's ok at best to me. The people who made Operation Flashpoint are the people who recently made ArmA 2. (You probably know this as well!) The biggest thing that bothers me is the squad commanding. I've never been a fan of squad commanding, especially when that squad is managed by the AI. I am much more into the Call of Duty's "on-rails" action play. Battlefield series is about as open ended as I can bear it. With that said, I would be suspect to give the game a bad review. So the fact that I can say it's "Ok at best to me" probably means it's amazing to someone who likes this kind of game more than I.

If I knew what the bad reviews were saying in general I could at least confirm or deny it for you, but overall I can only give my opinion on the game, which isn't fair since this isn't my favorite type of war game.

LightsabeR · 2009/10/15, 21:57

Played through the very short single player campaign last week and was rather disappointed by the game. It felt like a poorly done console port instead of a good PC tactical shooter. It feels as if they tried to dumb down the tactical shooter genre for console gamers.

Also, don't let the "huge open island" thing fool you. In reality there are only 1 or 2 missions where you can go off and explore the island. On all other missions you are forced to follow the markers that tell you where to go and if you stray too far you will fail the mission. Also there are time limits for almost all missions, so this means that you often don't have time to be creative and have to rush the enemy.

I have not touched the multiplayer, since they don't have dedicated servers (fucking idiots). So in most cases it's very laggy and annoying to manage.

I had high hopes for OPF2, but it was a huge letdown. So I decided to download the ArmA2 demo. I gotta say that it's a much better game and I'm considering getting the full version.

So yeah, if you're looking for a tactical shooter, I'd say get ArmA2. It's a much more realistic and complex game and it actually feels like a PC game instead of a crappy console port. I heard it was buggy when it was released, but they have made quite a few patches, so it's rather stable now.

A little video of a clan playing ArmA2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkHh7d_aXuY

Stump · 2009/10/20, 21:45

Well, after finishing it, the game doesn't look that bad as I hoped. Core features are very well made, the shooting and fights, and AI.

First Impression I got about the game was pretty good. I got into menu, I see some nice views, menu is not buggy and does not stuck like it does in Tom Clancy's games for example, that are clearly made for Consoles. I got the first mission, love thed the objective description, everything looks clear and then I press the "Enter". Then see interesting movie with just fucking great music that makes you move in your chair. First minutes in the game were about getting to know controls and game. Tutorial is TERRIBLE. Actualy, I would call that tutorial a more advanced one, teaching more how to complete the missions instead of how to actually play the game. Some kind of tutorial mission like in CoD 4 would be very nice. So, for a first impression, after viewing all hyping up videos and reading all let down posts, I would give it a 8/10.

Graphics. Alot of people complained about them as being bad. Honestly, I think they are just a whining bitches. Graphics are better than most of the games out there, also having in mind that the style ofthe game is Sandbox, where you have to load huge areas of the world. I read somewhere that the more detailed and realistic graphics are, the more our brain finds a things that are "not right". While Crysis graphics are totaly awesome, I heared about it complains of not being that good, more than about Sims for example, and sims are focusing more on the life simulation.
But I carried myself away, the graphics in this game may not look good when you try to look at every pixel, but the bic picture and feeling of being a soldier is really the best I ever seen. And who looks at every single pixes when you play the game anyway? Effects look great, and overall, devs put alot of time working with real soldiers that seen the combat and really created the game in which it makes you really feel like a soldier. The work on making player to feel as really being a soldier was almost perfect.
Now the thing that was alitle bit dissapointing, was that in the distance you could spot the enemy much more easier than in the grass right around you. This was mainly because there was no grass in the distance, so nor enemy nor you could hide in it (though AI still acts like you would be in the grass). If you don't like that, then you will soon forget about it anyway, when you will get a mission in the night... Shit will drop to your pants from such spectacular and realist view.
So, I would give a 9,5/10 to this game for graphics. It really made me feel like I am in there.

Sound: I am very impressed. Very high quality sound effects, you not only hear but it looks like you can feel the wind around only from the sound and enviroment you see around yourself. When things explode, you can hear peaces of things and dirt comming down on the ground, if something explodes near you you get most realistic sound glumming effect I ever heared. You hear when bullets fly through your head, and your smaller thinger automaticly pres ctrl to crouch, or even Z to hit the deck. I have no complains with voice acting, honestly I don't know where could I point my finger and say "this could be better" on the sound in general. I will give 10/10 for the sound.

Gameplay and features.The core game features like shooting and stuff were polished really well. Bullets loose their trajectory when you shoot them so if you are being the sniper then you really have to look at all those numbers on a scope that in other games you had no idea why they are even there and calculate not only speed of bullet, but the trajectory too. Running and speed looks and feels really realistic, though there was an annoyances when you could not just walk over a simple little rock, because you cannot jump over them. I read somewhere that people didn't liked transports controls, but I remember that devs said that they also put alot of time in trying to make controls for these cars as realistic as possible. So far I disliked only handling a helicopter, but shooting looked like it cannot be more realistic. Actualy, I have no opinion on cars control. One more thing wrth mentioning is that I liked that at least those transport wehicles get realistic damage. For example, if helicopter was pretty low to the ground and you shoot him down, he gets down but does not automaticly explode. Even the helicopter crew could still crawl out and fight.
Now here comes the bad part....
1. Controls. Definetly the game was made for a Console controls, and when making a PC game the controlls just were set on other buttons, this way making them just feel wrong. I think they really needed to work more on this, maybe add more actions. As it is now, you have alot of squad tactical commands, but most of the time you don't use them because giving the orders totaly confuses your hand, and you cannot do anything else except for making an order (because you have to use wasd keys, which are also used as movement keys. Definetly import from console joysticks...).
2. Also some order doesn't work how they are supposed to work, or at least when I give the order, my squad mates don't do what I expect them to do, like Move there or defend that grid. Lots of the times the time they stuck somewhere between the stones.
3. You really get this good feeling when you go around, you get hit and then you can bleed to death, even if bleeding is stopped if you were hit in specific part of the body, you will get the consequences for this. All this atmosphere is being screwed up when medic comes to you and fixes everything in five seconds. God, I mean the ot so far in making this game realistic, then why screw up with patching of wounds? Taking to stop the bleeding should take more time IMO, also the wounds could not be fully healed. I think you should still keep the effect.
4. You squad. Only four people? Wth... The "large" assault force is four teams of 4 people, three amphibies and two helicopters? Come on... Is this how wars are being fought novadays maybe? As I know, in Iraqi US marines are made of at least 9 people squad, are they lowered this number to make it easier for player to give commands over the field? Now that would be lame.... It just looks like everything was built around 4 people squad. Allies move in 4 people squad, if you look carefuilly, you will see that enemy forces are also made of 4 people squads.
5. Freedom. You get not much of it. Maybe because all missions have straight objectives, and I disagree here with Lightsaber that if you do not follow the checkpoints you will loose. It's more like you get a secondary objective to destroy those mortars on the hill, because your primary objective is to protect those armored wehicles. You can do that the way you like it, but if your wehicles get destroyed then you loose. It's not that artificial restrictions limits you, but mission objectives. So IMO the game lacked more missions requiring improvisation and thinking about all tactics for yourself. It just looks like devs do not want to give us a responsibility to command more than these 4 people.... As I remember, in OPF you first begin as a simple private and get up from ordering little squad, to even bigger groups of soldiers.
6. Missions. So I continue from the last thing, missions were quite boring and lacked of improvisation. Devs don't want to give you more leadership, also you will not get much chance to get into any wehicles. In First part of the game, you even had specific missions with AA wehicles, tanks, AH-64 and etc. Now is it a game developers, or is it the war advanced so much, that such things does not happen in OFP2?
So, in general the core features that was worked hard on like shooting, really are great. But in trying to make game as realistic as possible, alot of important things were forgot and alot of tweaking and especialy remaking some features would best thing to do. So it get's 6.5 from me.

So, in general I think the game is really having a good ground and core features. Though it's not finished, and some things definetly were sacrifice for more gain in the market. If devs will continue to work on this game, I think it can become really great product and war simulator. For such players like me, when simple CoD4 running and gunning slaughter does not give any pleasure anymore, and when we want more of a challenge, this game is really playable and probably you will enjoy it as I do. But this game is not for everyone. General vote for me would be 8. It's still the game really worthy of try and be enjoyed.