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 Post subject: Operation Flashpoint - Red River
PostPosted: Sun Jun 05, 2011 10:24 am 
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Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2011 10:20 pm
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XBL Gamertag: DBFmancini
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Review Details
Console - Xbox 360
Price - £37.99
MP? - Yes (4 players)
Co-op? - Yes (4 players)
Completed? - Yes
Length - 9/10 hours through main campaign


My relationship with Codemasters is very much like my relationship with one of my ex girlfriends. There were some good points along the way... TOCA Touring Cars anyone?, All of the Dirt series? But these good points have been interspersed with some massive rocky patches. The one in particular that people still have to whisper in hushed tones around me is the previous game to this one. Operation Flashpoint - Dragon Rising was one of those games that I had followed since it had first been announced. Being a military sim sort of gamer and having owned all of the previous flashpoint games on PC I looked forward to playing Dragon Rising with my mates, to the extent that I convinced 3 others to get it on the day of release so we could go through the campaign together.


Anyone who was unfortunate enough to have actually played DR on its release will tell you that it was quite possibly the biggest steaming pile of crap of this generation of consoles. Single player was broken, matchmaking was broken, multiplayer couldn't actually be considered as multiplayer because for that you need other people to play with. The fact no one could connect to a game meant MP became an extension of SP, only with such massive lag that you could pop the kettle on, have some lunch, catch up on some correspondence, solve 3rd world debt and still come back and find your key presses were still being executed.


So DR for me not only let me down, but more importantly it made me look a c*ck in front of my mates. I don't like it when games make me look like this. As a result I wasn't fussed about Red River when it was announced, considering it was using the same engine as DR and was using the same development team my feelings for it were the same as my feelings for women's football... meh


However, on day of release, one of my mates picked it up, I was round his place and noticed something rather surprising, Codies had managed to produce a pretty well built game! With no further ado I went out and purchased it.


The game doesn't really follow on as such from Dragon Rising, instead you are a member of the US Marines (Hoo Ra) based in the fictitious country of Turkmenistan situated slap bang next to China. The country has experienced an influx of bad guys following the fall of Iraq and as such is as nice a place to visit as Grimsby on a winters day. You are thrust into this place as a member of Marine bravo team under the command of what can only be described as a mixture of the drill instructor from Full Metal Jacket and every other stereotypical army officer in the history of films.


The story starts well enough with you being introduced to your team and commander and going through a quick tutorial before it all kicks off with an attack on your base. At which point the story kicks in with the fight well and truly being taken to the terrorists. Along the way you'll encounter some brilliant set pieces, some pretty impressive large scale battles and also manage to practically start world war 3 with China and the PLA army.


So the story then is pretty good for a FPS game.


Actual mechanics of the game are handled well, with you being giving the option of selecting from one of 4 different classes throughout the campaign and MP (Stats and xp carry across both SP and MP) and higher levels unlock better weapons, perks and secondary weapons. Weapons although small in number are pretty meaty and you can definitely tell the difference between each of them from the way they fire, sounds and power. In addition there are numerous bolt-ons for your weapons, with scopes, designators, sights and grenade/shotgun combos. I much prefer what they have done with the weapons here because although much smaller in number then the glut of very similar looking weapons in something like COD you do tend to get quite attached to these ones. In fact I found myself completing the entire game with one weapon on my first playthrough as the rifleman with my trusty M16 going through a number of iterations until I found a decent scope sight for it.


Actual gameplay is much improved from DR with a real feeling of 'proper' military tactics being used, you'll need to flank enemy positions, use smoke, and take cover. For anyone who is aware of the type of games flashpoint are, you will know it will only normally take you 2/3 hits to be dead. So running and gunning is out, instead it becomes a thinking mans shooter with real thought having to go into how to attack emplaced enemies and how to defend positions correctly. What also adds panic is the fact that when you are hit you will start bleeding, this won't knock you down as such but does add a timer before you bleed out completely, so you then need to bandage yourself and then heal yourself, this full process takes about 30 seconds to do, so it becomes a panic to make sure your team is defending whilst you bandage and heal. Much better then hiding behind cover for 5 seconds while the screen turns from red to white again... cough COD cough. Don't expect to be on the offensive the whole time either. About a third of the way through the game completely changes focus on who and why you are fighting and you then find yourself in a retreating action for almost the remainder of the game.


There are some true stand out moments from the SP, with a few missions in particular deserving some mention. As alluded to above about a third of the way through the whole approach to what you have been doing changes with the introduction of the PLA who are more then a match for the Marines and carry much improved weaponary from the 'small fry' insurgents you had been fighting previously. One mission that I was seriously impressed with was the withdrawal from the border between Turkmenistan and China. With 3 mates it was possibly one of the most brilliant military missions I have played on this generation. Four of us on a rooftop, flying through ammo, popping up every few seconds to fire off a quick salvo, whilst enemies streamed across open ground towards us backed up by APCs and choppers. We had to do this 4 times, in order to cover the rest of the Marines pulling out. Extremely impressive.


Whilst the game does do many things well it also has a few problems. So far I have talked about playing with friends during the campaign which is all well and good but if you are a lone wolf and want to do SP as a real SP effort without co-op then prepare for some frustration because your AI team mates are seriously lacking in the brain department. Some might say this is an advantage if your joining the marines, but in an actual game where one bullet can and will kill you, finding your 'team mates' have left you exposed on a flank to the enemy is and does becoming seriously annoying. It does spoil the game ins some respects because it removes some of the sheen of what is a very well put together game. The enemy uses tactics and defends correctly, yet your team mates will walk across your firing line, stand up when under fire, run into the enemy in some WW1 trench era bayonets attached folly whilst you duck down and contemplate saving that last bullet in your mag for yourself such is the stupidity on display. Codemasters allegedly camped in with Marines in Afghanistan in order to understand how they operated, but to be honest I reckon they were more likely to have sat in a kindergarten class of 3 year olds such is the skill of your allies.


So SP then is a let down unless playing with friends, at which point it becomes the game its makers obviously wanted it to be. You will relive moments from SP with your real life buddies, like how one of them dodged withering fire to come heal you in no mans land. You'll talk about the lucky shot that you pulled off to hit the sniper from 500 yards away (Bullet drop is in effect here) and generally have a bl00dy good time as long as you play with real people.


MP isn't a true PvP event anymore either. Codemasters obviously decided after the farce of DR that this just wasn't the best way to design it. Instead you have 4 player co-op missions split into 4 different categories. One is a straight up escort mission of a convoy through enemy territory, making sure you keep the convoy moving whilst avoiding IEDs and traps is again pretty intense with mates. Another finds you dropped into villages to defuse and destroy arms catches before extracting just as quickly. The final two are the ones you may find yourself spending the most time.


CZAR involves your fireteam being dropped in to recover two downed pilots, unfortunately you are dropped into enemy territory with the villages and towns streaming with enemies. In addition you also have a massive convoy of mobile enemies tailing you throughout the mission which means it becomes one big cat and mouse mission with you trying to get in and get out as quickly as possible. Extra xp is awarded for blowing up the downed chopper. This was a co-op mission me and my mates found ourselves coming back to again and again because of how crazy it got as you waited for the rescue chopper to fly in and extract surrounded by enemies with bullets zipping off the brickwork you are crouched behind.


The final MP mission is called last stand and is the generic horde mode that most shooters now contain. You and your 3 fire team members will have to defend a town or village from enemies who come in waves. The first waves are obviously pretty easy but it won't be long until you find yourself being attacked from all sides with helo's, tanks and APCs backing up the troops. Again some of the best stand out moments from the game are contained here. One point had me and 3 mates in one small courtyard having lost hold of the rest of the town. Two entrances in meant two of us on each entrance, anti personal mines, tank mines and constant fire on anything that moved helped us believe we were going to pull this off. That was until a tank decided it had seen enough and decided to blast a hole through one of the courtyard walls, at which point we found the entire army of the PLA waiting to take a shot at us. The great thing about it was that we didn't feel cheated as such, just impressed with the fact it had felt like a true last stand.


Comparing this game to Dragon Rising seems grossly unfair in all honesty. Its like Codemasters forgot about the tripe they produced last time and started all over. If only I could forget so easily. Anyway, as you've probably gathered by now I liked the game. There are a few things that are not great, the lack of a true MP whilst disappointing at first does appear to have been the best option they could have taken. The lack of vehicles is disappointing considering the pedigree of the flashpoint games on PC where you could drive or fly everything from a bike to a C130 transport plane. The team AI is poor and some of the animations feel a little stunted but don't let this take away from what is potentially the best tactical shooter available on consoles at the moment.


I enjoyed flashpoint Red River immensely. By yourself the AI can prove frustrating but with mates it provides some of the funniest and most enjoyable gaming you can have.

8

_________________
I was owning the game, bam, 20 people dead, bam, bam, a few headshots, was up to 23 kills, two more to go, bam, another headshot, one more to Nuke. Then, the motherfucker slotted me hiding in the reed bed. Bye Bye Nuke
Guy Price - MW2
The man had never had a nuke on the game, I joined his game at the point described above, the guy who stopped he's streak at 24 and not 25? Moir
5 seconds after the game I receive a message, its one word, begins with C ends in T
EPIC WIN


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