Contenu de l'edition collector Operation flashpoint : Dragon rising

- Un vrai casque de soldat
- Un dog tag (plaque d'identité militaire).
Une édition à ne pas rater !

Le simulateur de guerre Operation Flashpoint revient sur PC avec un second opus intitulé Dragon Rising. L'action se déroule sur une île riche en pétrole située à l'Est de la Russie et au Nord du Japon. Des conflits éclatent entre les Russes et les Chinois pour s'approprier cette île. L'assaut est lancé et plonge le joueur au coeur d'une guerre réaliste, avec un armement au top et un environnement ultra-détaillé où la tactique s'avère importante pour survivre.

Le shoot tactique et stratégique qui redéfinit le genre du FPS militaire !
- UNIQUE : Un contenu téléchargeable périodique et gratuit pendant plus de 7 mois après la sortie ! Missions, maps, armes, véhicules.
- Au plus proche de la réalité :équipements, armes, véhicules, blessures et dégâts ultra-réalistes grâce à l’Ego Engine.
- Une campagne co-op multi disciplinaire jusqu’à 4 joueurs.
- Une zone de jeu encore jamais vu dans un FPS, avec une île à environnement ouvert de plus de 220 Km2 qui donne au joueur une multitude de choix tactiques pour mener à bien ses missions.

First of all I want to apologize for the delay. But it was a long review and I had some things I had to take care of besides this. Please note that the grammar and spelling isn't 100% but it should be well above readable.


Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising
The art of finding a balance between realism and entertainment.

I'm lying flat on the woodenfloor as I reload my weapon. Ahead of me the darkness of the room is broken by sunlight that enters through an open door. The only thing I see in the light is a hand that rests against the floor, a hand that's drenched in blood and dirt. The calls for help that could've been heard from outside died out a few minutes ago and I'm feeling very lonely and vulnerable. My weapon is now loaded but the ammunition won't last long. I should be able to crawl to the door and grab the fallen soldiers equipment, but that would reveal my position. The steps outside the door makes me cuddle up even more. It sounds like I'll have another visitor. How could this go so wrong?
The answer isn't really that Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising is "as close to a war you'll ever want to get", like Codemasters PR-guys has been saying since the game was first introduced. Neither was it my aggressive style of play that got my fireteam killed. The latter isn't impossible though i guess after my long sessions of more arcady action games. No, my virtual soldier's destiny depends on that the mission isn't really balanced. With a few weeks to release it looks like I've encountered one of the last balance-bugs, a problem that has already been noticed and shouldn't reach the shelves. Except for that I haven't really encountered any problems. No crashes, weird AI-script errors or objects hanging in the air. Could this really be Operation Flashpoint?

The Curtain Rises!
Magnificent and dramatic music gives a good atmosphere while the player is bombarded by headlines and pictures. War is coming and the way it's presented brings my mind to a novel by Tom Clancy. The story feels a bit unbelievable but the authors still manages to anchor it to reality by bringing today's economic crisis in the background. It's the growing superpower China that's on the warpath after experiencing a negative effect on their exports in the diminishing world market. The Chinese are hungering for resources and the top men looks greedy on a tiny spot on the map that until now has been insignificant. The island of Skira earlier belonged to China but under centuries of war the locals have been forced to change flag several times. After WW2 they ended up under Soviet flag but when it's later discovered that Skira lies on top of a huge oil reserve, the Chinese government decides to retake the island. This is where the story gets a bit silly. What does the proud Russian people do when the conflict is getting serious? Of course they're calling the Americans! Why? Because otherwise the game wouldn't sell very well in the US. Either that, or the authors wants to distance themselves from Tom Clancy's "The Bear and the Dragon".
When the intro is out of the way it's time to act. I don't know who I am or who my fellow squad members are. This is a pure war game with an heavy campaign and the focus is on the military goals rather on the characters. No soldier will show me pictures of his wife and three children to later get shoot in slow-motion to lairy music. All 11 missions are about taking Skira back. Even your first lesson that's held in the games interface helps pushing the story forward.
Here I'm leading a group of four soldiers to destroy a Chinese radarcamp a few hundred meters away. If I succeed, the Americans would be able to fly in troops and materiel. The controls feels really logical and the interface is user-friendly. Orders are issued via a quick menu that adapts to what I'm aiming at. Therefore, ordering soldiers to their positions and tell them to support you is quick. The AI is doing very well on this point, but it's important to not have a to tight formation when things starts heating up. The enemy also shows that they can use the terrain in a good way, but sometimes it feels as if the Chinese soldiers are programmed with more uncareful tactics. They seem to act as a moving wall of meat that's only good to chew some led. At other moments I find myself in deep trouble though. I've seen great proof of intelligence, they send people to flank us among other things.
The campaign is really entertaining with great diversity in the missions. At first you're a bit under the leash of your commanders. Most of the targets must be destroyed in time and this makes sightseeing a bad idea. Later on everything opens and that makes it possible to take a roundabout and solve the issues the way you want. Anything else would've been a waste of resources when there's a map of 220 km2 to explore. I was especially impressed on a mission were i was to save the crew from a crashed helicopter. The targets change as you proceed with the searching, which takes place over a huge area. In these type of missions it becomes clear that the developers has put down alot of time and money into the voice acting. Codemasters delivers a game with high productionvalue.

It's still real to me, damn it!

There has been alot of discussions wether Dragon Rising is real enough to carry the name Operation Flashpoint. That's actually a stupid discussion since the original was far from a real milsim. Bohemia has taken a big leap towards this with ArmA and ArmA II though. The question is wether this was the way to go or not for that series. Codemasters has put alot of effort into realism, but not at the price of entertainment. The bigger part of the audience seem to be scared off by such a narrow product as ArmA II. What sells today is Call Of Duty and other titles that takes a way that's more lightweight. The hunt for that crowd is pretty obvious sometimes and therefore the realism in Dragon Rising is realism on a diet.
One area that has been adjusted that way is the damagemodel. It's only when luck fails the player that one bullet actually puts you down. I've managed to push through missions with bulletholes in both of my arms, the leg and in the chest. When you're wounded you have to grab your first-aid kit and stop the bleeding before you run out of blood and thereby dies. This far I have no objections. But when you reach a checkpoint the wounds disappear. Luckily there are harder gamemodes which counter this.
Another thing I don't like is the damage system on vehicles. It's completely possible to blow out all tyres on a truck and it will still run like nothing has happened. Above that any soldier can grab their screwdriver and repair even the most serious damages that can happen to a vehicle. As long as it's not on fire it can be saved.
When we're talking about fire. Most of the missions are designed so that it will explode and smoke as much as possible. Even here, the realism had to step aside. The world is full barrels that explodes violently after it has been hit with more than three rounds. I'm not an expert in any way, but isn't it very stupid to put out barrels like these on such sensitive positions? On the other side I can reveal that Dragon Rising will offer alot of big explosions and smoke effects.
The adapted realism sometimes makes it possible to get out of hard situations by just running and shooting alot. There are two harder game modes that can be activated from the very beginning though. The hardest is only recommended to real Ascetics. I the game mode "Hardcore" you will lose all of your HUD. There is no indication of how badly hurt you or your comrades are. You can't know if that last shot hit the target or not either. Everything except your weapon vanishes out of sight and this makes it challanging for real. The only thing I dont like here is that the compass also disappears, but on the other hand it is more realistic to not have it out all the time.
One of Operation Flashpoints strengths is the ability to play coop. The developers understand this and they've designed the game around this game mode. There is room for four players, one for every soldier in your singleplayer fireteam. The one who hosts the server will act leader and I guess that's pretty fair. The other multiplayer style is similar to the usual "Team Deathmatch" which will probably be appreciated. Codemasters also provides a ladder for online gaming but of course that was empty when I tested it. How steady that is remains to see when more players connect.

Easy to use toolbox

What makes me remember Operation Flashpoint today with such joy is the tools. I've spent many nights trying to create the perfect mission for a lonely soldier and his stupid AI friends. Bohemia deserves an applaud for delivering the game with the tools. But as usual someone should have told their programmers that user friendly things isn't something you should fear. The editor was a disaster and worst of it all was the scripting that would never tell you when something was wrong. Sure, it was a lovely feeling to alt-tab out to notepad and hack, but it's funnier if you don't have to fight the editor.



Codemasters work makes Bohemias to shrink here. Dragon Rising is shipped with a wonderful and intuitive editor. After just a few minutes I was ready to go and started planning a a mission involving a big military convoy and attack helicopters. The editor warns you of errors and as icing on the cake the script-language LUA is used instead of some homemade and bad documented crap. This makes it possible for skilled modders to throw themselves into the design at once. The process of making a pretty good mission is fairly fast, but players that become really good at this can bind several missions together and create their own campaign.Codemasters have to get the modding going here. It's a great editor but lots of supportwork and learning material will be required to get the ball rolling.



Judgement!

Well, is Dragon Rising the "real" sequel to Operation Flashpoint? The answer is no. ArmA and its follower feels more like the original. Bohemia melted our hearts eight years ago with an advanced and insanely buggy product. They haven't changed that pattern and haven't taken care of the horrible inability to ship complete games to the shelves. ArmA is exactly that hardcore that Flashpoint once was. It's a heavy game that demands alot from its audience and the computers that's going to run it.
Dragon Rising is beautiful and polished in comparison and it feels like a part of a completely different game series. It's also a more mainstream game that is probably going to find a bigger audience. The realism is there but the developers hasn't gone that far so that they throws any player but the warsim fanatics back to the stoneage. Personally I would rather have seen the game with another name and that Bohemia could've kept and continue with the name. Codemasters product is so good that it can stand on its own legs. Apart from that we wouldn't have the eternal ArmA II vs Dragon Rising debate that probably won't die even after both games can be purchased.
Myself, I'm to tired to play superbuggy games that will only be playable after a number of patches. ArmA II is barely playable on my computer while Dragon Rising runs like a dream. All that is left to see now is if the game gets a big audience enough to grow.

Conlusion
+ Open Gameworld
+Strong graphics-engine
+Impressive Campaign
+Voice acting
+ The tools
- Exploding barrels
87% A superb soldiergame with impressive campaign.


A second Opinion (by another writer)
When the first Operation Flashpoint was released I was completely overcomed. Despite the long line of bugs and that it had high hardware demands the PCG staff saw the greatness in the game and for the first time ever they put two writers to write down their impressions. I was one of these lucky two and that makes it extra fun to be able to leave an opinion this time too.
Operation Flashpoint 2, sorry, Dragon Rising of course has a more of an arcade feeling than its predecessor, you can't ignore that. The first Operation Flashpoint was criticized for being to hardcore. A comparison on ArmA II is unavoidable when Bohemia claims that their product is the real sequel to Operation Flashpoint.
Anyways, to issue orders in Dragon Rising is very easy and more direct than in ArmA II. Even though the latter lets you give more advanced commands. Flashpoint 2 also feels less demanding than ArmA II hardware wise, but still shows impressive open spaces and good looking effects that isn't ashamed in comparison to ArmA:s. Even though ArmA II has a configurable multiplayer that might last longer as its strongest weapon, Flashpoint 2 is definitely worth a look. As a PC-player we're lucky to be able to experience them both. Which one you like is just a matter of taste.

Picture text (numbers on the picture)
#1: Crap behind the wheels crashed my pilot carrier.

#2: There is something about war that makes it best visualized with washed out colors.

#3: The lighting is dynamic and atmospheric.

#4: Armor is no guarantee in modern warfare.

#5: The happy ornithologists was hunting for the mythical nightowl.

#6: A quick syringe and the bulletwound disappears, just like in real life.

#7: Rocketlaunchers are your best friend. Among with airsupport.
Everything that explodes is good!

#8: Artillery is great fun, at least if you keep your distance.

#9: The helicopter steering is a bit arcady and that makes it possible.

#10: Blureffects are often used when you're firing.

#11: The smoke from smokegrenades are respected by the AI. No cheating here.

Other
Above picture 3:
Under the head of the dragon
There is a speaking among certain developers that everyone should learn: Produce games, not game engines. Modern games tend to be so advanced that the task gets too big for smaller dev teams. In my review of ArmA I complained about Bohemias engine and it doesn't look like they learned anything from that mistake for their sequel. Happily the team behind Dragon Rising manage to avoid that trap. The game is built on the well tested EGO engine that has been used for games such as Grid. The result is a product that looks really good but also runs without problems. According to the specifications you should need a GeForce 7900 or similar to be able to handle the big world. I have exactly that card and I can gladly report that the game would run on a card that is alot worse than this. With the settings set to max the forests and the fields are really impressive.

Under Picture 7:
Lack of tunes
There isn't much music in Dragon Rising. Since it's so important to listen to the enemies movement there isn't much room for background sounds. Codemasters has inserted an inspiring tune at the main menu. The style is Chinese and the singer sometimes sounds like he's drunk and needs to puke.

je suis pas roux ni à moustache moi