Dragon Rising has been released

[mr burns 132]

Quickie review

Realism? No.

Models? Shite.

Textures? Shite.

Editor? *barf* (read below)

Fun playing it online? Yes, kind of, but not for long.

Well the editor isn´t what we are familiar with. Rather something like you´ve seen in Novalogic games. Didn´t test it thourouhly, but tried to make a bigass battle with tanks & stuff. Managed to find out how to place players and waypoints in a few minutes so you could say it is intuitive. You also have the option to copy/paste just like in ArmA.

But now comes the fun (speak *barf*) part: if you place one unit to much and press preview - it´ll still start the game, or at least something that looks like starting, but the moment when you should get control of your unit never happens as the screen will stay grey! No warning about too many entities (roughly anything over 50 units/vehicles), nothing. This, and the fact that a lousy number of fifty units/vehicles can hardly be understood as 'too many' make the editor a total bullshit experience.

And here goes some pics from this evenings coop session (all settings highest + 4xAA/8xAF). Yes. It really does look that bad!

Might be awesome for a console game, but having such rubbish gfx in a PC game in the year 2009 is a fucking disgrace.

http://i569.photobucket.com/albums/ss140/ofpc_burns/games/opfer2_1.jpg

http://i569.photobucket.com/albums/ss140/ofpc_burns/games/opfer2_2.jpg

http://i569.photobucket.com/albums/ss140/ofpc_burns/games/opfer2_3.jpg

http://i569.photobucket.com/albums/ss140/ofpc_burns/games/opfer2_4.jpg

http://i569.photobucket.com/albums/ss140/ofpc_burns/games/opfer2_5.jpg

http://i569.photobucket.com/albums/ss140/ofpc_burns/games/opfer2_6.jpg

http://i569.photobucket.com/albums/ss140/ofpc_burns/games/opfer2_7.jpg

http://i569.photobucket.com/albums/ss140/ofpc_burns/games/opfer2_8.jpg

http://i569.photobucket.com/albums/ss140/ofpc_burns/games/opfer2_9.jpg

http://i569.photobucket.com/albums/ss140/ofpc_burns/games/opfer2_10.jpg

http://i569.photobucket.com/albums/ss140/ofpc_burns/games/opfer2_11.jpg

http://i569.photobucket.com/albums/ss140/ofpc_burns/games/opfer2_12.jpg

http://i569.photobucket.com/albums/ss140/ofpc_burns/games/opfer2_13.jpg

http://i569.photobucket.com/albums/ss140/ofpc_burns/games/opfer2_14.jpg

http://i569.photobucket.com/albums/ss140/ofpc_burns/games/opfer2_15.jpg

http://i569.photobucket.com/albums/ss140/ofpc_burns/games/opfer2_16.jpg

edit:

What´s absolutely amazing in this game is the sound engine. ArmA2 could learn alot from it.

You can actually hear everyhing that happens on the battlefield, even fights going on a few kilometers away.

That´s one of the biggest downsides in ArmA, that you basically don´t hear what happens behind the next ridge.

One point for FP2.

Also the flir view is kind of cool. Watching my (forced to medium size) tank battle through the javelin lense, bright sabot tracers travelling over the whole salty lake thing is plain awesome. Looking forward to OA´s FLIR, and don´t you dare not making tracers visible in it!

Javelin targeting system btw is also ultra cool! Sadly i cannot FRAP´s it as my PC freezes everytime i hit the record button :-/

Edited October 8, 2009 by Mr Burns

[icebreakr 3159]

Mr Burns: you know whats horrible? Many people will spend good bucks on it anyway :o

[landdon 0]

Ok, I will admit it. I reserved a copy of Operation Flashpoint: Rise of the Dragon (OFP/RD), for the PC from GameStop on the hope that it may contain some of the old spark of that the old Operation Flashpoint (OFP) series contained. What can I say; I grew up on Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis and I loved it so much I got the “Red Hammer†and “Resistance†expansion packs as well. The game play, graphics and diversity were second to none at the time this old warhorse was released.

When I look at or judge a military game, I look at the following areas; Storyline, Environment, Playability, Graphics, Accuracy, Equipment, Artificial Intelligence, Multiplayer Options, Missions, Support (Company and Community) and adaptability. The Storyline

The storyline is important; it should be as it sets the stage and helps draw you into the game. OFP/RD storyline is not bad, it takes place on a small, fictional island called Skira, which is based on the island Kiska. This island is located near the western end of the Aleutian Island chain. The fictional island of Skira has been contested for many times in its history and now has been brought back into the world’s focus due to a massive worldwide fossil fuel shortage. Since China’s economic machine is starving for oil and natural gas, the communist hardliners in China seize the opportunity and take over the island from Russia. This of course starts a Sino-Russian War. Because Russia is embattled with Chinese forces on the Asian continent, Russia asks the United States to intervene and take back the island while they deal with the Chinese mainland forces. So you play role of a U.S. Marine tasked with capturing the island, on behalf of the Russians, from the Chinese military.

I don’t think it’s very likely that the top three of the world’s leading nuclear superpowers would be going to war over a small five mile long by four mile island without it resulting in nuclear fallout at some point. There can’t be that much oil and gas there, but it does have some interesting future possibilities when you consider that Japan and Korea are very close and it is a game. So for a score on storyline, I would give it a four on a scale of one to five. To me the storyline in Armed Assault/ArmA II was much more realistic and believable.

To me the environment is more important than even the storyline. I break environment into two different categories, one being Terrain Environment and the other Playing Environment. I define Terrain Environment, as the actual terrain as a player must fight and move upon, in this case it is an island called Skira. The island of Skira is volcanic, and is approximately 5 miles long by 4 miles wide or 8 km x 6 km for our metric using folks. The terrain is varied with a volcano at one end of the island, numerous lakes and small waterways. Skira is sparsely populated with some towns and isolated houses and settlements and like in Armed Assault/ArmA II doesn’t have a lot of people.

It is very pretty, and diverse. But Armed Assault/ArmA II came with two different terrain maps and I think at least one of the maps is bigger in the Bohemia’s creations. So I feel I have been short changed here, my score 2 out of 5.

The Playing Environment is where the rubber meets the road so to speak, it is highly important to me; some people call it game play. To me it is the sum of the programs ability to replicate the real world, receive and send information to me, entertainment factor, multiplayer capability and replay value.

As one would expect the graphics are stunning, but I personally think they are not on par with Arma II. The Skira map is just too brown, Chernaus "looks" is much better and more realistic. Codemasters has chosen to use visual cues, as a prime means of relaying information to you the player. The difficulty levels are differentiated not by changes in AI intelligence/tactics, weapon damage or your capabilities, but by the amount visual information given to you the player. So at the easiest level, standard First Person Shooter (FPS) information is given to the player about weapons, ammo, squad health, compass direction along with cross hairs via a heads up display (HUD) this includes the location of enemies who have been spotted by the AI player's squad. No really a big difference here between Armed Assault and ArmA II at the lowest difficulty setting.

But as the difficulty is increased more information is removed from the HUD until none is left on screen. So at the highest difficultly level ammunition count, teammate’s health must be remembered and when engaged the locations of enemies must be determined by listening to your AI squad mates or using other visual cues like the direction your squad is firing. At high difficulties visual effects become more important, particularly at long range where smoke or dust can help to identify areas of contact or danger. At any difficulty level the player may be killed by a single shot, although one can be wounded on an occasion.

There are, like Armed Assault and ArmA II, a lot of weapons and gear in this game and the ballistic system seems real enough. Many of the weapons can be modified and equipped with optics, grenade launchers, laser sights and suppressors. But I feel that Armed Assault and ArmA II have more stock weapons, OFP/DR just has three things that does not come stock with the Bohemian Creations, a usable Knife, Anti-personnel and Claymore mines. Unit animation is like reloading a weapon, placing it on your shoulder and other movements or animation have been motion captured using soldiers who have been trained to use the equipment in real life.

There are different land, air and sea vehicles including helicopters, tanks, boats and APCs along with a few vehicles/weapons which cannot be used directly, but which can be called in a support role, such as fighter jets and artillery. So if you are a jet jockey just forget it.

Now, I have done my best to keep an open mind about Operation Flashpoint: Rise of the Dragon. But I have to admit, I was not thrilled to learn that there are two console versions as well, one for the Xbox and the other for PlayStation 3. Usually, when console versions are supported, the PC game versions tends to suffer greatly during the development process, as game companies tend not extending the games capabilities much past what a console is capable of doing. I personally think that is what has happened here.

The game is not bad if you what to play by yourself, online you can only have 16 players max per side for a total of 32, Bohemia can handle much more. The mission editor is just a pain to work with if your a beginner in my opinion and the 2km square mission size limit is horrible, Bohemia’s is much better. My final ruling on it, is its no OFP and can’t really touch Armed Assault or even ArmA II. There is some other factors as well that holds it back, it’s the updates, and it looks as if you will have to pay to get extra material other than bug fixes. Community support is a big zero. Right now, it looks like Codemaster’s OFP/DR is at this stage is a Flop. This dragon may look scary, but it has no teeth.

Edited October 8, 2009 by Landdon

[eble 3]

yeah I forgot to add about the unit limits, I tried placing 100 soldiers and fire it up, got the grey screen and no warning, wasn't sure what happened so I had to kill the game and start again.

This will be a good console game in coop, but it really shows it was made for console when you see it on the PC.

[GoOB 0]

I am looking for some decent fun on my XBOX 360 until the gaming month from heaven (november '09) starts off - I am thinking DR might be just that, decent, semi-mindless fun for a few weeks. But I never thought it would be a game similar to OFP or ARMA2, a game playable for years on end.

[okdante 0]

Sadly (or happily for BIS and fans), OF:DR looks like an fail

Still the reviews contain pretty divergent opinions (IGN, Eurogamer, those two mentioned in this topic...)

Just wondering if CM are going to say anything about those pre-release vids and the truth ingame. If anyone finds any statement, please post it.

Anyway, at least I don't have to wait till the demo (if there is going to be any after all this...)

[kozzy420 21]

Played about 5 hours of it at a friends.

its a fun game in singleplayer, but not nearly as good as ARMA2 or Operation Flashpoint1.

The sound is better and the campaign is better, but ARMA2 has better graphics, better online, better controls, better editor and it gives you alot mroe freedom.

So far for me Operation Flashpoint: DR = 7/10 and ARMA2 = 9/10

[Litos 10]

I think the sound is horrible... Try flying in a heli copter. The rotor sounds are just stupid. Also try firing rockets out of it, the impact sounds are just as stupid.

Unless those are somehow actually real sounds, which I doubt. Apologies if I'm mistaken though...

Anyway I tried flying and I found this extremely embarrasing:

http://i36.tinypic.com/2hqaxc8.jpg

Also collision sucks. Tanks can't even take down trees when they're on full speed.

Just dropping things I notice here.

[maturin 12]

Just dropping things I notice here.

That looks like a browser flash game and I'm not lying. It's clear what they neglected while they focused on the ground level lighting.

[Litos 10]

That looks like a browser flash game and I'm not lying. It's clear what they neglected while they focused on the ground level lighting.

I think they neglected everything... Its just empty land and I'm running on all maxed out.

You don't want to hear the rotor sounds either. In fact every vehicle has retarded sounds... In fact EVERYTHING has retarded sounds.

I don't get it. Is this for real?! I really thought the game would be better than this.

[Deadfast 43]

yeah I forgot to add about the unit limits, I tried placing 100 soldiers and fire it up, got the grey screen and no warning, wasn't sure what happened so I had to kill the game and start again.

This will be a good console game in coop, but it really shows it was made for console when you see it on the PC.

63 entities limit, mate ;)

Anyway I tried flying and I found this extremely embarrasing:

http://i36.tinypic.com/2hqaxc8.jpg.

Reminds me of BF2's Zatar Wetlands...

[Flash Thunder 10]

Bought it last night and I'm not overly impressed.

FP looks almost identical to COD 4 graphics. I don't know what happened with those pre-release videos but I have this game maxxed to the ...........um max and while decent looking it is nothing special at all. Arma has better textures, effects, environment etc. Winner= ARMA II by a long shot.

FYI I get 30-70 fps on ARMA II with all settings on Very High 1680 x 1050. With FP I get 100-150FPS maxxed out.

FP controls are extremely console-fied (if that is even a word) in respect to issuing commands. Very clunky interface. However, ARMA II isn't much better and it's set up for a PC.

No lean and no TRACKIR SUPPORT!

Guns are laser like. ZERO sniper drift. I just finished an entire co-op map with sniper rifle and I could literally sprint for several hundred feet, stop and zero right on the head of an enemy at 300+ meters and drop him EVERY TIME. ZERO movement in the scope and bullet drop is very miniscule.

Kits are non-existent from what I can see. You get a pre-determined loadout and your stuck with it. Though I did get a scar with a thermal scope that was sweet.

FP movement seems very slow. Sprint seems like walk and walk seems like crawl. Kinda frustrating.

AI? My AI did exactly what I told them every time and were an asset, so in that respect the FP AI seem better to me than ARMAII.

Online FP..................I just have to put a ? for what online. No dedicated servers? Only 4 player hosted servers that I see atm, and most of those are playing campaign co-op. I see no real online to speak of ATM. Supposedly 16 v 16 max games with 3 gametypes though I haven't seen 1 yet.

So far IMHO Arma II blows FP DR out of the water in terms of gameplay, graphics and options. However, 99% of my squadmates quit playing ARMA II because of all the issues getting it to run on their rigs properly. They just gave up. So DR offers them a similar experience with less issues, albiet the graphics are very dumbed down.

All in all to me FP DR feels like a very very dumbed down, stripped down, noobified version of ARMA II.

FP is much easier to play. I was gaming and owning within 5 minutes of install with zero issues. It is very hardware friendly and it should be with the ho hum graphics and would cater to casual players who don't have the time or patience for ARMA II which unfortunately is alot of players.

You took every word straight from my mouth :( Its really sad to see this game do so badly, I been looking forward for it since 2007, the game is actually not a simulator CM said its a "Tactical Shooter" which is a compelete kick in the face to the community :mad:

You know I ended up playing DR for like 1 hour today spending more time with configs since I have an old GPU, the preformance is worse in DR than Arma2 atm so congradulations BIS for making me look like a complete a** :D

OFP DR I got for PC only for 40 bucks but I was basically robbed at gun point this is no Simulation and no way in Heck does this game compete with Arma2.

I actually played Arma 2 longer today than I played OFP DR...

What is shame, that most of you saying that game is bad, but still you bought or preordered game. In fact you say to publishers let do that again, again promise things that are not technically possible, lay and steal ideas, make renders and photoshoped sshots. If players ask why games look today as they look, its because that. Because lot of people are able to buy, preorder just because PR and previews at magazines that are dependend on advertising sales. Its sad, where game industry going :(

Completely agree with you Ohara, Just make sure you guys keep your stellar work up and make sure your company doesnt go down the crapper in some way, and polish your games more and you will capture those OFP communities, since alot of them thought OFP DR was going to be Arma 2 with more polish and less bugs.

Take your time and don't compromise design and you'll always be on TOP!!

I wouldn't have bought it had I been able to play a demo first.

All in all for consoles it's probably an epic play. But for PC gamers it is mediocre at best.

Yes sadly, its Mediocre for me atleast till a patch comes out the editor looks fun!

[icebreakr 3159]

Ohara: keep pushing, it doesn't matter if Dragon is an EPIC FAIL, we lost couple of guys who expected much more from A2 in terms of realism, proper simulation settings. Its pretty obvious that you can't build a game around graphics and fancy effects and leave out all that *really* matters.

[Leopardi 0]

Looks like a game that you can spend a few hours with a friend playing the coop campaign through, but then that's it. Worth 2-5€ at max.

[4 IN 1 0]

Ohara: keep pushing, it doesn't matter if Dragon is an EPIC FAIL, we lost couple of guys who expected much more from A2 in terms of realism, proper simulation settings. Its pretty obvious that you can't build a game around graphics and fancy effects and leave out all that *really* matters.

Be aware, there where some people on this planet who acturally think that DR is realistic :D

[tophe 69]

I tried it out yesterday... very disappointed. It has absolutely no feeling in the controls... fells like a plastic copy of Arma... Arma looks better, feels better... OFP2 is smoother, since it is a new engine that is optimized (as opposed to Arma2, but it's getting there).

The soul is missing and it feels like playing an arcade game dressed up like a realistic shooter. I did have hopes for this game, but I don't think I will play it. Actually it felt a bit like playing a home-made arma-ripoff. Might give it another chance later on, but right now there is absolutely no point playing it instead of Arma2.

[randir14 10]

The single player is OK. Multiplayer is crap, every server is laggy as hell and it takes like three minutes to load a game, then another three minutes to get back to the main menu.

[Maddmatt 1]

OFP2 is smoother, since it is a new engine that is optimized (as opposed to Arma2, but it's getting there).

Reduced graphics = optimisation?

I guess the 64 units limit is also optimisation then :j:

http://community.codemasters.com/forum/showthread.php?t=383664&page=1

ArmA 2 looks much better than that on my PC. Graphics are unimpressive, and thats why performance is 'better'.

Some people can't tell the difference between cutting down stuff and optimising. You can get similar results in ArmA 2 if you limit it to 64 units and lower graphics settings.

So, how enjoyable is the campaign? What kind of stuff do you do in the missions? Besides the obvious of course.

Edited October 8, 2009 by Maddmatt

[Dmahon 10]

In my opinion, this game is OK. It's not mind blowing, the in-game graphics settings are pretty poor but that can be helped with Nvidia control panel. The gunplay seems a bit... awkward and the sounds are pretty pathetic, but on the upside they did a good job on the gore system, shooting someone in the head and the back of their skull popping open is pretty satisfying, and even though I mentioned earlier that the graphics aren't great with Nvidia improvements they are quite good.

If someone told me that was an In-game screenshot of OpFlash2 before it was released I just wouldn't have believed them (It is an in-game screenshot, I took it like an hour ago)

It sort of just feels like Bad Company (which isn't necessarily a bad thing) , even the introduction to the missions are the same (with the cinematic letterbox look) just without the witty humor from sweetwater and that other guy in BC.

The squad controls are pretty good, your squad pretty much does exactly what you want exactly when you tell them to do it, I haven't had a go of many vehicles or multiplayer yet so there's not much I can say about them.

How it compares to Arma 2 is a tough question, if I had a mission idea that had just popped into my head then it would be Arma 2 almost definitely, I don't like the way you have to go out of the game to make a mission in OpFlash and not only that but the mission editor interface is a bit more complicated than what I am used to with Arma, but if that mission included me playing as a soldier in a squad of infantry then i would want to try and make the mission in opflash.

OpFlash would go well with Arma 2's Sounds and mission editor, if it had those then I think I would prefer it more but it doesn't, in my eyes, they could both learn from eachother, and that's my say.

P.S

I would just like to say that before I got this game I was a complete Arma 2 fanboy, anything any codemasters fanboy said would be like blasphemy to me, but now after playing it I am quite surprised and I have to say that I have to eat my words, it's a good game.

Edited October 8, 2009 by Dmahon

[Herbal Influence 10]

(....) The gunplay seems a bit... awkward and the sounds are pretty pathetic, but on the upside they did a good job on the gore system, shooting someone in the head and the back of their skull popping open is pretty satisfying, and even though I mentioned earlier that the graphics aren't great with Nvidia improvements they are quite good. (...)

At last in Germany legal problems might arise from "skulls popping open".

Politicians discussing to forbid First Person shooters seriously after each school massacre taking place and lately they were short before acting legally.

I personally like to play tactically, technically ... and don't want to have BI games in danger of being forbidden one day because of this.

So I don't like that "feature" of DR at all.

Also I do have relatives who actually saw skulls popping in war all over the place.

They would question my mental health doing/watching that for fun - whether that is right or wrong - I respect them and don't want to alienate them.

Edited October 8, 2009 by Herbal Influence

[Blake 0]

People should just stop making comparisons with OFP:DR and ARMA2, they are so much different in many aspects. Partially it's CM's false advertising that has also fueled the flame war that's been going on for months.

What I can say from my brief playing of the first missions (Hardcore/Max.Details) is that OFP:DR is a decent shooter if you don't consider it a direct competitor to ArmA2.

At first try I was shocked, everything felt bad from movement to visuals but after a while I got used to the game. It feels much like Land Warrior/GR/Typhoon Rising games where your head is attached to the gun, resulting in the lack of physical feeling of being there. Somehwat surreal Oblivion-esque graphics and lighting also add to that gamey feeling. It is not necessarily a bad thing in a game that's not to be taken as hardcore military game. The visuals however look drastically better in screenshots than in actual gameplay, even if you've taken them yourself.

So far it has been entertaining when you ditch out what you've been used to in ArmA2. But on the long run, I can't imagine anyone converting from playing ArmA2 to commiting himself solely on OFP:DR.

I'm not commenting on many known negative aspects which have been already dealt with by many posters.

[jw custom 56]

Dragon Rising does not deserve "Operation Flashpoint" in the title, it's not even close to could be compared!

It looks and feels like a clone between G.R.A.W and COD4 which was ported from console in a real hurry.

The editor is simply annoying.

My conclusion:

I play ArmA 2 when i want realism, nice graphic and tactical play. When i wanna play with the gun in one hand and the head under the other i play Dragon Rising, nice with a replacement for BF2 which is getting old.

Edited October 8, 2009 by JW Custom

[Dmahon 10]

At last in Germany legal problems might arise from "skulls popping open".

Politicians discussing to forbid First Person shooters seriously after each school massacre taking place and lately they were short before acting legally.

I personally like to play tactically, technically ... and don't want to have BI games in danger of being forbidden one day because of this.

So I don't like that "feature" of DR at all.

Maybe you shouldn't be upset with the game but more with your own government, hardly any other countries see any problems with this feature, but lets not go into that, also, lets not forget that it's a game.

[markushaze 10]

I will just quote myself, as this was already written in another thread:

Hello all

I just got the new copy of the leading German games mag, PCGames.

Yea, the same ones that got us all hyped up, because ARMA 2 is supposedly such a bugfest. score of 78 if i remember correctly.

The Review is pretty detailed, and has the title Operation Flashpoint in mind.

The mag asks it this new DR is a true successor of the original BI series, Operation Flashpoint CWC and the answer is clearly:

NO

Score of Operation xpoint ( for me the game dose not deserve the name, lets just call it DR from now on ) DR has a score of:

77.

The review goes on to say:

"For simulation fans, the most important question is:

Is DR better then ARMA2?

The answer is clearly NO."

Further on...."Great tactical shooter action= yes, real simulation feeling=no"

For me, that says it all:-)

Thanx BIS for staying true to your work.:-)

CM has really just delivered a Battlefied clone .... Not an operation Flashpoint 2.

as someone else stated in Sig:

Codemasters might own the name, but Bohemia Interactive owns the soul :-)

If anyone wants more of this review in German, i can translate it for you, and post it later on, it would take some time however, because its 4 pages long and i dont use googel translate :-)

[Defunkt 431]

Not being an OFP veteran the name thing never really bothered me, just business, but now I feel for BIS seeing something that would have been so valuable to them go to waste in this way. BIS must surely march on the console market themselves now with OA. Hopefully they will still be motivated (with competition vanquished) to improve the titles for PC also.

I must confess I will quietly relish seeing a few persons who talked up DR as an ArmA-killer slink back to this forum with their hubris a little the worse for wear.