Review: OFP Dragon Rising

[Tolya]

I know that Operation Flashpoint: DR is old news, but I have just gotten around to it. First of all, its a bit different experience than Arma II. And for the lack of a better word, I would say its better. It's less hardcore, less realistic-ish and less demanding on the hardware. And a lot less buggy on the PC.

Admitting that Codemasters actually did a better job than the original Bohemia team isnt easy for me to say, really. Although there is a trade-off in scale and open endedness (battles are much smaller, you control a much smaller detachment), everything just looks like it "fits".

Arma's problem was that they essentially created a huge and beautiful world but they didn't put enough effort in programming and properly bringing it to life. AI sucks balls, animations are looped and the controls are "realolistically" laggy, making the experience sluggy. It seems that Bohemia is so stuck in their own method and mindset that they forget that they are losing the actual gameplay.

DR feels like a fresh take on the subject of an "open world" warfare. There are both pros and cons to this. The battles aren't huge and sometimes even feel downsized (marine beach landing with 2 AAVPS and maybe 10 men is just funny), the enemy is spawned when needed (at least that is my impression) rather than eating up memory while sitting 20km from the player doing nothing.

Movement is quite slick, but it feels a bit slow. I dunno, maybe thats because the FOV isn't really big, which helps in long distance engagements (over 100m, which is most of the game) but really sucks if you have to enter a building from time to time. Funny thing is that I dont see a big difference between "walking" and "sprinting" other than being unable to use your gun.

The command interface is terrible on the other hand. It wasn't perfect in OFP1 or any AA, but even still you could issue commands quickly after learning the proper combinations. The radial menu just doesn't work for complex systems. Sure, after a while you know what is where, but it takes a horrid amount of time to set up your command. You also cannot move your character while the radial menu is on, meaning that you just can't issue commands on the fly. Unit selection is also a pain in the ass. You can also issue commands on the map, which allows you to assign target which are not in your line of sight.

The good news is that the friendly AI delivers. Although in the campaign you control 4-5 units max, they react to what the hell is going on. If you issue a move command they will execute it. If you order them to assault a building they will do it. But thats on foot - it's still annoying and irritating to issue order when you are in a vehicle. Especially if you count in the fact that you have a very limited FOV range when sitting as a commander and there is no external command view like there was is in Bohemia games. AI driving is pretty good, but they made their job easier by making the terrain uniform: HMMVWs are as fast on the road as they are offroad.

Enemy AI isn't as bad. Its problem is that it is deliberately dumbed down in the area of marksmanship. I have read some of the reviews where people complained that it is too easy to die. Well, if you are accustomed to playing Diablo then yes, it is easy to die. But I had countless situations when I managed to take out 6-7 enemies while being under their direct fire. Difficulty setting only alters the HUD so the stormtrooper aim is a constant. It is easy to die, but at the same time it is hard to get hit. There are mods that fix it, but Im not sure I wan't to turn this game into a Rainbow Six-fest.

Tactically, the enemy AI isn't that bad either, although I think the overall impression is because of the way the missions are constructed. In one mission I had to bypass enemy patrols and blow up a SAM site. I set up the base of fire in a small farm overlooking the site, killed the guards, left a sniper on overwatch and blew up the site itself. I was very surprised when I saw that my sniper has been killed because the patrols that I left behind earlier heard the gunfire and moved on the farm.

Support... ahh, yes. You can call in mortars, howitzers and air support. And the artillery fire is awesome, even though a bit generic. You can literally level an entire village with one scattered howitzer strike. Each round explodes violently, leaving huge amount of smoke. After a few rounds you just stop seeing the target, there's so much smoke. Its really spectacular. Oh yeah, you call in support using the same annoying radial menu interface thingy.

Graphics are... well, dated. It is nowhere near AA2 in terms of both the graphical galore or design (well, apart from the smoke). The maps are pretty generic and uninteresting: some meadows, some hills, some houses. Tall grass everywhere. I haven't been everywhere but they could have done a better job. Buildings are destructible (happens especially when you and your squad are inside), but its not procedural, just a pre-fixed destructo-mesh. They promised destructible trees, but no joy.

Graphically, its much worse than AA2. In terms of design, its worse. In terms of immersion, it's much much worse. But the gameplay mechanics (apart from the piss poor command interfaces) and the AI is much better and it makes up for it. OFPDR isnt by any means a great game, but its still a competent time killer. Most importantly, you can play it casually and still have fun.

Still, the main problem is that it just feels downsized. Its not "be all you can be" like Arma 2, which at least tries before failing due to bugs and stupid design choices. DR just takes the easy way and does a lot of things to fool you that it is just like AA. The battlefield feels pre-programmed, there isn't much going on beside what is happening around you. Its just not the right mix of "being in the center of the action" and "being a small cog in a huge machine".

And I think I know why. DR works using the same engine that codemasters uses in games like GRID. You just can't build an open world game on a racing game engine. Its like making GTA IV with the Unreal engine. Its just lazy money-milking. That's what this game is: something to milk the franchise as much as you can before dumping it in some corporate trash bin of an unnamed suit working at an unnamed desk of an unnamed room on an unnamed floor of an unnamed building. Or near Lamington Spa.

I stopped playing AA2 in mission 3 or 4 because I was pissed off. But I appreciate a failed attempt much more than I appreciate a succesful lack of effort.

[Steel]

I thought it was utter shit.

Worse than arma 2, but that wasn't very good either, so really this was terrible.

The game isn't even a proper flashpoint game anyway. They downsized everything to the point where it is of SMALLER scope than a standard fps, and then does everything worse than a standard fps. It tries to take on the call of duties on their turf and fails miserably.

The graphics are crap, and inefficient for what they are.

The controls are unresponsive and annoying.

The AI both friendly and enemy was cripplingly awful and the q menu takes more keypresses for any order than the old system, while at the same time preventing you from moving and being less informative.

Overall the game was woeful and doesn't even have the excuse they were trying for a different style.

[Laughing Mechanicus]

The graphics are crap, and inefficient for what they are.

Say what you will about the gameplay, but have you even tried running the game on a low spec system? I actually have installed this on a couple of systems with older graphics cards, processors or limited RAM and it ran very smoothly on them at high detail levels.

The AI both friendly and enemy was cripplingly awful

I believe this was addressed in one of the later patches. No excuse for it being faulty originally, but relevant to discussing the game at this point.

[Steel]

The graphics are crap, and inefficient for what they are.

Say what you will about the gameplay, but have you even tried running the game on a low spec system? I actually have installed this on a couple of systems with older graphics cards, processors or limited RAM and it ran very smoothly on them at high detail levels.

I tried running it on my laptop which was capable of running far cry 2 on reasonable settings without problems and running MW2 with everything maxed and runs BC2 fine. The game was laggy and the controls were unresponsive even on min settings and even on better settings looked awful.

All those other games I listed look far better and (apart from MW2) have environments at least as large, while running better, hence I think its inefficient.

Perhaps that was fixed in later patches, I haven't played it since I got it a month or 2 after release.

The AI both friendly and enemy was cripplingly awful

I believe this was addressed in one of the later patches. No excuse for it being faulty originally, but relevant to discussing the game at this point.

Didn't play the latest patched versions, so perhaps it did get better.

Nothing could really save this game in patches though. At the core it really is a standard FPS. It does not have the excuse of a large scope or whatever to even deflect, much less answer, any of the criticisms that are levelled against it. BC2, a game not professing to be a large scale war sim, massively dominates DR is all areas. DR is a standard scale FPS and should be judged against its peers. In that arena it gets horribly mauled.

(Doesn't do too well against the large scope games either, due to its hilarious 63 unit limit meaning its largest battles can be outnumbered by the likes of HL or DooM...)

[Edward Yee]

In the end the lack of mod capability may have also hurt DR's lifespan -- which, by the way, has ended, whereas ARMA 2 is getting a standalone expansion, Operation Arrowhead. (There'll be a "Combined Operations" bundle of AA2/OA for $49.99.)

After Codemasters admitted that they'd given up on DR, that was it, whereas even after the announcement of ARMA 2: Operation Arrowhead, BIS is still working on ARMA 2 and releasing beta patches. I believe the latest such build is v1.05.70709, but the ARMA 2 site also has previous builds of v1.05, including the "stable" (release) version.

You had Codemasters' release and that was it, whereas there's a ridiculous amount of fan-made stuff for ARMA 2, which seems to have gotten more popularity since v1.05.

[CaptHawkeye]

I think the problem was a lot of people expected OFP:DR to literally be "Operation Flashpoint 2". It wasn't intended or designed to be. If you approach like you would approach ArmA, it's not very good. If you approach like, say, Ghost Recon or Call of Duty it's much better.

The fact that Codemasters pretty much abandoned it didn't help at all though. Oh well, at least the modders are making a genuine effort to fix ArmA 2's problems. None of them still seem to grasp the stupidity of the command system though.

And no one is able to fix the AWFUL vehicle damage system because of the way Bohemia designed the game. Nice to see they're still designing games like its 2001.

[Edward Yee]

I think the problem was a lot of people expected OFP:DR to literally be "Operation Flashpoint 2". It wasn't intended or designed to be. If you approach like you would approach ArmA, it's not very good. If you approach like, say, Ghost Recon or Call of Duty it's much better.

The use of matchmaking didn't help and possibly ruined its PC prospects, especially since it was found out in the wake of the (now understandable) Internet rage over the removal of dedicated servers for MW2, which would have already exacerbated whatever negative feelings OFP->ARMA fans might have already been feeling over the appropriation of the OFP name.

The fact that Codemasters pretty much abandoned it didn't help at all though. Oh well, at least the modders are making a genuine effort to fix ArmA 2's problems. None of them still seem to grasp the stupidity of the command system though.

It's not just the modders, Bohemia deserves credit for their own continued attempts... for what they're worth, of course. They try, they try... which is more than Codemasters. By the command system do you mean for commanding AI team members? I have wonder how much of this is leftover work on VBS2 but that slipped through the "edit for gameplay reasons" filter...

And no one is able to fix the AWFUL vehicle damage system because of the way Bohemia designed the game. Nice to see they're still designing games like its 2001.

The one thing that does actually annoy me about ARMA 2 and hasn't been modded out -- the fact that instead of modular weapons, each possible combination of weapon+attachments is treated as a separate weapon in-game, leading to much unnecessary clutter in the Gear menu.

A great example of this is Robert Hammer's recently-released Mk 18 & Mk 14 pack. The Mk 14 has a long-barreled "EBR" version and a shorter-barreled "tan" version; the EBR version can be had with three kind of sights (iron + two scopes), the "tan" one can have four kinds (iron + three optics), and of course there's suppressed versions of each. Now, this should be one or two basic weapons at most with corresponding attachments, right? Wrong, it's fourteen! In turn there's also twenty-five variations on the Mk 18 depending on color, optics, and whether there's an attached M203 or a suppressor. One of those variations is just a vanilla Mk 18 with an AN/PEQ-2 on the 12 o'clock rail... and I'm not sure said module even works in-game.

Oh yeah, thanks to how the gear system works, the only way to even get one of the aforementioned thirty-nine weapons is to either grab a dropped one or to use the Gear command while aiming at an instance of the "RH Mk18 weapons" cache (Empty->Ammo Box) in the game world. While it may be eventually integrated into one of the ammo boxes used by other mods, there seems to be a fundamental limitation not allowing players to get said weapons from the regular game's ammo boxes, even when running said mod (which is the weapons and the ammo box).

I haven't seen the vehicle damage system in vanilla ARMA 2 nor am I aware of how ACE2 (aka "THE mod for ARMA 2") changes that, but in Operation Arrowhead there appears to be locational damage for vehicles as well; screenshots of piloted vehicles now list components separately (i.e. hull, turret, right tread, left tread) instead of just showing a single "armor" bar.

[CaptHawkeye]

Component damage in ArmA is nothing, the problem is that the overall damage model is still based on hitpoints. Their is no logic for armour penetration beyond "100 damage". The game doesn't care about impact angle, shell quality, reactive armour, etc. ACE team tried to fix it but basically said the damage system is so deeply ingrained in the game engine you'd have to rebuild the game from the ground up to fix it.

[Edward Yee]

Component damage in ArmA is nothing, the problem is that the overall damage model is still based on hitpoints. Their is no logic for armour penetration beyond "100 damage". The game doesn't care about impact angle, shell quality, reactive armour, etc. ACE team tried to fix it but basically said the damage system is so deeply ingrained in the game engine you'd have to rebuild the game from the ground up to fix it.

... so basically Silent Hunter-type but more ingrained? Oh boy. Wouldn't be surprised if that's part of the reason for Operation Arrowhead...

I do have to wonder how modding/compatibilities would work for OA compared to A2. As it is, the main sort of support I would like from BIS after OA is at least to bring some of the coding improvements from OA back into vanilla through patching. (Incidentally there was this one time that one of the ACE members seemed to threaten to ragequit from working on A2 if BIS kept some of the changes they'd implemented in one of the beta patches, since the "flyboys" were benefiting while ground-pounders were getting nerfed in terms of graphics performance. )

Unfortunately the situation I mentioned with the weapons isn't getting any better -- fans are already requesting more Mk 14 variants. I also think that the gear/weapon-type system is staying in OA -- a recent screenshot showed a "M249 TWS."