I´m not a big blogger around here, I know that, you know that and I don’t have a lot of friends… sniff.
But let´s talk about some great game that got me into spending some time writing this. If you are anywhere near to this game you should at least give it a try.



The first Operation Flashpoint was too much for my taste, I got to acknowledge that I got into a point in the game were the level of difficulty was too steep for me to handle so I dropped it; checkpoints were too far apart, I wanted to have fun and not keep a trial an error formula. Let’s remember that this is supposed to be a war simulator, and Operation Flashpoint was perhaps one of the first of its class (don’t forget the first Rainbow Six, that did a very good job too).

So I had high hopes for ArmA2 for example that is also war simulators that come out for the PC not too long ago. The main issue with that game was that it felt like a game with a lot of work needed to be done, very buggy, at least the single player experience was incredible buggy, and I felt like a beta tester. I had to leave ArmA2 to be finished by their own developer (they have released a lot of patches since then, I will go and try it again in a few months).


Lets just say that ArmA2 looked good.

So ArmA2 was a bit of a disappointment. No worries, Operation Flashpoint 2 (or Dragon Raising if you want to call it that way), is out now and is a great war simulator. Graphically is not nearly as impressive as the engine the guys from ArmA2 had there (you have to give them that one), but is more easy to control your squad, to keep track on what the hell is going on and to finish the objectives. And also it seems more polished, from the single player experience at least you don’t have such a buggy ride. On the other hand the AI is not fantastic, is pretty good, but you will see enemies and allies doing stupid things. They usually know how to get to cover, but I have run into some weird situations already.




The story is pretty standard, China needs an island that has oil and that belongs to Russia. USA jumps in and you are that guy with a squad that will follow your orders. So far with me the experience is to secure some strategic points (three missions over a total of 20), but I don’t know how it will play out in the end.

The island is big, very big. You can do whatever you want but that will probably get you killed. Anyway you will find vehicles for moving around and giving the mission a nice twist. That’s the part that I love, you can mess around a mission and it will play out different every time. Call some artillery or mortar strike when you can and watch the fireworks. Capture a jeep with your squad and use it so you don’t have to walk so much.


You may not see them but they are there.

Besides some things that I have read about the AI I can tell you that dying can be frustrating. The title has not lost that trial and error of the first one. Interesting isn’t it? Checkpoints seem to be well placed, but on the other hand you may have to walk five minutes because you died in a sticky situation. Just try to avoid doing the same thing again and that should be ok.
You won’t always see the enemy, but for that at least you have something to tell you were they are and you should thank your squad members for that. 100 meters is also a long distance, you will even have to rise that crosshair a bit since actual munitions drops in the distance.

I hope that they release some SDK so the community can start working on custom missions. In the original Operation Flashpoint the multiplayer was a lot of fun because some friend could work on a custom mission for us to play.