Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising Comments by John Walker

Apologie wrote:
16-Apr-09 17:49:40
"Killzone 2 is the best, most impressive FPS ever... newcomers have to be fucking epic to rival Guerrilas work of art."

I worked on that game so I'm glad people like it so much :) but people really shouldn't compare Killzone 2 with Operation Flashpoint, they're totally different game styles. KZ2 is a linear FPS in the traditional style. Sure you have some tactical options but it's mostly about giving the player a series of exciting firefights and encounters on a set path. Operation Flashpoint is an open world military sim that gives players the choice of how they approach the objective and which tools they use. I'm a huge fan of the series and I'm hoping Codemasters will retain the freedom, versatility, complexity and mission design of the original but can bring the AI and physics up to 2009 standards. If they can then this game will be epic!

I'm all for realism so long as it's balanced with gameplay. Modern warfare games have a tendancy to pitch fights at long range with "fire & forget" lock-on systems where you never really get a good close-up look at the enemy (one of the reasons why I prefer WW2). It is frustrating to get repeatedly sniped at long range and having no idea where to counter-attack. Realistic, but no fun. So radars and kill-cams try to compensate for this (Bad Company has a good spotting system). Also, in real warfare air/armour supremacy can be key. Experts in these weapon systems shouldn't dominate the game (as they may do in real life and other games). So helicopter controls should be pretty tricky and their availability limited (again in real life there are many foot soldiers and few helos). Kicking bad players off the system is a bad idea - turn to realism for a solution - with freindly fire switched on, anyone who shoots their own team would get shot by their team mates. He adjusts his gameplay or doesn't get to play.As to bunny hopping/dancing head-shot avoidance strategies - movement kills - lie prone and you live! ALL games should have user defined controls and fast (60 fps?) frame rates!

I also do not understand why Codemasters released only a few information abou this great game. I think that it will be more funny and less unpolished than ArmaII. I played Operation Flashpoint a lot - it was great game an I spent a lot of time with this game- than came Armed Assault I was really looking forward on this game but I was hardly dissapointed - lot of bugs and it was "strange game " this game was not the follower of old good Flashpoint and bugfest ArmaAII is also not. I believe that the follower of old Flashpoint will be OFP:DR :-)