Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising

Yeah, yeah. Ha ha!

You'd probably have a better chance than you would if you played [Call of Duty]. Ha ha. No hiding behind rocks to get better in real life, I tell you.

The very nature of the game, and I mean this in the nicest possible way, is a hyped event. It's kind of like the Michael Bay of videogames. Its budget, its sales, all these kind of things - it is a huge game. But if you're worried that about kind of thing then nobody would ever make games - there would only be one football game, one shooter game and one platform. It's healthy to have competition.

I don't actually think we're in the same place as Modern Warfare 2, anyway. We're a different creature. We'll probably get people buying [our game] and Modern Warfare 2 as well. There's a market for both. I really see Modern Warfare 2 as Hollywood and we're the Cannes, the arty documentary - dare I say the reportage-style thing. So, two very different creatures. But [Modern Warfare] is a great game. I'll be buying it, I'll be playing it and I'm sure you will as well.

It's going to be interesting, and I wouldn't be surprised to see a few nods to our game in there - we saw a lot of the Infinity Ward developers playing our game at E3, which was quite nice.

Yeah, heh heh - be queuing up! Heh heh.

Onwards and upwards, hopefully. I'm relatively confident - I'm very confident that this game's going to be successful. We've got the DLC that we're working on in the studio itself, and we're always looking ahead, prototyping new ideas and new stuff. We've got a whole studio here dedicated to making s***-hot first-person shooters. We've got a great team and they're all very talented and they're actually working now on stuff we never got to fully prototype, etc. It's a really nice phase at the minute, working through some of the features we didn't get in the first title.

But as far as the franchise is concerned: Codemasters views it as one its strongest, and certainly moving forward I imagine it's going to be in our portfolio for the duration.

I've spent 23 years in the army, of which my early years were with the infantry. I spent a large period of time working for the military police in the special investigation branch, which is the Army's equivalent of the CID I suppose.

Yes, I'm afraid for my sins I'm a 45-year-old 17-year-old, if that makes sense?

Yeah [laughs].

I've done nothing. All they've asked me to do is review Flashpoint from the perspective of an ex-serving infantry-stroke-soldier. They wanted me to look at the reality, I suppose, although why everyone has to use Marine Corps tactics I don't know - probably because it's done more in The States. It's a wee bit sad.

They're just different, really.

[Operation Flashpoint] has got the American Field Manuals, which are the American Bibles, they've got those absolutely sorted. No problem at all. Brilliant stuff.

Yes. A long time ago. I'm a veteran of the Balkans wars. I'm not an Afghanistan veteran.