Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising

Wo-a-wo, you're in the Army now.

Joining the Army - it's not for everyone. For us, the risk of death is a bit of a turn off alongside all the fresh air, vigorous exercise and ruthless discipline required to shape up for a life of perilous danger on the frontline. Thank goodness then for games like Operation Flashpoint that allow us to see down the iron sights of a soldier in a realistic battlefield situation, without the associated consequences.

Dumped into the steel-toe capped boots of the leader of a four-man squad, you're stationed on the fictional island of Skira where Chinese PLA forces have been warring with Russia over oil reserves (what else?). With the PLA setting up encampments all over Skira's 220 square kilometre expanse, your job is to weed them out using advanced military tactics lifted straight out of the US Marine Corps handbook.

Resorting to console-friendly pop-up radial menus - that might slightly displease the dedicated PC crowd - issuing orders to your team is both simple and streamlined, making establishing and executing your strategies reasonably effortless. The AI is such you're your men almost always carry out their commands with military efficiency, (bar the odd mistake now and again) which is handy given the nature of the game.

It's also essential that your team do as they're told since Dragon Rising is a hugely demanding game that often involves slow and steady progress in mounting a smartly planned assault upon enemy targets. No Call of Duty-style running and gunning here. A single bullet can be fatal, so crawling through grass in a prone position is normally the best approach for remaining hidden as you shimmy into the optimum position for attack - normally as far away as possible.

For the less patient player, there are a number of gameplay assists that ease the steep difficulty curve somewhat, so where the full-fat unassisted gameplay settings remove the HUD, checkpoints and any kind of valuable feedback, the lower difficulty levels furnish you with all of the above. As the unassisted experience proved too strong for our lily-livered, console-biased palette however, we opted to play with the help switched on. Dying face down in the dirt with a cranial puncture wound and no checkpoint to fall back upon is too bitter a pill to swallow when you've worked your arse off to painstakingly complete an objective only to die and have to start over.

For the devoted military FPS aficionado however, playing through each of the campaign missions free of checkpoints or help of any kind offers up a sadistic test that undoubtedly sorts the Army men from the Army boys. Despite the additional challenge, the AI always remains constant, regardless of whether you play with assistance on or off. The enemy puts up just as much of a fight on the lower difficulties as they do on the undiluted Hardcore mode.

Whichever way you slice it though, Op Flash 2 is an incredibly tough game, even when you consider that its predecessor and contemporary genre stablemate ArmA II (both developed by Bohemia) are marginally more unforgiving. Still, there are very few concessions against realism in Dragon Rising, and what compromises have been made in making Op Flash 2 a little less daunting for newcomers, ultimately serve in alleviating the frustrations that come with mission failure. Finishing the game is actually possible with an adequate investment of time and perseverance.

A checkpoint resurrecting fallen comrades makes no sense whatsoever for instance, but we welcome the addition nonetheless. Besides, if you happen to take issue with respawning squad members or visual aids, then they can easily be switched off if you insist on experiencing the game in all its unabated, hyper-real glory. Just don't come crying to us when you're riddled with bullets and left for dead on a hilltop.

In the event that you do start losing blood - normally from a shot to the limbs or torso - a red gauge appears in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen indicating how much claret you've got left coursing through your ruptured arteries. Swiftly applying a tourniquet from your field medikit to the affected area is of paramount importance therefore, lest you end up a drained pallid corpse lying in the grass. Just don't expect a whole lot of aid from your teammates - you'll usually need to patch yourself up, soldier.

Learning to think and react like a real-life soldier gradually becomes second nature as you battle your way through each increasingly harsh and exacting trial hurled your way. The more you play, the better you'll get. Things start off gently enough, easing you in with a straightforward search and destroy mission, where you and your team are tasked with taking out a SAM site before calling in a laser-guided air strike on an enemy inhabited beachfront village. But soon, the ante is upped significantly as you're sent on fraught night time infiltration operations where stealth is key and using your map to formulate a plan is integral.

Early on, windows detailing the controls occasionally spring up where relevant to ensure that you're acquainted with the waypoint markers and intricate functions that you'll come to rely on, hidden beneath the layers of clearly presented menus. Nothing is ever more than a quick press of a button away, which is testament to how expertly adapted Codemasters' in-house dev team has mapped the intricate PC control system to the control pad.

Your basic FPS controls are nice and intuitive, with the more complicated commands and extra functions such as fire rate adjustment, night vision or infrared placed on the right shoulder button and D-pad respectively. Hardened PC gamers might bemoan the sequel's increased focus on accessibility as an effort to appeal to the short attention spans of the couch potato gamer (which is admittedly the case), but the resulting game is one that is massively playable on whatever platform you choose to enjoy it.

Op Flash 2 might be in its element on mouse and keys, but it's heartening to see that the PS3 and Xbox 360 hasn't been palmed off with a watered-down version of the game. Visually, Dragon Rising looks functionally pretty across the board, generally free of any major glitches. Impressive given the island's grand scale and 30-kilometre draw distance. Codies' EGO Engine that also powers the remarkably good-looking DiRT series produces equally spectacular results across the entirety of Skira's vast landscape.

Simultaneously engaging and fun to play, Op Flash 2 will be enjoyed by all but the most staunch realism pedant. Given the slight scaling back of the unremittingly harsh difficulty of the first game, this sequel boasts more than enough authenticity to replicate more than just a modicum of what real war might be like. Certainly enough to give you a moment's pause in considering just how bloody awful it must be for a soldier engaged in actual combat. No mean feat, we think you'll agree.

85%

By Richard Walker