Operation Flashpoint: Red River
Codemasters shy away from the word simulation when it comes to the Operation Flashpoint series. And rightly so. A war simulation would be rubbish. You'd probably just be stuck in the desert for months, have to poo into a sandy, makeshift toilet, only get to Skype your Missus once a week and eventually stumble onto an IED and get your legs blown off. That's not much fun is it?
No, it isn't. Yet, despite my hugely inappropriate flippancy, and Codemasters' reluctance to use the sim tag, Operation Flashpoint has always been geared more towards an ostensibly realistic experience. What this means in practical terms is that it's chuffing hard. While Call of Duty has you running around like a one man army, Flashpoint has always been about crawling through cover, only ever a single bullet from death.
The feeling of realism survives in Codemasters' latest iteration of the series, Operation Flashpoint: Red River. Yet it has been toned down somewhat. Now, the focus is more towards creating a fun experience. The result is an FPS with wide open areas, vehicles, levelling abilities and a distinct lack of bullet-sponge enemies. It's not entirely unlike Battlefield.
The series fans will no doubt be disappointed. But for them there's an entirely HUD-free, souped-up Hardcore mode that harks back to the game's roots.
Here's the set-up. Red River is set in the dusty environs of Tajikistan, a Middle-Eastern country bordering Afghanistan. It's an alternate 2013, where the US Marines have been moved in to squash a civil war. But with American forces so close to China, the People's Liberation Army start getting twitchy and send their troops in too. Playing as a Marine, you'll engage in battles against both factions.
Regardless, the marine squad you play as have been on duty for some time. As a result, their kit is worn and customised. Their guns are patched and taped up. There's character, basically, in their design, a nice way to differentiate the look from the hundreds of other military shooters out there.
Similarly, the environments manage to eke out some uniquely stunning vistas from a familiar dusty Middle-Eastern setting. Huge and expansive, the Tajikistan countryside is surrounded by a dramatic, looming mountain range. It looks pretty great.
All of which tells you nothing about the game itself. The purpose of the preview demo was to show off the game's newly announced four-player co-op, which stands in place of competitive multiplayer and apart from the campaign, which is itself playable with up to three friends. There were three modes to chose from, Last Stand, Combat Sweep and Rolling Thunder, each offering a neat twist on established forms.
Last Stand was first. It's essentially a Horde-esque wave defense mode. Picking from either rifleman, grenadier, scout or auto-rifleman classes, you have to hold a small brick hut with outhouses from attacking insurgents. But here's the twist. You can only bank the points you've accrued once you've survived a wave, called in a chopper and extracted from the location. Die before you do that and it's all over. Nil point.
The map we played was huge. Indeed, in the first couple of waves at least, anything less than a scoped rifle would have left you a long way from the action. Unless you were foolish enough to wander out of the relative safety of the base, that is. During these early stages, enemies were but a spot in the distance. Picking them off meant taking into account the moon, the Earth's curve, the wind and tectonic shift, or something. I forget the correct phrase. Basically you just have to aim slightly above their heads.
Later, however, as the tension mounts, you'll get insurgents popping over the hills on your flank, getting perilously close to your location. All the while, bullets and missiles burst around your head. In the immortal words of JLS, it only takes one shot. Or maybe a couple, but that doesn't sound as good. You're constantly just millimetres from death.
Combat Sweep, meanwhile, is relatively straight-forward, tasking you with scouting enemy controlled zones and blasting anyone that gets in your way. Thanks to the game's unique qualities, however, this means relatively slow, methodical, well-planned progress is the only way forward.
Which brings us to Rolling Thunder, probably the highlight of all the modes. Here you must make it along a potholed Tajikistan road in convoy, all the while remaining alert to attack. If you come under fire, you'll have to jump out of the trucks and defeat your enemies, before getting back in again and continuing on your way. But here's the rub. You only get points while the convoy is moving. When it isn't, your total slowly ticks down.
What this does is create pressure to execute skirmishes quickly, while the game itself rewards a relatively slow tactical approach. It pushes you to slip up, basically, creating a nifty little risk/reward tension. It looks to be the pick of the bunch.
Across all these modes, one of the four players will be given the role of squad leader, issuing commands, laying waypoints and such. Yet, really, nothing can take the place of verbal communication. While it may not have the hardcore approach of previous iterations, you'll still be quickly brought down if you go lone wolf. Better get your headsets ready.
So yeah, Operation Flashpoint: Red River looks pretty good. It may be experiencing a tiny bit of an identity crisis as it shifts into more approachable territory, but what I've seen so far is solid and engaging, with enough of its own character to warrant a closer look. It's certainly more fun than pooping in a sandy hole in the desert, anyway.
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