https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdfyEDmGqaE&feature=player_embedded
Basically the game has an economical beginning, China wants more resources, and they want control of a Oil gold mine of an Island located just off the coast of Japan, Russia, and China called "Skira".

Pro-
The mechanics of the game aren't anything new. If you've played a Flashpoint game, your not missing out on much. Let alone, if you've played a realistic military shooter, your not missing much at all either. Usually in Military Simulators as a theme the gameplay is always slowed down a whole lot. Another thing, if you get shot, usually you die. This game takes a different approach however. In traditional games, you get shot and you lose HP. In recent games, you get shot, take cover, and magically become better. In military shooters, you get shot and if your lucky you've survived the wound and continue on with the mission and you don't feel better till you've completed it. Operation Flashpoint has a unique system of healing I've never seen before in a game and I'd like to see it in future military shooters. Basically, if your lucky and you don't die from a headshot (which is the only real way to die in 1 shot) you'll start bleeding out. You have about 1 minute to patch up your wounds before you die from blood loss. So while in combat or after, you'll have to address field dressing to yourself, or teammates. So you may be thinking it's defeating the purpose of medics right? Wrong, you can get hit so severely you can't heal yourself and you'll slowly bleed out, however while bleeding out you can call for a medic (so remember kids, if you get shot so hard you fall down and you can't help yourself, you will be able to call for somebody else and squirm in pain). However, calling for a medic is where the game goes FAR SOUTH...

Con-
Medics play a huge role, when someone is incapacitated and can't fight or help themselves, the medic moves over to that person, and basically gives them an adrenaline needle and their back on their- Torso (they just get off their back and roll over on to their chest... it keeps you outta combat). However when playing with a bot, I found this really annoying. Of the 4 times I've been incapacitated with a medic still alive and near me (yeah I kept count because it pissed me off so badly I stopped playing for a bit) the medic would crawl towards me, crouch, walk away, crawl back towards me, crouch and just stand a few inches from my body and return fire until I spammed medic, then he did that walk away, crawl towards me shit again... That's not the only instance of bad programming I've noticed. Upon completing one mission I had to get in a Helicopter and get evac'd, what happened? I got in the helicopter with my squad, cleared the evac; then enemies spawned LATE. So basically, I had to kill bad guys that I avoided earlier because they came back to haunt me, and even though I completed the mission, I still had to kill them, for that helicopter to know to fly away. Which brings me to the final Pro/Con...

Pro & Con-
Sometimes in a game there are things that make the game unique and interesting, and the just plain stupid and not worth your time. In this case, the entire level... Skira. You can go virtually ANYWHERE you like on this fictional island. Codemasters did a brilliant job at make this fictional island and bringing it to life, not to mention it's too frickin' big at times. Some missions, like when where you have to try and evade enemies, I chose to go along the outskirts of the map and it took me nearly 20 minutes to get across, and there's no vehicles to use or anything! It's not to bad, considering that it makes for flanking strategies and it really slows down the gameplay. And the original Flashpoint was all about the ballistics (bullets dropping after a certain distance) and the difficulty of making a 200 yard shot. The game definitely did a good job making this a realistic military simulator, but if I wanted to spend 20 minutes running around some giant ass hills looking for something to shoot... I'd go hunting. Codemasters did a good job with keeping the frame rate up and the environment never really disappointed me. It's easy to identify friendlies and the smoke looks beautiful... in an artistic way.

Con-
The final con I have for the game, is the inventory and how you switch. Sometimes I've been in combat, been shot and went to equip my field dressing in the middle of combat, now even though that's a red flag as it is, I was in cover. I accidentally selected my binoculars and it took me (no joke) 5 seconds to both put away my weapon then pull out Binoculars, I eventually go to my field dressing but it took a total of 10 seconds. This would be a very bad thing in combat considering what if I took cover, starting applying field dressing and an enemy rounded the corner and I was to busy trying to pull out field dressing. Perhaps if the developers let me access my inventory then pull out the item half way through pulling something else out. In other words, I'm taking cover and I hear an enemy coming. I am already putting away my weapon for some grenades, let me press the B button to interupt the grenade selection and get my weapon back out. In combat I wouldn't pull out a grenade, wait till I've completely pulled it out to pull out my weapon, let alone I wouldn't completely put away my weapon for a grenade, if I had a sling I'd just let it rest on my chest. I understand this is to slow the combat pace down, but it's not good to have it go at a snails pace considering the advertising (as seen in the Launch Trailer above) makes the game look like an adrenaline needle and reality had sex and this game was their child.

Overall I'd recommend this game to people who want to join the military or are sick of shooters that require a cum load of skill, I enjoyed it and the replay value definitely lies in the multiplayer. The programming is awful however, and many things in the game needs work as far as AI, but I kind of expected it considering how large and vast the environment is.

Operation Flashpoint Dragon Rising
Developer: Codemasters
Publisher: Codemasters
Engine: Ego 2.0

Overall Score: 7 out of 10

Concept: See bad guys, shoot them, and baby sit your teammates, what else is new for a military simulator?
Gameplay: Super Slow motion compared to Modern Warfare and most of today's shooters.

Oh we're doing reviews now?
Thanks for this. I've never even heard of Flashpoint, might cheack it out.

Not reviews, just an analysis with a recommendation and judgment at the end.

KAS--Will wrote:Not reviews, just an analysis with a recommendation and judgment at the end.

So...reviews?

Exactly.

Sweet

I also wanted to add. You can most appreciate this game when you go at it thinking like, "This is a test to see how well I'd survive in a real conflict." Unlike MW2, you do better when you strategize and you literally can notice quickly you become more combat effective the more you play.