Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising (PC)

Great game, shame about the campaign
10/23/2009 4:06 PM | 3 Comments | Page 1 of 2

Perhaps the best thing you can say about Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising is that there isn't anything quite like it available for console systems. This descendent of Bohemia Interactive Studio's realistic tactical military shooter for PCs is unique for how it deploys into your living room. Previously, you had to sit at a desk to experience this brand of long-range, one-shot-kill, roam-the-countryside shooter. Now you can see what all the thrill and frustration is about without ever having to lay your hand on a mouse. And it all works about as well as it works on a PC.

Operation Execution

And there's the problem. Like Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis and ArmA: Armed Assault before it, this is one of those ambitious military sims that had a tough time with the transition from idea to execution. Even in the console versions there are weird common glitches. If I had a nickel for every mysteriously floating gun, I could probably afford a replacement helicopter for the one lying on its side instead of hovering overhead to provide fire support.

To be fair, it's no ArmA II. For the most part, Codemasters has done an admirable job making Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising play like it's supposed to play. Part of how it did this is with careful, sometimes brittle, and often brutal scripting. There are no sprawling open-objective road trips like the ill-fated Operation Manhattan in ArmA II.

Instead, there are carefully contained objectives with wide gaps between them. The campaign missions are structured like a line of hourglasses set end-to-end. Objectives are very narrow requirements -- usually a matter of killing a very specific thing -- but the spaces between them are broad and open. You can work your way toward the next objective however you want, and you often have a variety of approaches. For instance, you can shoot your way into a compound to kill an officer or you can sit on a distant hilltop to call in an artillery strike. As long as he dies, you've accomplished the objective.

But these narrowly defined objectives get to be a problem when you throw in hidden pitfalls and frustrating checkpoints. All that hard work you did crossing the wide-open part of the scenario is liable to be undone many times over. Dragon Rising is ostensibly about beating the Chinese. But it's more precisely about beating scripting. Let me illustrate this by laying out one of the early missions that drove me out of the living room onto my PC, where I could use a cheat code to get past it. And, frankly, it's a pretty sad shooter that drives me to use a cheat code.

Operation Heartbreak

The primary objective in this mission is to support the forward elements of an amphibious invasion. A secondary objective is to defend armored vehicles, called AFVs, pushing inland. The mission starts with you on the coast, running ahead of the AFVs to take out enemy infantry armed with anti-tank missiles. This is effectively a timed mission since the AFVs are just going to push inland no matter what you do. You're liable to lose one or two of them to anti-tank missiles, but no biggie, since they're just a secondary objective. C'est la guerre.

Once that's done, you have to destroy spotters on a hilltop calling in mortar fire. You might lose another AFV in the process, but those guys aren't helping anymore. Plus the c'est la guerre thing.

Now that you've taken out the hilltop spotters, you have a great vantage point on a village. Your next task is to root out infantry with handheld surface-to-air missiles. There's a whole mess of these guys, appearing sequentially in the same scripted locations. This encourages you to work your way around the perimeter of the village, constantly under fire. The last set of SAM troops triggers a time limit. If you don't kill them in time, your helicopter is shot down and you get reset to the last checkpoint on the hilltop.

OK, once all that is done, you've secured the village. But the mission isn't over. Now you have to defend it from a counterattack. A transport helicopter lands and reinforcements disembark. They spread out into the village. Your job is to cover the eastern approach. A convenient gun emplacement will help you out. After all the skulking about for so long, the mission is almost over and now you get a shooting gallery with lots of firepower! Exciting stuff! You arrange your team into line formation, tell it to fire at will, and train your sights down the road. At this point, Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising is pegging the upper limit of the awesome meter.

Operation Outnumbered, Outgunned, Outflanked

Now I'm going to fast-forward to my 10th attempt at this part of the mission. Ten times I've failed and been reset to the last checkpoint. What happens every time is that the troops who just arrived via helicopter don't hold up their end of the bargain. They get killed and I eventually have dudes attacking me from the right, left and rear, in addition to the dudes coming down the road from the east. In a game this lethal, my four-man team can't hold up against those odds. It's tactically untenable.

So after going online to find out how other people got past this part, I discover the mission is punishing me for not keeping the AFVs alive way back at the beginning. Because at this point, I'm supposed to have one of them in the village to help with defense. And this means going all the way back to the beginning of the mission, replaying it a few times until I get to this point with at least one AFV alive for me to drive over the hill so it can help out.