Operation Flashpoint Red River Review
Developer Codemaster’s
Publisher Codemaster’s
Platform PS3/Xbox360/PC
Release Date Out now.
The year is 2013 and the setting is Tajikistan, nestled nicely in between Afghanistan and China. Us Marines are on the ground trying to root out the last of the insurgents when they suddenly find themselves in a standoff with the People’s Liberation Army (China).
As the game opens you are treated to a short history lesson of the conflict in the area explaining where you are, and why the Marines are there. This sets up the storyline for the campaign and as soon as you hit the ground you are greeted with a mix of sheer brilliance mixed with sheer incompetence.
Red River comes as a welcome relief to the over saturated FPS market. The flashpoint series is synonymous with recreating the realistic day to day experiences that Marines have to face on the ground. The previous instalment Dragon Rising was met with a mixed response, while it looked amazing it did have a lot of issues with both enemy and team AI.
Red River sets out to address these issues, and while the AI is not nearly as bad as Dragon Rising it is fair to say it still struggles from time to time. As mentioned you will have moments of sheer brilliance, when your team mates work together and you plough through the hour long missions moving methodically from point to point clearing out the insurgent strong holds. When everything works you will struggle to find a better tactical shooter experience on console at the moment.
But the moments of sheer incompetents will simply astound you when they happen. Your team mates will go from completely ignoring your orders either refusing point blank to follow you, or will do mind-blowingly daft things such as leaving a safe position behind cover to run out into wide open spaces to get shot to bits. This happened so often in the beginning that for the first three missions I was little more than a medic running around patching them up.
Generally the game plays a lot better when you sit back and can send your team mates out ahead of you to clear buildings and flush out the enemy, as you offer them the covering support they need.
When your team does go AWOL it will drive you mad, but you soon come to realise that in close combat less is more when it comes to giving orders to your squad. Concentrate on your own job and if they do get killed they are simply brought back from the dead at the beginning of the next mission anyway, which is good as they die quite often.
Red River does have many redeeming factors, it looks stunning, despite the locations being little more than dusty deserts, Codemasters have been able to make them look really appealing. The gameplay (apart from the AI) is excellent. It’s the small touches like the bullet drop and the peeking out from cover that are really nicely implemented and make all the difference.
No Multiplayer this time which comes as no surprise after it was dropped only six months into the release of Dragon Rising but it does feature a brilliant 4 play co-op mode which manages to eradicate most of the technical difficulties with team AI mentioned above. While I fully enjoyed the single player campaign on my own I am totally hooked on the co-op mode.
Overall: Still not without its problems but the series is getting better and more comfortable with itself on the consoles. The moments when the game works are some of the finest you will experience in a modern shooter. The moments when it doesn’t are also some of the most frustrating you will experience in a modern shooter.
I have gone through the full spectrum of emotions from initially hating the game to coming to love it. Yes it’s flawed, yes you will curse at your team mates more than once, but it still has a certain charm and hidden brilliance that sucks you right in.
SCORE “C” Very Good Game
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