War As Seen Through The Lens
Operation Flashpoint 2: Dragon Rising is the sequal to the 2001 military simulator, Cold War Crisis. The difference this time round is that Codemasters is Developing with Bohemia out of the picture, this change has shifted it from "Military Simulator" to "Tactical First Person Shooter". However do not fret, this change is a far cry from a bad one, instead we get a more streamlined experience that manages to bring back the same "One Shot Can Kill" intensity that the first game brought to us on the PC those many years ago. Although this is where the underlying problem of OFP 2 lay, the game is not as "Hardcore" as the first one and many purists may be put off by this although they sure would be missing out on the most unique FPS of this year. Graphically the game is on par with many sandbox games in that it has to sacrifice some visual flare in order to generate the massive battlefields that the player will be fighting on and so is excused for some of its very slight visual short comings. On the audio front, this game is a brrutal "Tour De Force" of modern day combat with mortar fire whistling over head and apache gunships bringing hell down on your enemies, its beautiful. Operation Flashpoint 2 isnt without its short comings however, namely the intelligence of your fire team and PLA advisaries in that you could compare them to a fruit....a mushy one at that, although they seem perfectly adept at hitting you from 1000 metres away no problem. The vehicles (of which there are many) handle pretty poorly ironicly considering this is the same company who made the recent DiRT 2. Overall Operation Flashpoint 2: Dragon Rising is a breath of fresh air on the crowded FPS genre in that it will make you fear the virtual bullets speeding towards your fragile human body.
