In 2009, we witnessed a duel of the former “fellow soldiers” – Bohemia Interactive And Codemasters. The first did Arma 2 , The second – Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Riding.
In the “Flashpoint year” nomination, the ultrahardkornaya Arma 2 – of: DR turned out to be a completely standard console shooter with auto -inflating and short arcade missions. In Dragon Rising, the series finally got rid of a million bugs, an intricate interface, exclusivity for PC and other incomprehensible to simple mortal things … But together with the hardcore, Operation Flashpoint has lost its individuality.
Suddenly, the developers realized that instead of the legendary military simulator, the military FPS of the second echelon was in their hands: in the current state, could still argue with a remake Medal of Honor , But about the laurels Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Or about sales Call of Duty: Black Ops It remains only to dream.
At the drain of rivers
Continuation of Dragon Rising, Operation Flashpoint: Red River , preparing for the exit in the second quarter of 2011. The problem, in our opinion, is exactly one – Codemasters tries to maintain relations with realism without parting with arcade ambitions. On the one hand, the setting for the game has been chosen even more strange and non -profit. On the other hand, the developers rely on the through cooperative and consider the zombie series Left 4 Dead A role model.
Despite the fact that our main opponent is still the People's Liberation Army of China, the action of the sequel is happening … in Tajikistan.
“On the one hand, Tajikistan is Afghanistan, and on the other-China, so from a political and strategic point of view this is an ideal setting for a military-fantastic shooter of a nearby sight”. The fighting will be carried out between the group of American Tropicanza Casino marines abandoned into the country and the Chinese army (the Americans traditionally invade the country under the pretext of relieving the threat of terrorism; and the Chinese, so that the United States does not begin to infringe on their interests, also introduce troops).
So far, all the information known to us about the futuristic Tajikistan Red River fits into the concept art model with the image of a burning dam on the title (red) Vakhsh River. Son Landon swears that in a small country that does not have the sea in the foothills of the Pamir, you can find “other attractions”, but has not yet admitted which exactly.
Wikipedia does not encourage: 93% of the territory of Tajikistan is occupied by mountains, and grassy and semi -custody prevail among vegetation. There is nowhere more realistic, in general.
Chinese Versus Zombies
According to the creative director of the Red River, Syon Landon, the games now have a clear oversupply of the living dead … But are the Chinese such an original enemy compared to zombies?
Mass
Left 4 Dead
New Flying Zombies – infected citizens with burning eyes, very quickly attacking a huge variegated (clown noses, protective overalls) in a crowd … They also have tanks – even if they are not real armored vehicles, but giant mutants with a very thick skin, but thousands of trampled players from this Not easier. The appearance of the "tank" turns any L4D map into TiananMen.
Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Riding
In military simulators, in principle, it does not matter to whom to shoot at is still the faces (and an eye cut) of the enemy. So, small figures in modern combat equipment. The fact that our opponent on the island of Skira is still the PLAC, becomes noticeable only when the characteristic outlines of armored vehicles enters the battle or when we remove the Chinese clone of the Kalashnikov assault rifle from the next corpse.
Strategic
Plants vs. Zombies
In the RTS genre (well, or at least the tower of Tower Defense), the zombies managed to organize a serious multifunctional army. Although its backbone is classic (it. George Romero) leisurely dead, he is supported by zombies of different branches of troops (divers, catapults, aircraft in balloons), zombie sportsmen and zombified Michael Jackson. Even without atomic weapons, this is a very dangerous opponent!
Command & Conquer: Generals
Quite unexpectedly, China appears on the side of good: together with the United States, against terrorists from Goa. Agree, this is the same as if the zombies united with werewolves against vampires. China in C& C is equipped no worse than monsters from PVZ: “MiGs”, flamethrower tanks and nuclear warheads … According to the technical characteristics, the Slow Chinese – the victory for the PLA is achieved by a measured, sluggish attack on the enemy.
Avant -garde
Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare
A mixture of traditional slow and accelerated (dangerous even for cowboys with a quick reaction) zombies, not to mention the radioactive spitting variety, zombie medals and zombie kuguars … In the Addon, Red DEAD RedMption with all these creatures has to be fought not in cities, but in rural wilderness – begless night, without a single large building in the vicinity. There, you know, and without living dead it is very uncomfortable!
Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days
Not the entire Chinese nation seeks to break into parts of all the alien meters. In the non -tourist areas of Shanghai, the offensive racist stereotypes are just white Kane and Lynch, past which Chinese office drones calmly go to work … In the shadow of lifting cranes and skyscrapers, in the natural environment, only special varieties of the Chinese are dangerous – gangsters and police are dangerous.
Total Callofdom
Red River gameplay almost does not differ from Dragon Rising-the same levels of realism (the higher, the less visual tips on the screen), the same simplified tactical management of partners in the link and protracted shootings with priests due to concrete shelters by the Chinese.
The only significant innovation is a clear separation of the marine of marines into classes (shooter, machine gunner, grenade launcher and sniper). “Each class will have its own level of armor – scouts travel lightly, and they are very easy to kill with one shot. Grenade launchers wear heavy body armor and can survive as many as two direct hits into the body … "
Yes, we also got a little bored. But it is interesting that in itself the breakdown of characters into classes makes the game no less, but more realistic. The real link of the American Marine Corps also includes four specialists: a leader, shooter and two machine gunners.
“We just took the actually existing weapons layouts and equipment and projected them to four game classes,” the Landton explains. – After all, in the life of the participants of the link, they are specifically preparing to fight at different distances. Together they complement each other and make up a very effective combat unit ".
Military Field L4D
Reasonable that the canons of modern online militants are so successfully suitable for a realistic setting of the game, the developers set off in all difficult. The next thought, obviously, was: “There are a lot of Chinese. Just like a zombie!"
The traditional defmatcha “team on the team” in Red River is not planned at all – only a through cooperative. The four fighters will need to break through the Tajik settlements, repulsing the waves of the attackers of the Chinese (we are looking forward to the ACHEVAM for the first million sons of Mao and the Japanese Boomer-Sumoist).
“Indeed, a comparison with Left 4 Dead is quite appropriate,” the Landton agrees. – Personally, on the experience of this game, I was convinced that passing a close group of four participants could be no less interesting than large -scale multi -user battles. That is why in Red River we decided to devote ourselves to the cooperative one hundred percent ".
L4D – one of the best modern cooperative games – teaches you to protect not only yourself, but all the team members. For successful passage, Red River also needs all four specializations – so, the loss of a machine gunner deprives you not only the opportunity to effectively fight at short distances, but also does not suppress the enemy with fire (in the Flashpoint universe it is like death). You can go through the campaign and a team of fighters of the same class, but if the mission consists in stripping a small Tajik town, then in close combat your group of snipers will instantly tear to pieces.
Lipping for any player in L4D the question – but how in Red River with respuna of partners? At the highest level of realism, it will not be at all, on the rest of the fighters can be revived on checkpoints.
In addition to the main campaign, there will be four cooperative mini-games. Of greatest interest is Last Stand: the four of us defend a piece of card from Chinese soldiers and armored vehicles. The remaining modes are predictable: Combat Sweeep (high -speed stripping), Rolling Thunder (escort of the convoy) and CSAR (rescue of hostages). “Each mode has its own type of battle and its own record table for the best teams,” the dilon carefully explains. – In short, we did everything so that you and your friends can be in the thick of the battle as soon as possible. ”.
Well, what about the real zombie mode? “No, the zombie in our game will definitely not appear. It seems to me that video games are currently fully equipped with living dead. ".
* * *
Currently, the Operation Flashpoint series is in a very vulnerable position – it has already been excluded from the simulators, and the mainstream shooters have not yet accepted. But the whole game is neatly dragged into the most affordable cooperative – and that means that Red River has a chance to become a cooperative giant of Left 4 Dead levels among military shooters. This niche is definitely not busy with us, and you can not really suffer from arcade and realism there: the main thing is that there is what to discuss the whole team after completing the next task.