Red river runs dry.
First things first, the swearing. Some times a little #@$% can add atmosphere and tension to a game but here it only serves to annoy, you are constantly bombarded with the filthy mouths of your commanding officer and fellow soldiers alike making you cringe in disgust as another worthless conversation fills up with every disgusting phrase you can think of. I sincerely hope the US military has a little more professionalism in its day to day operations that what is being portrayed here, its disgusting and sounds like a phrase book written by street kids and those pretending to sound "hardcore". The first flashpoint and dragon rising didn't have it so why now? Its the first nail in the coffin.
Gone is the tactical planning and mission structure, now your "forced" along a specific route with little or no options available. The maps may be large but the corridor is narrow, the open vistas give you the feeling of a large open battlefield but your area of operations is pre-set to specific areas and making your own way across the battlefield is now limited to hum-vee rides with the above forementioned swearing rearing its ugly head again. The opening level of Dragon Rising gave you an entire island to work on, you could go anywhere but here its gunfight, hum-vee ride to another gunfight and then repeat. It has effectively removed all of the exploration of the previous titles and for what reason? Leading your squad through enemy territory engaging soldiers or quietly slipping by is gone, its a corridor shooter at best.
The first option you are given is to pick a class, refreshing it may seem but with the washed out graphics of RR your best option is the scout or sniper. Then you realise the optics on your sniper rifle are no better than that on the rifleman's gun, you have to earn a better scope for it. Why would it be in the military's best interest to give their soldiers inferior equipment? Why do developers think this makes the game better? If I wanted to level up a character with stat points and better equipment I would play Oblivion not red river, give me whats available and let me make the choice. Its a funny way of making the game harder by limiting your equipment and makes little sense at all.
Ok you have picked your class and inferior optics, listened intently as your squad leader spews forth a constant stream of expletives on your first hum-vee ride into your first battle and then the real disappointment comes. Your battle hardened squad members throw themselves into the fight like lemmings running off a cliff. The friendly AI is atrocious, they wander out of cover into fire like they are bullet proof and believe me they aren't. My first battle had me running around patching up soldiers instead of shooting insurgents, if I wanted to be a medic to a bunch of retards it should have told me so on the box. The frequency that your squad mates are hit and incapacitated is ridiculous, I know your are supposed to be part of a rookie squad but how these guys ever made it past basic training is a mystery. You can place waypoints for your squad only to watch them ignore the cover given to them to wander into the line of fire time and time again.
Just ignore your squad for a moment and take out the hostiles yourself but good luck seeing them. Red rivers graphics are undeniably bad, the over the top saturation of eye bleeding colours mixed with the dullness of the landscape make for a mix guaranteed to have the epileptics rolling around on the floor. The detail is sparse and houses are empty and devoid of even furniture! No wonder the insurgents are in a bad mood when they don't even have somewhere to sit and have a cup of tea! The textures are bad and get even worse when your close up, better graphics were seen on titles from years back.
Ok you see a blob that may represent an enemy soldier and he's running towards you across an empty paddock, aim down your inadequate sights and then....arrrgh I'm hit. Hold A button to staunch bleeding and then A again to patch yourself up, line up soldier again and repeat. The accuracy of the enemy soldiers is to be admired, sprinting across a field with an AK-47 they can tag you behind cover without breaking a sweat. Pity your squadmates aren't blessed with similar qualities.
So what have we got for our money then? A watered down squad shooter filled with over the top profanity and poor AI. Washed out graphics with sharpshooter enemies and minimal tactical options. The warning bells came early for this game when the developers said they wanted to make it more accessible for all gamers, lets remove all the tactical options and force you down a corridor more like COD, lets remove everything that once made this franchise great for a bigger slice of the shooter pie. Sorry to say but they failed. There is a market out there for hardcore military shooters but this isn't going into that category anytime soon. It really is a shame that they have taken the "flashpoint" name to new lows, it had the chance to shine after the luke warm reception that Dragon Rising received, they could have fixed the mechanics of DR and made the buttons actually work on the first press and kept the large open maps with all the tactical options available to a modern squad leader but no, instead we get this. Congratulations on taking a once great franchise and dumbing it down to try and compete with the plethora of FPS already saturating the market, as an arcade shooter it fails and as a hardcore simulation it fails so where does it deserve to go? Check your bargain bin at your nearest gaming shop for a copy of Red River, it will be there trust me.
The game as a sequel gets a minus score, the interface and buttons have been fixed but the friendly AI and washed out graphics bring it back down, gone is the tactical nature of the game and the freedom so minus again. The fact you can play 4 player co-op through the entire game and fireteam missions earns it 4 points, so really the game only gets half a point. I was going to say so close yet so far but it never really got close at all, have to go now because steam has a special on ARMA2 at the moment and like everyone these days I'm a little more selective with my cash.
Footnote: The friendly AI still continues to amaze me with its stupidity. Walking in front of your firing line, walking into friendly fire, ignoring commands to move/take cover/heal me/hold position. I like to compare all new AI with the first Ghost Recon game, putting RR friendly AI up against the likes of Jack Stone and friends would only result in one thing, target down. How can AI become worse over time?
Example: When told to take cover behind a wall the friendly AI then proceeded to go around the corner into the next courtyard straight into an enemy squad, he didn't even pop off one round before he was down yelling for help.