it looks pretty good. I'm looking forward to some reviews.

Looked ok I guess. 4 player campaign coop could be fun. It's kind of refreshing seeing alot of polish in this game where ArmA2 was basically not even tested.

yea, I agree. Arma2 was so obviously unpolished in so many different ways... this looks far better. Presumably it's still being worked on too. Hopefully the finished product will be something really worth wasting months of my life on.

I'm skimming though an RPS article and pointing out bits I don't really like, incase anyone is interested.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/10 ... on-rising/

The level design is such is that there’s almost always appropriate cover along the line of the waypoints, and if you utilise that cover sensibly you’ll always be able to take down the enemies that lay ahead of you. The only real challenge, I found, was in having enough ammo.

Enemies don’t seem particularly inventive in their attacks, and occasionally fail to address your presence at all, opting instead to carry out their dash for cover or their prescribed attacks on other units. The pervasive tracer fire means that as long as you’ve got some cover nearby you can pretty much always identify where the enemies are, and can cut them down before they become anything like a significant threat. (Despite that fact that – hnngh – you can’t lean.)

[i]instruct your sidekicks into action. They are, for the most part, not particularly bright. They’ll sometimes not respond to an enemy, or forget an order and just stand about aimlessly, or even over-zealously pursue an order so that they chase someone up the side of a hill when you’d said “defend this shedâ€

ugh, lovely...sounds like more crap. Why can't anyone get it right?

no idea. i know nothing about developing games but I know what I want. It's always a "feel" which I could probably describe or write down pretty well given alot of hours. I would need alot of pens, pencils and paper, but I would get it done in the end. But i suspect a development team isn't really capable of tuning into 1 "feel" especially if they work for money and not for enjoyment.

Games therefore on average probably end up being riddled with confused and misplaced efforts. The "feel" is lost and we end up with something largely broken, artistically.

I would argue these days that games are becoming more like this, but it's only natural. It's like the paintball industry. 10 years ago it was pretty exciting because the technology was just starting to kick off, so we were seeing a lot of innovation. Now the market has grown and the technological capacity saturated, so the emphasis is now on making $ and competing. Which is fine, but artistically we see essentially the same products come out year after year with different bodies (the gaming equivalent here could be graphics). Sure, every so often we see something cool come out, but the majority of the stuff really makes me stop and think, jesus christ, do we really need more of this shit?

Besides, people buy games much more now, even ones that they dont like. Back in the day, people generally thought pretty hard about which games to play and spend money on.

That's a pretty good post Derf. I know jack all about paintball so I can't really underline that part, but the rest sounds good enough.

This is the reason why I've been gravivating towards indie games lately, and towards the smaller Eastern European games. They don't have the cash, publicity and manpower to produce the ultra-polished AAA titles genre Flashpoint 2 so what do they do? They invest in cool art design, atmosphere and depth. While they may often have balance issues and bugs, they are ambitious, they reach for something. Or they take a risk on game design. Most of the modern gaming market is just consolidating its status by churning out sequels and safe bets.

Some titles I'm really looking forward to:






Feel the love in Armored Princess' graphics and design! That's what I'm talking about. I'm currently replaying Freedom Force too, a game that's more than 10 years old but is still captivating because of its art style and overall silliness (it's based on the campy sixties superheroes).

I'm even thinking of buying the game Osmos. Just because it feels nice when you play it.


Anyway...you guys are probably gonna like Arma II better once it's decently patched. OPF2 sounds like console bullshit to me, all polished but no heart. No leaning?! Wtf. At least Arma II had ambition.

yeah a short while before i left for italy i was seriously considering a few indie titles. kind of point-and-click adventure type games. simply because they looked like good honest fun. but there was always something keeping me back. like i'd been slightly brainwashed by mega-branded titles that anything below the £30 price tag is a waste of time. i dont know, i cant quite put my finger on why i didnt buy them. probably because i foresaw that these kind of games were essentially light and I would only really get about 15 hours from them. Not because i dont like it, but because theyre probably designed like that. Whereas i think im looking for an indie-casual game that lasts as long as a classic.

I think both OFP2 and ARMA2 were too ambitious.

I want a realistic, open world where I can shoot at and get shot. Give me a dozen realistically modelled weapons, give me decent team and enemy AI. That's enough! I don't need to control a squad. I don't need to be able to drive...anything... much less 3 dozen vehicles and aircraft. I don't need to be able to build a base. Just give me a realistic shooter with squad mechanics and a realistic enemy.

Once you get that right, start tacking on new shit like vehicles, more guns, etc. I'm willing to wait for it. I'm willing to buy expansion packs for it. But please, give me a playable game first.

/me stops ranting

I bought OPF2 when it was on sale. Overall it's really not too bad. So far I've come across 2 bugs and some weak AI, but the game is fairly fun. The bugs aren't game killing (so far).

bugs
1. The mission ending text was inexplicably missing once. Mission objectives? nullString! Yay!
2. In the middle of one mission, for some reason I got a waypoint to go back to the beginning.

AI
1. Sometimes, they'll just stand there and get shot. This is doubly true if they're using a heavy machinegun.

Anyway, the gripes are pretty minor. Some video!

17.5MB

Did you check around for some mods yet? Just curious. Not that I'm really aware of the current state of the modding scene for OPF2.

doesn't seem to be much out there.

http://operationflashpoint.filefront.co ... _2;30index