Billing this game as the long-awaited successor to Operation Flashpoint was bound to invite some harsh comparisons. OFP’s developers split after falling out with Codemasters, which might explain why this supposed sequel falls so far short of the original game. Where that offered a truly exhaustive and exhausting journey through a lengthy and complex campaign, Dragon Rising is a mere day-trip of a squad-based shooter. By the time you’d finished OFP, you felt as if you really had yomped, driven and flown across every foot of the Malden islands; when the paltry 11 missions on offer here are completed you’ll just be asking “Was that it?”
Not that the individual missions are bad – some are entertaining and even challenging, although for all the game’s talk of ‘suppressing fire’ and ‘flanking manœuvres’ you’ll find that it’s best just to blast your way through them; the hopelessly counterintuitive command system (which feels as if it was developed for a console’s buttons) means that by the time you’ve given your squad any orders you’re likely to have taken a sniper’s bullet to the head. Add to this unco-operative AI and an unnerving tendency for your fallen comrades to suddenly show up alive and well moments after having had their heads blown off, and it’s hard to take this seriously.
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