A lot of reviews of this game are in the 7-9 range on a scale of 1 to 10. This is not one of them because this game is not a 70% game. While many journalists seem afraid to give a game a bad score, I am not. Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising is missing on several major points. I can save you a lot of reading and just tell you that this game is not worth your time. You can read more to find out why if you wish.

Dragon Rising is the sequel to Operation Flashpoint. The problem is that the thing which made the first one great, developer Bohemia Interactive, is missing. Instead, because of a lot of corporate drama, Codemasters took the game in-house and developed it at Ego. I sure hope they have a big one because, because I’m about to seriously bruise it.

Let’s start with the gameplay because it is quite possibly the biggest flaw. There are numerous parts of the gameplay that are flawed and flawed in big ways. Here’s a quick list of some things that I saw happen in the game which didn’t seem right.

• Small rocks are an obstacle for your character who is also unable to jump or even clamber over things less than knee high.
• Small rocks pose a problem for a Humvee and can easily render it useless, same rocks as before.
• Running a Humvee into a Jeep does not damage the Jeep or the people in it, but will incapacitate the Humvee.
• A rocket to a jeep did not incapacitate the driver or the gunner.
• A rocket to a window did not kill the guy standing on the other side.
• The collision physics in the game are shoddy and at times parts of characters can be seen in/through walls etc (see image)
• Shooting an enemy does not break their concentration. Getting shot by one does break yours.

How not fun is this game? Well, ofttimes you will simply die from a single bullet even while in cover and then have to wait 3 minutes while the level reloads because it takes about that long. In fact I watched more empty stats scroll past the screen than shot people. I probably saw that loading screen more than the game itself.