It’s very clear in Operation Flashpoint: Red River that Codemasters were trying to retain the gritty realism of their past titles, whilst simultaneously making them more accessible and fun for the masses, well, they succeeded.
Now, whilst certain concessions have been made on Normal difficulty, such as the ability to heal yourself using health packs, this in no way makes the game any less tense. We found ourselves getting stressed in relatively small scale firefights, not only because one stray bullet can completely take you down but Codemasters have done a brilliant job with their visual effects and sound-work.
Narratively speaking, Red River is the polar opposite of titles such as Black Ops or Modern Warfare 2; the story and your missions are far more believable – set in the non-fictional country of Tajikistan everything seems a little closer to home. The small downside to this is that the proceedings can feel a little bit muted in comparison to the aforementioned titles. This isn’t a slight on the developer though, more the fact that it takes a while to get used to playing a FPS with pacing, and one where the dial isn’t permanently set to eleven.
Whilst the new radial command menu is easy to use, and on a whole your AI team mates perform well, there’s nothing like playing through the three act campaign cooperatively. It’s rather brilliant when you get four humans performing their respective roles in harmony – in fact even without voice communication, we found that people worked as a team and performed their functions commendably.
No matter what mode you’re in you’ll be accruing experience points which can be used to upgrade your character, but once again it’s believable; for example you can upgrade your sprint duration or rifle accuracy. There are also perks such as reduced healing time but they never stretch to the realms of excreting a grenade when you die.
It is worth noting at this point that Red River doesn’t feature competitive multiplayer and it was a wise choice. Why try beating the entrenched likes of Call of Duty when you can offer a different experience? Instead you’ll find a mode called Fireteam Engagements, this cooperative mode features scenarios such as rescuing downed pilots, protecting convoys, eliminating enemy forces from an area and our favourite: Last Stand. This game type is risk/reward gameplay at its best; imagine a Horde Mode style scenario where you are tasked with holding an area against waves of increasingly difficult enemies. The difference here is that you’ll only collect your score if you successfully exfiltrate via a transport helicopter – which you personally have to call. There’s also a time delay before it arrives so you really have to decide whether you can hold out or whether you’ll be overrun before it arrives.
There’s no such thing as a perfect game and Codemasters have made a few bloopers; such as the ridiculous amount of swearing, which instead of feeling authentic, just feels over the top and gratuitous, some uncomfortable references to the Chinese which could be construed as racism, regardless of whether it would be expected in such a situation or not and very little character development. This stems from the fact that when most of your team are wearing balaclavas and goggles you can’t really tell who is speaking at any particular time, and even if you could they’re all portrayed as meat heads anyway.
On a whole though, Red River is a great achievement from Codemasters and if you’re looking for a more down to earth, challenging affair, then you could do far, far worse than this title – well recommended.
