XBOX 360 GAME - OPERATIONS FLASHPOINT, RED RIVER - GOOD AS NEW

XBOX 360 GAME - OPERATIONS FLASHPOINT, RED RIVER - GOOD AS NEW

POSTAGE R35 .00

It's a military shooter set in Tajikistan, but you know where it's really set. Red River's another one of those acutely modern combat games most of the games industry seems obsessed with right now, but importantly it's not one you can beat by running forward and spraying bullets everywhere. This is a game about caution and teamwork as much as it is personal accuracy, and in such melodramatic, ludicrous times for shooters its stern, unforgiving tactical violence is a breath of fresh air.

Unfortunately that breath threatens to lose its refreshing tang, as Red River quickly suffers from a shortage of the gloss that characterises its stupider peers. It's entirely unfair to expect every shooter to enjoy the sky-high budgets of Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, Homefront et al, or indeed to spend the resources it does have on spectacle and set pieces, but that doesn't really excuse spending a good portion of your in-game time sat motionless on a long jeep ride while your commanding officer apparently reads aloud every last entry in Mr Naughty's Big Book Of Naughty Swears for his own amusement.

This guy, Knox, is by far the most talkative character in the game - primarily because most everyone else is either just barking or acknowledging orders. He's voiced by the bloke who played Apone in Aliens, and here he's playing pretty much the same hard-ass soldier, only a whole lot more foul-mouthed. What's initially entertaining, thanks to inventively weird swear-combos and Knox's oft-preached 'rules' (which introduce key combat advice within a more convincing pseudo-military context than a tutorial or loading screen message), swiftly becomes grating. One of the game's greatest follies is bookending so many of its missions with long jeep or chopper rides, in which you and your three squad-mates, either controlled by other players or puppet-mastered by AI, sit in silence while Knox rants away endlessly to himself.

At a guess, the intention is to evoke the waiting around and downtime US soldiers in the Middle East often face. Certainly, it's noble to scrub away the fake glamour and macho nonsense that so many other shooters opt for, but there's still to a debate to be had around whether such tedium is suitable for an action videogame. When a mission ends not with a bang but with an incident-free five minute jog back to an extraction jeep that surely could have just driven up to you instead, followed by yet more sit'n'waffle from Knox, it's hard not to think that a few priorities got lost in translation.

This quite possibly stems from the dilemma at this new Operation Flashpoint's heart, its inward tussle about what it wants to be. It's got its eye on a middle-ground between the ease of Call of Duty and the patient caution of the veteran PC soldier simulation whose name it bears. For the most part, it finds one. It's not sadistically punishing and it's certainly not hyper-realistic, but you'll quickly learn that a couple of bullets is all it takes to leave you dead or dying (the latter can be fixed by a squad mate's medkit, if they can get to you safely) and that not finding cover during a firefight means certain doom. Fights are slow and tense, a matter of picking your moments and ordering your squad to diligently cover holes in your offense and defence.

At the same time, it's still noisy and explosive, an involving action game against smart and deadly foes. It's more accessible than an Operation Flashpoint game ever has been before, but while veterans of the original (and of the spiritual sequels, the ARMA games) will inevitably find it too lightweight rest assured it hasn't sacrificed its every challenge to the dark god of dumbing-down. This is a game where every last enemy is an incredible threat; jog cheerfully around a corner rather than quietly scope it out first and the guy waiting on the other end will put two in your skull before you've even had a chance to raise your weapon.

At some points, this tension is extreme, for both good and ill. The regular long runs between objectives are largely, tediously without menace, but once in a while a lone insurgent or soldier will unexpectedly pop out from behind a rock or stone hut and create merry hell. Don't take anything for granted is presumably the message; don't make us do quite so many long, boring runs is perhaps the only sensible reply.