Check out the trailer for the new Operation Flashpoint: Red River map pack, which is available now. It will cost 560MPS on XBLA and  £4.79 ($6.99 / €5.99) onPSN.

A new video for Operation Flashpoint: Red River shows off some footage for the upcoming Valley of Death DLC.

You can check it out above.

Thanks to Eurogamer for the footage.

Time for another contest folks and this time its courtesy to the lovely folks at 47 Communications and Codemasters. We are giving away 2 PlayStation 3 copies and 1 Xbox 360 copy of the game. Each winner will also get a a cool Operation Flashpoint notebook along with the game.

How do you get them? Simply just tell us five ‘good’ reasons why you are looking forward to the upcoming Bodycount. The best comments will win the copies.

Winners of the previous Operation Flashpoint Red River contest will not be conisdered for this one (obviously!)

Note: Contest open only for USA & Canada residents.

Note to Previous contest winners (DiRT 3 and Operation Flashpoint Red River),apologies for the delay. But we have the copies now and you should expect them very soon!

Red River’s story starts off with an easy task as you are simply sent to do kind of a clean up mission, taking out insurgents that have fled from the war on Afghanistan.  Things heat up quickly as you learn that insurgents have been attacking the Chinese boarder, so you quickly go to simply wiping out some insurgents to bringing the battle against the Chinese Liberation Army who were sent to take out the insurgents.  With that being the general background story, there is not much to it.  You are sent into each level or mission which there are ten of and in each level you have almost your own mini objectives to complete that kind of divert from the story in a way where each level seems like a stand alone mission.  This is much like the Fireteam Engagement mode while the story is still in place during the campaign.  Overall the game will take around 8-10 hours or so to complete and is a lot of fun.

Waiting…

Even though there is no competitive versus mode in the game, there is most definitely still a level system as well as a class system.  Unlike Dragon Rising you can setup your class for every mission which was one major flaw in the last game without that feature.  What’s really cool is that you can level up whether you are playing the campaign or any of the Fireteam Engagements missions.  They both go hand in hand, while anything you can do as far as class setup you can do in any mode of the game.  There are four classes that can each be leveled up to 20, with them being the Rifleman Class, Grenadier Class, Scout Class and the Auto Rifleman Class.  As you level up you will gain new weapon attachments for your primary and secondary weapons (which there is no limitations on your secondary weapon choice), equipment, mods as well as special abilities.  You also have your core skills which are Sprint, Endurance, Battle Readiness, Assault Rifle Handling, Assault Rifle Training and Tactical Awareness.  You will gain points to put into these core skills depending on how well you do in the campaign missions and the FTE misions.  Each mission you attain a Gold Medal in, you’ll get three points, while silver nets you two and bronze gets you only one point.

This overall system that Codemasters has went on is quite impressive in my opinion, while the co-op plays a huge role in the game.  The AI in the game is not all that great, in fact, I am pretty convinced one of them is borderline retarded as he will run back and forth between your line of fire.  If you get downed and are on the brink of death playing by yourself you might at well just press start and load your last checkpoint, because you are not going to get help no matter what you previously commanded your team to do.  Playing in co-op you can actually be revived by a team mate while bleeding out.  Playing alone can be very frustrating as the command system is in place perfectly, but your squad does not always follow it, in fact they rarely do.  When the enemies are using similar tactics such as flanking or rushing it can be very difficult to try to keep your team following commands.  Operation Flashpoint: Red River is an amazing game, but if you are not going to take advantage of the co-op in the game, you are simply not going to enjoy it anywhere close to someone who is.

Damn!

You don’t have to have a packed friends list to play this game cooperatively as you can simply open up a public lobby or join someones game.  I was juggling between what to rate this game because of what a different experience it is to play the game with three other people as oppose to by yourself.  Unless you are allergic to human beings over a headset, I deeply suggest playing the entire game co-op at all times in all scenarios.  I played with people who didn’t know what they were doing to people that were hardcore fans and were not looking to mess around.  Not only is the game easier with more people but you can really come up with your own strategies together, whether it’s a simple flank maneuver to a laid out plan for the entire mission.  This is where the game reigns and is where you have the most fun if you follow my advice.

As far as the Fireteam Engagement modes, they only add to the fun of co-op with there being different types of missions, some even at night requiring night vision.  There are three difficulty setting being Normal, Hardcore and Experienced whether it’s campaign or FTE.  Four types of Fireteam Engagement settings are available with two missions in each.  Last Stand literally will bring wave after wave of enemies in, progressing in difficulty and once you become too overwhelmed you’ll need to call in for Extraction in this never ending mode.  You will also have access to mortar strikes, airstrikes and other back up depending on the mission, but with never ending enemies in Last Stand it can certainly give you the opportunity to compete with friends on the leaderboards.  The Search and Rescue Missions (CSAR) require you to go in and find two downed pilots in enemy territory and then extract them in a safe area.  Durung the Rolling Thunder Missions you will need to protect the convoy (HUMVEE), while you have two Humvees of your own, each with mounted turret guns on them.  You will have to protect the convoy as you drive through enemy territory as enemies will shoot you and you will even have to worry about IED’s, so make sure you pick the guys off will cell phones.  Combat Sweep is very straight forward while there will be side tasks of destroying downed choppers, you main object is to clear out the entire area of enemies, most of which are hiding in building.  This can be a lot of fun with 3 other people and the right communication.

Ready to roll.

Operation Flashpoint: Red River is a terrific game with changes made from the series that make the game so much better, including huge detailed landscapes.  The previous title had an awkward versus mode which I think Codemasters made the right decision for doing away with for the time being at least.  The classic Operation Flashpoint style is still there with its realism of getting hit in the leg preventing you from sprinting and enemies spawning many meters away.  It is close to one shot kills for both you can the enemy which is pretty damn real if you ask me along with bullet drop and other things that would make any Marine proud.  The bottom line with this game though is that you might as well not even play it if you are not willing to play it co-op.  It is fun alone but there is no comparison to playing the game with three other people coordinating with each other.  With DLC already on the way, I would say buy this game and make some online friends, for one fun, realistic shooter.

This game was reviewed on the Xbox 360.

You are Kirby! Leader of Team Bravo…

Let’s talk about the single player mode first. In the story mode you are a leader of Team Bravo, a group of four brothers in arms sent to the borders of Tajikistan to capture terrorists who have fled from Afghanistan. This might seem like a normal plot with the good guys chasing the bad guys, but after you are in to the game an hour or two, it really heats up with the Chinese Army getting involved and for some reason they have an insane amount of man power.  The one thing that I really liked about the single player campaign is the pretty long missions and the fact that they take place over long distances makes them challenging and realistic.  For this, the game gives four classes that the player can select from: Rifleman, Grenadier, Scout and Auto Rifleman. All of these classes have their unique advantages but considering that most of your battles will take over large distances we went ahead and selected the Scout class since it comes in with a sniper rifle.  For each of the class you can customize the weapons you want and as you progress you will also be able to unlock special abilities like expertise in combat experience and the ability to heal your team. This is what in my opinion makes this game unique since it rewards the player continuously as you progress through it.

The heart of the game is easily the strategy elements that the game throws at you.  You can issue plethora of commands to your team via the Quick Command Radial. The radial is divided in to four different types of commands namely: Tactics, Follow, Suppression and Manoeuvre. Each of them is then further divided into more sub commands like Protect Target, Hold Fire and Flanking.  So as far as commands and strategy elements are concerned, Red Point has nailed it perfectly.  But the AI of your team mates is questionable. Games like Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six had team mates that were aware of what is going around their surroundings, unfortunately your buddies act lame sometimes.  Not only that, the AI of the enemies at times is laughable at normal mode. They would act like sitting ducks, waiting for someone to actually hit them and at times would not take cover at all.

Your team mates dont have the best AI, but the command options are very deep.

When I had previewed the game about a month ago, I was a bit sceptical of the healing system and the absence of jump.  Although the absence of jump did not hinder my experience with the game, but I still hold the same views about the healing system. One cannot expect players to press a button for almost a minute just to get healed and considering the fact that you can get hit anytime from any place makes matters worse.  Not to mention the fact that if you die during any mission, the checkpoint system forces you to replay a good chunk of the mission. So Red River is a challenging game, there are no two ways about that, but for amateur players I believe the game can be a bit simpler if the assists are turned on. The assist option will help the player in getting the aim right, hence resulting in to a more streamlined experience. However if you turn off assist, you probably have the most realistic shooter simulation in the gaming industry. With its pros and cons, the single player, unlike other first person shooters forms an important component of the game.

Much of my complaints in the single player mode almost do not exist when playing the game co-op online with your friends, assuming that they are good at it. First off, the somewhat bland AI is negated by playing with smart people, which results in to some interesting situations. You can heal your friends and expect your other team mates to provide you with suppressing fire, something which was lacking in the campaign. There are also other online modes, grouped under Fireteam Engagement. As I had explained in my preview before, these modes take place in huge maps providing the player with some really quick co-op matches such as rescuing a pilot, clearing hordes and hordes of enemies and taking a convoy safely from point A to point B. These modes offer a satisfying experience to the player, but again it all depends whom you are playing with as a player with less expertise may spoil the experience for you.  The game also awards the player with core skills like Sprint, Endurance, Tactical Awareness and also heaps medals during the campaign of FTE missions.

The sense of scale at times is ‘insane’

As the title of the review indicates that I got a chance to review the PC version and as such I was expecting the game to be visually satisfying. Unfortunately that is not the case. The character models look OK at the most, the vehicles do not look pretty and much of the environment lacks the smaller details. However the sense of scale is amazing, you can literally see environments that are hundreds of miles away and it’s really a shame that the player is exposed only to a smaller section of a huge world.  Voice acting and sound is below average, some of the areas have no background music whatsoever. Presentation is one of the highlights of the game. The menus are sleek, the lobby design is not a hassle to navigate and the campaign has some amazingly designed cutscenes.

So that brings us back to the question I asked before. Does Red River offer anything unique to the shooter market? The answer is a Yes and a No. If you are gamer who is interested in over the top action and Hollywood style games like Call of Duty, I would say pass this game.  But if you are a gamer who loves to face a challenge and a sense of realism in video games, Operation Flashpoint: Red River is the game that you need to own.

This game was reviewed on the PC.

As usual, one contest ends another starts! This time we are giving copies of Operation Flashpoint: Red River and 15 Xbox 360 codes for Homefront Weapon Camo Skin Pack.

Each of these contests have different rules and threads. You can check them out below.

Homefront DLC codes Giveaway

Operation Flashpoint: Red River Giveaway

Special thanks to Zapak Games for sponsoring copies of Operation Flashpoint: Red River and E-xpress Games for the Homefront codes.

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You guys have been sent an emailing requesting for your shipping address.

Thanks everyone for participating!

So you are a fan of probably the most underrated shooter franchise this generation and want a copy for free? Worry not! GamingBolt.com has you covered. We are giving away a PC and PS3 version of Operation Flashpoint: Red River.

So how do you get these? It’s simple. You need to answer a simple question:

FTE Mission in the game stands for:-

• Fire Team Engagement
• Field Tactical Engagement
• Force Troop Enclosures
• Force Tactical Engagement

Let us know your answer in the comments below. Also let us know which version will you prefer. All readers with correct answers will go in the lucky draw and two lucky ones will win a copy!

Thanks to guys at Zapak for sponsoring this awesome giveaway!

Note: Contest closes May 15th, 2010.

Note: Contest open only to Indian Residents. However I will ask Zapak to provide us with some steam codes so that everyone can participate.

A new trailer for Operation Flashpoint: Red River features some serious co-op action.

It shows the CSAR Fireteam Engagement mode, as Fireteam Bravo inserts behind enemy lines to rescue downed pilots in enemy territory.

The new OF game launches a week on friday, and is built around four player drop-in/out co-op.

Last week I was invited at a preview event at the Zapak Offices to check out the Fireteam Engagements mode in Operation Flashpoint: Red River. Let me start off by saying this. The modes present have a lot of depth and potential but unfortunately it looks like Codemastes have a lot of work to do ahead of the game’s release this month.

So the Engagements mode basically has four sub modes which are:

• Last Stand
• CSAR
• Rolling Thunder
• The Combat Sweep

The maps are insanely huge.

Now let’s talk a bit about these modes.

The Last Stand was a bit of a mix bag for me. The objective here is to survive as long as you can while you face off against waves of enemies. The problem with this mode is that it might get a bit bland after some time since you have to wait for a pretty long time before you get to face the enemies. Enemy choppers will come around and drop more enemy soldiers once you take down a respective wave, again something which we have seen in AAA franchises like Gears of War. The good thing about this mode is that the player can bail out anytime, but you need to go to an extraction point.

The CSAR mode had a bit of variety in it with multiple missions. One of them was the Search and Destory mission wherein the player has to reach to a particular target and blow stuff. As usual this area is usually heavily guarded so you have to be on your toes as it will take only a few bullets to take you out. Next up is Extraction mission where you have to first save a pilot from enemy forces and extract the area with a helicopter. Again, the area housing the helicopter is pretty heavily armed, so you got to be careful. There was a general lack of enemies and initially this mode will start out as bland for some players.

Rolling Thunder was a pretty basic mode in my opinion. Here your objective is to lead a convoy from Point A to Point B and as you can guess you will have enemy vehicles stopping you. The mode requires the player to be pro-active as driving through lamely won’t help.  You will often find yourself getting off the vehicle and take down snipers and gun men to clear the path for the convoy.  Rolling Thunder is nothing out of the box, but it presents the player with some challenging objectives.

The Combat Sweep was one of the better modes that I witnessed in the game. As the name suggests, the basic objective here is to “sweep” out your enemies.  This mode had two maps: Counter Insurgency and Ghost Town.  This was one of the modes that I truly felt that the game was coming on its own with more enemies and a clear emphasis on what the player has to do.

The PlayStation 3 version looks a generation behind the PC one.

Even though the mode themselves feel exciting, the game has several technical issues. The PlayStation 3 version had ugly visuals compared to its PC counterpart. Bland character models and lifeless environments will make some players sleep. Not to mention the controls are a bit hard to learn and the surprise exclusion of jump is questionable.  The biggest irritating inclusion is the way the players can use their health packs. You have to press a respective button for atleast 5-10 seconds before your player can use health packs, which is oh so traditional method of gameplay.  Add to that some really huge areas with a not so helpful map and you have a game that might bug out some players.

However I am still hopeful and optimistic that Codemasters will be able to turn the game on its head. Right now they need to pull their socks up and get the thing running so that it can be an enjoyable experience.

Stay tuned with GamingBolt.com for more news and updates.

Operation Flashpoint: Red River will release on April 21 in the UK and April 26 in the US for Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC. Here Achievements/Trophies (Sorry no Trophy ratings):

The Alamo, Vahdat – 20G
-You completed Line In The Sand
Keeping It Simple – 20G
-You completed 1st & 10, Let’s Do It Again
Freeing The Eagles – 20G
-You completed Vantage Point
Doing It The Hard Way – 20G
-You completed Almost Too Easy
Work Your Bolt – 20G
-You completed The Wrong Way
Devils At The Crossroad – 20G
-You completed Careful What You Wish For…
Rescuer – 10G
-You completed one of the CSAR FTE maps
Protector – 10G
-You completed one of the Rolling Thunder FTE maps
Peacekeeper – 20G
-You completed and survived a Combat Sweep mission having killed all enemies and destroyed all caches
Shock And Ore – 20G
-You completed End Of The Beginning
Sweeper – 10G
-You completed one of the Combat Sweep FTE maps
Defender – 10G
-You completed one of the Last Stand FTE maps
Venomous Bite – 20G
-You completed The Human Terrain
Welcome To Gissar – 20G
-You completed Welcome To Tajikistan
Protection Detail – 20G
-You completed Meet The Neighbors
Danger Close – 5G
-You called in Combat Support within 300m of your location
Pride Of Balletto – 10G
-You completed a mission as the Auto Rifleman
Pride Of Kirby – 10G
-You completed a mission as the Rifleman
Catch This! – 5G
-You destroyed an enemy vehicle with the FGM-148 Anti Tank Weapon
Buzz Kill – 5G
-You destroyed an enemy aircraft with an anti aircraft weapon
Driver’s Ed – 5G
-You drove a Humvee
Florence Nightingale Award 2.0 – 20G
-You healed a development team member or someone who already has this achievement
Of The People, For The People – 5G
-You picked up an enemy AK
Old Enemies Die Hard – 5G
-You killed your first PLA soldier in Red River campaign
Pride Of Soto – 10G
-You completed a mission as the Scout
Pride Of Taylor – 10G
-You completed a mission as the Grenadier
Weaponsmith – 5G
-You customized a weapon
With A Little Help – 10G
-You played Red River with three other friends
Operation Enduring Shield – 50G
-You completed Act 1 of the campaign
Operation Unbroken Resistance – 75G
-You completed Act 2 of the campaign
Operation Dragon Slayer – 100G
-You completed Act 3 of the campaign
Get To The Chopper! – 20G
-You completed a Last Stand mission to stage 4, wave 4 and escaped alive
Package Delivered – 20G
-You completed and survived a CSAR mission, rescuing both pilots
Thunder Run – 20G
-You completed and survived a Rolling Thunder mission with the entire convoy surviving
Outlaw 2’s Brave – 10G
-You obtained the highest level for one character class
Outlaw 2’s Finest – 30G
-You obtained the highest level for two character classes
Outlaw 2’s Hero – 50G
-You obtained the highest level for all character classes
Hardened – 10G
-You maxed out one core soldier skill
Veteran – 20G
-You maxed out three core soldier skills
Lifer – 30G
-You maxed out all core soldier skills

Secret Achievements

Secret Achievement 20G
Continue playing to unlock this secret achievement.
Secret Achievement 20G
Continue playing to unlock this secret achievement.
Secret Achievement 20G
Continue playing to unlock this secret achievement.
Secret Achievement 20G
Continue playing to unlock this secret achievement.
Secret Achievement 20G
Continue playing to unlock this secret achievement.
Secret Achievement 20G
Continue playing to unlock this secret achievement.
Secret Achievement 20G
Continue playing to unlock this secret achievement.
Secret Achievement 20G
Continue playing to unlock this secret achievement.
Secret Achievement 20G
Continue playing to unlock this secret achievement.
Secret Achievement 20G
Continue playing to unlock this secret achievement.

– Additional Platinum Trophy for achieving all Trophies.

Latest trailer for the game can be viewed here and pictures of the Achievements can be viewed here.