Operation Flashpoint: Red River for Xbox 360 game reviews & Metacritic score: Taking a small step into the future, Red River depicts a fictional conflict with contemporary geopolitical themes, which will unfold over three distinct acts in.

Remember, Barren Roads was designed not only to enjoy on your desktop, but also to enjoy on the go with a fully compatible cross platform play coming as well.” What is the current state of the Early Access version? “Barren Roads is fully functional with vehicles, fort building, item drops, mutant enemies, and raiders.

It’s always weird to see a “hardcore” PC series get transmogrified into a console-friendly title, and always a little bittersweet. On the one hand, it’s great to see new moneymaking opportunities for a quality series that deserves some revenue, but on the other, it sucks to see that same series effectively dumbed down to make it easier (or even possible) to play with a controller.And such is the case with Operation Flashpoint: Red River. The original Operation Flashpoint was a realistic military sim that happened to be presented as a first-person shooter. Red River is a pretty arcadey first-person shooter that decks itself out with a few “realistic” elements and claims to be hardcore. Not that there’s anything wrong with an arcadey first-person shooter, of course; Red River’s gameplay is actually pretty fun, it’s just markedly different from that of the original in the series.In the main campaign you play as one of four US marines newly sent from Afghanistan to Tajikistan in a fictional conflict along that country’s border with China.

Things go from hairy to hirsute pretty quickly, and you end up fighting local insurgents, organized terrorist groups and, eventually, the People’s Liberation Army. As Red River is fully cooperative, up to three of your friends (or random dudes from the internet) can jump in and jump out of any campaign mission at any time. This sort of cooperative gameplay is great, not just because it’s more fun than playing alone, but also because Red River’s AI sucks so bad. Many was the time we’d need to end a mission by killing our AI comrades because their pathfinding algorithm got them stuck on some geometry and they couldn’t cross the trigger area to move on to the next mission. Enemies, too – although they were preternaturally accurate with their weapons – would often stand stock still on a hillside or in an equally visible location, just waiting to get mowed down by M4 fire.In terms of gameplay itself, Red River tries hard to bridge the gap between a full-on simulation and something like Call of Duty, and while that’s sometimes fun, it more often leads to bizarre situations. For example: while you spend a lot of time sitting in the back of vehicles listening to your staff sergeant wax rhetorical about kicking ass, much as you would in the military’s hurry-up-and-wait real life, if you’re shot in the head in combat, simply use a medkit on yourself (make sure to use it twice, not just once), and you’re A-okay.

It’s this incongruous pairing of two types of gameplay that makes Red River so hard to sink your teeth into. You never know quite when you can bust out and go balls to the wall Modern Warfare style, and when you’re gonna have to hunker down and rely on some approximation of real combat tactics.What’s disappointing, though, is how you implement those tactics during gameplay. Red River has been designed with a console-style “orders wheel” which you bring up while holding down a key (crazily enough, the default bind is Caps Lock) and then select orders from a variety of groups by pressing the movement keys. Needless to say, this is extremely cumbersome to do one handed, especially in the middle of a firefight, and it’s why we hardly ever used it on PC. The whole thing is compounded by the fact that if you don’t order your guys to do something, the AI is far less effective at not getting shot, which makes for a lot of checkpoint reloading. You can rebind any of these commands to other keys, but it’s annoying that PC players have to deal with obviously console-designed controls in the first place, and more importantly, even if you do rebind the wheel to hotkeys, there are so many individual commands, it’s equally cumbersome or perhaps more so than the wheel. On the plus side, the graphics on PC are far smoother and less blocky than you’ll get on console, and load times are faster – which, unfortunately doesn’t cut down much on the amount of time you’ll need to spend waiting around on the back of a truck.All of that said, when it works, Red River is a damn good time.

Jumping online with three buddies to get through some of the tougher missions plays like a really hardcore game of paintball – you’ve all got to get each other’s backs and communicate constantly, much as you would in a competitive gaming situation. Also, the game’s voice talent is surprisingly good and it, along with equally surprisingly good writing, make for a backstory that manages to draw you in, despite its often hackneyed tropes and themes.Red River may not appeal to everyone – our sense is that it’s too hardcore for the console crowd and doesn’t have enough of a unique identity for the PC crowd – but that shouldn’t dissuade fans of the series or of modern-warfare shooters from taking a playthrough. If nothing else, it’ll whet your appetite for the slew of AAA military shooters coming soon to a TV/monitor near you.Jun 23, 2011.

Operation Flashpoint: Red River is a first person shooter video game for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 developed by game developer Codemasters. It is the sequel to Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising.GameplayOperation Flashpoint: Red River is a tactical shooter. The player has the choice of playing the campaign co-operatively.

However, the game does not feature competitive multiplayer. The game does not feature a mission editor or SDK. The player will be able to choose between four classes of Marines; rifleman, grenadier, scout, and automatic rifleman, each with their own weapons and abilities. The player will gain experience during gameplay, which can be used to unlock weapons, attachments and perks. For example, a scout could acquire an enhancement that will reduce the amount of bullet drop. The game's director Sion Lenton said 'Operation Flashpoint: Red River is being built around four player co-op online play, complete with a strong narrative, new enemies and combat scenarios to deliver gameplay that immerses players in the reality of war like never before.' The enemies will be able to kill the player with a single shot.

The single player campaign will be divided into three distinct acts.The game uses a video camera style feedback in the game for the action. With shots near the player getting dirt in the players vision similar to a lens would, and damage scrambling the screen, along with losing stamina causes parts of the screen to scramble and freeze in some places until the player rests.PlotThe player assumes control of 'Outlaw 2 Bravo', a United States Marine Corps fireteam during a fictional conflict in Tajikistan in 2013.A terrorist group known as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement launches mortar attacks on a U.S. Forward operating base (FOB) in Afghanistan, prompting the United States to launch Operation Enduring Shield, invading western Tajikistan to wipe out the insurgent threat. Outlaw platoon is tasked with capturing several villages and an airfield, along with defusing IEDs and taking several insurgent positions. The unit is then tasked with securing and repairing a dam, while at the same time reinforcing Forward Operating Base Viper, located close. Outlaw is ordered to quell the remaining insurgents located in a stronghold. After reaching the stronghold, the Chinese People's Liberation Army intervenes, having invaded eastern Tajikistan in retaliation for the ETIM massacring Chinese athletes during the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London.

Outlaw is ordered to slow the PLA advance while other Marines are evacuated to a secondary FOB. After Outlaw reaches the FOB, it is attacked by a PLA mechanized division. After a fierce battle, Outlaw barely escapes from the FOB, with their commanding officer telling them that they are the only unit who made it out.The remaining marines conduct a guerilla war against the PLA. First, they ambush and destroy a PLA supply convoy in order to cripple the PLA supply lines. After that, the members of Outlaw learn that in order to halt the PLA advance in western Tajikistan, the remaining Marines need to prevent a set of bridges from falling in the PLA's hands. Even though they are heavily outnumbered, the Marines manage to hold out long enough for reinforcements to arrive from Afghanistan.After the fight at the bridges the Marines start pushing the PLA back.

They fight through PLA defenses and towns to secure an old fortress and establish a new FOB there. In order to have air support for the last battle, Outlaw attacks PLA SAMs at an old observatory.

After knocking out the SAMs, Outlaw launches an attack on a town in the middle of the battle. After pushing through the town, with support from LAVs, Outlaw holds off a massive PLA counterattack with help from artillery and aircraft. In the end, the U.S. Marines push the PLA back across the border, into China.ReceptionThe game has received mixed reviews. Strategy Informer stated that the game 'fills in a niche between fast-paced action games and hyper-realistic military simulators'. VideoGamer.com says the campaign is of far higher quality than in its predecessor, Dragon Rising.

IGN was disappointed in player movement being locked to only a very small section of the wide-open terrain. PC Gamer criticized the poor artificial intelligence of players' team mates and overly-macho voice acting. 'Red River takes all the things the Flashpoint name is associated with – creative, emergent destruction and go-anywhere realism – and lets them wash away.' GameZone gave the game a 7.5 out of 10, stating 'Operation Flashpoint: Red River isn’t your typical shooter.

You’re not going to be a gunslinger, running into a compound to take out a horde of enemies like a one-man wolf pack. It’s a slower, more tactical, squad-based shooter that relies on teamwork, strategy, and finesse.' The game was to be the last of the Operation Flashpoint franchise, as Codemasters began to focus almost solely on racing games stating 'As Codemasters looks to take greater leadership in the racing category, the company is proposing a studio structure that adds resource and strengthens our best-in-class racing teams.” Video Review and Screenshots.