The graphics of Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising are impressive and the atmosphere is great, even if it naturally isn't as spectacular as shown in the trailers. The engine that has already been used for Race Driver: Grid delivers extensive landscapes, persons and vehicles are very convincing. The animations are lifelike; effects like Depth of Field and time of day cycle are good. Some textures aren't very sharp, but according to the publisher the game wasn't running at maximal details - therefore Operation Flashpoint 2 was running absolutely smooth at 1680 x 1050 on the Dell XPS system with a Core i7 processor. In some places the good gaming experience suffered from bugs though: An opponent who had already been eliminate remained standing - without his head and gun. Other bugs have not been noticed. A positive surprise: A saved game was loaded in less than 10 seconds - during that time the game delivers statistics like our accuracy or the number of opponents hit with grenades.

As far as we can tell after the limited time of playing Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising the A.I. was working well. Our squad members obeyed the commands that we gave them via the command menu. But in some situations the A.I. knew more than it should: Our own character reported an enemy soldier that we haven't seen ourselves yet because of the huge distance - but at least there had been a clear line of sight, so A.I. hopefully can't see through objects like in ArmA 2.

The controls are rather simple since it has to be possible to give even complex commands with the Xbox gamepad. In the mission we played - where we had to knock off an enemy post - we also received hints and features were explained. But while we were told that we should press the Sprint button to run, the game didn't tell us which key that is. We played the game on easy difficulty where helpful information like a compass and ammunition are displayed. If you don't need such things you can switch to Hardcore mode. So Operation Flashpoint 2: Dragon rising is not an arcade shooter but a military simulation - without becoming inaccessible for rookies.

We also liked the sound of the game although our M16 sounded rather like in a Hollywood movie than in reality. The game is scheduled for release on October 8, 2009 and will be published for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.

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