Lima Charlie 1-9 - We're Oscar Mike

It’s not the soldier with the most expensive gun or the biggest heart who wins on the battlefield.  It’s the smartest.  Semper Fi, Marine.

You cannot read about Operation Flashpoint - Red River without feeling a surge of adrenaline surging through  your veins. The anticipation for this military sim is far exceeding any game that is currently out right now. Forget the let down that was 'Homefront', Red River is panning out to be one of the best military simulators out there - past and present.

Between Afghanistan and China, the worlds next 'Flashpoint' is about to erupt. The valleys, towns and mountains of Tajikistan will become bloody frontlines for the might of the People's Liberation Army, insurgent guerilla fighters and the United States Marine Corps. You and your fireteam CAN make a difference in the game and what level of difference you make depends on how you operate on the battlefield.

Thanks to the boys and girls over at Codemasters, you can recruit up to 3 of your most battle hardened friends to join you in the foot hills of the Tajikistan mountains. Another nice feature is that if these battle hardened friends of yours have to be medevaced out of the 'hot zone' (aka - their network connection drops, they have to go eat etc...) the session does not get affected and the 'human' player is automatically replaced with a friendly 'green' AI counterpart.

Now, lets think back to Operation Flashpoint Cold War Rising and us PC gamers will remember a truly great game that was also a truly awful game...The story was ok, the bugs, well, the game was made up of bugs with a sprinkling of decent code thrown into the mix, however, when it worked, it was terrific and it managed to win over my heart and many others and went onto become GOTY. Jump forward 8 years and Codemasters released Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising, this time, the console got a look in and was released on all platforms apart from the Wii. Again, this came with a few bugs, however, thanks to the Co-op element of the game, Dragon Rising had a massive fan base (past and present) and enabled Code Masters to push forwards and release Red River.

Codemasters listened to the criticism and niggles that their gamer base had regarding Dragon Rising, the long ass checkpoints, the 'ultra' realism and they have changed Red River to reflect this. Do not be alarmed, Red River is not a Battlefield or Call of Duty rip off and it is still very much a military Sim, however, they have toned it down to please all types of gamers.

I do really hope that Red River will come with a polished finished feel that many other military shooters or just general 'modern games' come with, Flashpoint has a huge following, whether it has bugs or not but I would really LOVE Red River to stand on its own and have people love this game without finishing their sentences with 'even with the bugs'

The achievements for this game can be accomplished via either the SP or Co-Op SP and thankfully there are no 'hardcore' achievements as this setting on Flashpoint is SO stupidly hard, I would actually rather just go and fight for real in Afghanistan.

Operation Flashpoint is released April 21st throughout Europe and very strangely, has been pushed back to 7th June 2011 in North America.

Grab your equipment and put a bullet in the chamber - it's going to be a long day.