Whilst getting some quality time with Operation Flashpoint Red River’s co-operative firefight modes I had the chance to talk with principal Game Designer for this project, Tim Browne.

I honestly could have talked to Tim for hours but such were the constraints that I managed to get a few minute instead as we nattered about A.I., authenticity, improvements and the mighty Ego Engine.

Gary: It’s nice to see Operation Flashpoint back again, I have just played some of the co-op levels a moment ago and its looking very nice. We originally reviewed Dragon Rising with good scores but problems were reported after launch. What have you done to make sure that Operation Flashpoint Red River doesn’t suffer from the same problems?

Tim Browne: One of the main design pillars was making the game more accessible this time around. We know that Dragon Rising was somewhat of a success but a lot of people found it difficult to get to grips with so we’ve tried to help the player a lot more but there are also various options to turn these aids off because we also know that there are people out there that want a very unforgiving game too.

One of the main things at the core of the co-operative we have been able to introduce join in progress which allows a player to bring up his friends, who can join at any point during the session using any of the unlocks that have been awarded through campaign modes. Red River has been designed a lot around co-operative modes but we have put a competitive element in there that pits fire teams amongst other fire teams for scores on playthroughs without the PvP mentality.

Gary: In Dragon Rising the A.I. felt pretty woolly in places without unexpected movements and such. What have you done to address this issue in Red River and make them more dynamic?

Tim Browne: The whole of Dragon Rising was very ambitious, it was the first FPS that this team had developed. We’ve learnt a lot and we have taken that to Red River. We were proud of the A.I. in Dragon Rising but we were also aware that there were various issues which we have tried to look at. One of the problems was the A.I. moving in front of your rifle whilst firing which has been resolved.  There is more communication and if the A.I. needs to move he will shout “coming through”, they’ll now wait before running, they are a lot more autonomous now which is something you want with A.I.  You may have also seen in your games that if a man goes down from an injury, without you having to do anything another A.I., as long as it ‘s safe, will go and heal that person.

We’ve also got a lot more dynamic cover points in the game so the A.I. know where is and isn’t a good place to go so they won’t just stand out in the road firing blindly unless that is what you have told them to do.  The other thing we have looked at is dynamic object avoidance which is something we did have in Dragon Rising but we’ve heavily improved that and put in things like a convey system where it won’t use a linear path anymore but uses a spline to find its way around things and we’ve had some fun trying to stump the A.I. to clean up how it works.  We are constantly trying to improve the A.I. now and it is a massive step up from what you experienced with Dragon Rising.

Gary: You mentioned the XP and perks system in the presentation.  We’ve always considered Operation Flashpoint to be a thinking man’s shooter but am concerned that the XP system would push it back towards a run and gun mechanic.  Could you explain this a little more?

Tim Browne: I absolutely, categorically still feel that Red River is a strategic, thinking man’s shooter.  We didn’t want to make Red River feel like other tunnel shooter games but we did want to have a system that would allow the player to show that they have improved without making it too arcadey so what you will notice with the core skill points, B mods and specialisations is that all of these things are small improvements so if you max out your core skill points you will be faster at running and reloading and have greater stamina but you won’t be this uber soldier that will have biometrics and things.  We didn’t want to do that and designed it not to be like that.  The thing that we have done is to allow a player to have an option not to use them.  If you feel that with points assigned it doesn’t feel like the game you want and you prefer the loading to be meticulously slow because we base our reloads off of real reloads in real life then you can just reset your points and never use them.  If people want to have a bit more run and gun then the option is there but this game is very unforgiving to those elements than many of the other shooters out there I think you’ll agree?  One bullet can still kill, and it does regularly but we wanted to try and make the game more accessible to as many different players.

Gary: So what your saying, in essence, is that the changes and perks are subtle rather than something that could unbalance a game?

Tim Browne: Balance is another thing that we have looked at.  There are some B mods that have positives and negatives deliberately so one mod may improve your accuracy whilst standing still but make that accuracy worse when moving and vice versa.  A scout for example may want to apply that mod due to his long range accuracy but a grenadier class would not want that mod as he is involved more in CQB and would perhaps apply a mod to make him more accurate in close range firefights.  Then we have specialisations that improve reload speed of perhaps stop the weapon from getting jammed as often called a maintenance mod.  B mods and specialisations are more steeped in the real world for authenticity rather than having a magical ability to call  in this massive killing machine that destroys everything and then goes away again.  We didn’t want anything like that in the game so although we have high velocity mods that maybe a little less believable, although you do have these kinds of rounds, we didn’t want anything like silent footed etc that would bring too much of an arcadey feel to the game.  We have taken this quite seriously.

Gary: Now Codemasters’ Ego engine has embedded itself in al of Codies games, can you tell me how this engine has elevated the look and feel of Red River against Dragon Rising?

Tim Browne: I still get a kick from loading up the game and looking at the different levels using the insertion in the game that allows a third person view whilst you are in the chopper.  I could spend hours just looking at the environments which are very lush.  Each level has a different look, lighting and skies just look beautiful.  Ego engine is a brilliant proprietary engine and we’re really happy with it.  It has been excellent not only in the driving genre but with shooters like Red River and obviously Bodycount is also using it.

We have tried to create with Red River an Eco narrative so at the start when you move into Tajikistan everything feels very upbeat and I don’t want to spoil the story but as you progress you may take a bit of a kicking and the mood would be set by the lighting and as Tajikistan gets more ravaged by war you will see more damage to the environment.  The PLA are firing RPG’s as well as you calling in air strikes so this definitely shows in the game.

So as you progress through the game you will see lots of smoke plumes, lots of fire and there is definitely a heat now to it as Tajikistan is quite a dry location with lots of desert sand and mud brick housing but there are also lush green zones which we have really tried to capture.

Gary: The thing that I have loved about the Ego engine so far is that games do not look as clinical but have more of an earth, natural feel.  Dirt 2 is a prime example against something like Gran Turismo 5 which looks too polished that gives a synthetic look.

Tim Browne: That is a great point that you’ve brought up about games looking clinical and that was something in Dragon Rising that we wanted to change for Red River.  In Dragon Rising the weapons looked like they had just been taken out of their wrappers and we have done a lot of research into what the USMC use and they use weapons that have been used a lot so you will see on all the weapons now that they will look old and worn with  a bit of old flak paint, some camouflage paint that has worn away and duct tape holding things together.  There is definitely more authenticity in the look of the weapons, taking visual cues from films like Generation Kill to get the look right.  Weapons are a lot dustier, I mean, Tajikistan is a dusty place so you would expect to see that sort of thing on them.

Gary: You were talking about weapon degradation there in terms of look but will we see these guns wearing down over the course of the campaign?

Tim Browne: The weapons look more battered in the look department but they won’t get more battered in terms of their use within the game but that’s a whole new layer.  We wanted to have an authentic feel to the weaponry which I think we have achieved in terms of customisation and being scratched up but for degradation in usage that is something that is not in the game at present but who knows in terms of future patches or DLC and is something I cannot comment on at present.

Gary: So how is the online infrastructure looking for Red River?   With Dragon Rising there were issues with players being dropped from games as well as lag and frame rate issues.

Tim Browne: There will be an announcement coming soon regarding the future plans of Red River but again is something I cannot comment on at the moment but you will be one of the first to know our intentions.  In terms of dedicated servers, they will not be in place for co-operative modes obviously but PvP is something that I cannnot comment on at the moment.

Red River at the core is set with co-op in mind, we tried to do a lot in Dragon Rising, some might say a little too much as it was very ambitious.  With Red River we have tried to take a step back and look at what we had done well with the previous title, what we could improve, what wasn’t so good, where we wanted to take it.  The narrative is a massive improvement in my opinion, there’s a lot more character in there and I still laugh at some of  the things that Staff Sergeant Knox says, some of his put downs and blue language adds a lot of character to him and we knew there was something special about Dragon Rising’s co-op and we really wanted to build on that and I really think we have.

Operation Flashpoint: Red River is due for release on April 21st for the 360, PS3 and PC