CMay
12-22-2011, 05:16 PM
So, here's a run-down. There's some great fun to be had with this game, but there are some buts.
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Con: The campaign is mostly uninteresting and does not even come close to fully utilizing the potential of the engine, mission editor or island.
Pro: The mission editor is decent enough that lots of people have made custom missions and campaigns, so if you primarily want to play good helicopter missions, sniper missions, tank missions, etc you can find countless community-made ones. Most of these can be played co-op.
All missions take place on a large island map which can take a while to cross even in a helicopter. Being that missions share the same map, the custom mission files are fairly small and easy to share.
You can make basic missions pretty easily and if you want to get more advanced to the point of nearly making an entirely new game with it, you can write LUA script for your missions. This allows you to dynamically adjust the weather, time of day, spawn entities programmatically, use particle emitters, play custom sounds, call in air support, etc.
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Con: You aren't likely to be able to just jump into a good co-op multiplayer game, as many are unlisted/private and there are usually only a few public multiplayer games. Even though missions tend not to be large, if you host a custom mission then anyone who wants to join will need to have that mission and it doesn't automatically transfer them.
Pro: Missions can be great fun co-op and with a few friends you can easily get your money's worth out of the multiplayer. Just keep in mind that if you try to do the campaign co-op, don't judge the entertainment value on it as custom missions are where it's at. Even if you're only hosting a singleplayer mission, friends can spectate you.
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Con: It has a much smaller variety of weapons, land, sea and air vehicles than the ArmA games (2-3 of each vehicle type per side). There's also much less of the simulation element. Though the island is large, there are no jets.
Pro: While you don't have a huge selection of vehicles, the ones you do have feel fine and cover your basic transport/offense needs sufficiently. I'm also fine with the weapon selection and air support options. The game is much more approachable than ArmA in that the user interface is slick/usable, vehicles are no fuss and you don't have a bunch of awkward context menus needed to get things done.
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Con: The AI can be a bit easy, the sun glare/HDR can be a bit too much at times, etc.
Pro: There are mods that fix some of these issues, though the latest version that was released to Steam had accidentally removed mod support. So if you want to use mods, you'll need to download the modified EXE and disable auto-updating for Dragon Rising in Steam. It works fine with Steam.
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Personally, I love helicopters quite thoroughly and just loading up various maps or making custom missions to fly a chopper around while making fun maneuvers through the towns/terrain and taking out targets was worth the price to me. Tanks and heat vision sniper rifles are great fun too.
Being able to do that cooperatively only makes it better. While the core gameplay is not that similar to Just Cause 2, I admit to spending most of the time in Just Cause 2 flying around in various aircraft for fun and in that sense I got similar enjoyment out of it.
___________________________________________
Con: The campaign is mostly uninteresting and does not even come close to fully utilizing the potential of the engine, mission editor or island.
Pro: The mission editor is decent enough that lots of people have made custom missions and campaigns, so if you primarily want to play good helicopter missions, sniper missions, tank missions, etc you can find countless community-made ones. Most of these can be played co-op.
All missions take place on a large island map which can take a while to cross even in a helicopter. Being that missions share the same map, the custom mission files are fairly small and easy to share.
You can make basic missions pretty easily and if you want to get more advanced to the point of nearly making an entirely new game with it, you can write LUA script for your missions. This allows you to dynamically adjust the weather, time of day, spawn entities programmatically, use particle emitters, play custom sounds, call in air support, etc.
___________________________________________
Con: You aren't likely to be able to just jump into a good co-op multiplayer game, as many are unlisted/private and there are usually only a few public multiplayer games. Even though missions tend not to be large, if you host a custom mission then anyone who wants to join will need to have that mission and it doesn't automatically transfer them.
Pro: Missions can be great fun co-op and with a few friends you can easily get your money's worth out of the multiplayer. Just keep in mind that if you try to do the campaign co-op, don't judge the entertainment value on it as custom missions are where it's at. Even if you're only hosting a singleplayer mission, friends can spectate you.
___________________________________________
Con: It has a much smaller variety of weapons, land, sea and air vehicles than the ArmA games (2-3 of each vehicle type per side). There's also much less of the simulation element. Though the island is large, there are no jets.
Pro: While you don't have a huge selection of vehicles, the ones you do have feel fine and cover your basic transport/offense needs sufficiently. I'm also fine with the weapon selection and air support options. The game is much more approachable than ArmA in that the user interface is slick/usable, vehicles are no fuss and you don't have a bunch of awkward context menus needed to get things done.
___________________________________________
Con: The AI can be a bit easy, the sun glare/HDR can be a bit too much at times, etc.
Pro: There are mods that fix some of these issues, though the latest version that was released to Steam had accidentally removed mod support. So if you want to use mods, you'll need to download the modified EXE and disable auto-updating for Dragon Rising in Steam. It works fine with Steam.
___________________________________________
Personally, I love helicopters quite thoroughly and just loading up various maps or making custom missions to fly a chopper around while making fun maneuvers through the towns/terrain and taking out targets was worth the price to me. Tanks and heat vision sniper rifles are great fun too.
Being able to do that cooperatively only makes it better. While the core gameplay is not that similar to Just Cause 2, I admit to spending most of the time in Just Cause 2 flying around in various aircraft for fun and in that sense I got similar enjoyment out of it.