Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising

Ha ha. No I don't think so! And to be perfectly fair, Robert, I've had a fantastic career and it has been hugely varied. I did a lot of work for the War Groups Commission and the War Crimes Commission in Kosovo and Bosnia. I did an awful lot of war investigation stuff.

It was only my early years of service that I did proper infantry work. Closing-with-the-enemy - the sort of stuff that you see in Flashpoint. Nevertheless, the whole premise of the British Army is that every single soldier and officer is a soldier first before they're their trade second. There are far better people with far better stories to tell than me, I have to say.

Haha, good question. Who are Eurogamer, first?

Oh, alright.

I have a funny feeling Codemasters said I would comment on combat realism and the experiential focus. I don't know: they haven't given me any brief at all.

No, I certainly wouldn't say that. If we were working with a weapon in the field in an area that is prone to combat - meaning you could be hit at any time - then the weapon would be tight in the shoulder and held relatively low, [so it] can be brought into action at any given time. What that means effectively is that from a first-person point of view, you're not going to be able to see half of the weapon because it's in the shoulder. So no, I wouldn't have said that at all.

Let me talk about the bits I don't like before I talk about the bits I do, because there is lots to commend it, but there are also bits it can be challenged on.

If [the game is] dealing with an elite squad, which it is, quite obviously... Right from the very start I was frustrated with some of the weapons that were chosen. I don't like this premise of starting 'low'. You've been inserted in on a mission - you're going to have everything that you need unless something has gone wrong. This idea that you start off with [a weapon] that isn't good and you work up finding other things that are - that frustrates me.

It frustrates me because in the very first scene, for instance, whilst you're calling in an artillery strike, the enemy decides to send riflemen to flush you out - and shooting them is particularly difficult, even when you bring the weapon up and use the eye-sight. Most soldiers will tell you that modern day weaponry, providing you've got great line of sight...

The optimal sights that are attached to most high-quality weapons now mean you can see very clearly at 300-400 metres. And that scenario seemed to be about 150 metres.

The ability to kill the enemy, whilst you yourself are targeted relatively easy, is frustrating.

Yeah, well, it's about having control of your senses in real life. The problem with a game - and it's always going to be the case - is that you lose your ability to turn your head very quickly, you lose your ability to just feel where everybody is around you, you lose the ability to sense danger. Therefore, the very first time you know you've been shot at is when you've been shot, if that makes sense. You don't see it coming - there's just no smell of it. That's not helped by the complex gameplay.

On a positive note, the tactics are spot on. Anybody that's played Flashpoint gets some idea of what it's like to think and command a small team in war. I love the interface. I love the whole thing about the amount of kit people are carrying. I love that it's difficult to move in all that kit and you can sense that it is cumbersome. You have very fine margins for error which, if it was equal and it was a level playing field, would be fine and spot on. But it's weighted towards the enemy. The language: spot on. And, once you've mastered the gameplay, it works particularly well.

The thing is, these games appeal more to non-soldiers, whereas most of my peer group would prefer to play things like Brothers in Arms and Call of Duty. That's not a criticism of Flashpoint - part of it is that when you do it for real you want something a bit easier [to play]. Does that make sense? Something a bit quicker.