45% on Mathematics? Reliving my high school days
It’s Monday, and I’m sure all of you are trudging through the doldrums of a new work week and the unfortunate luck that seems to accompany this day. I’m not going to let you slog through this day in a state of mediocrity, though. Let’s get that brain working! It’s time to test your mental dexterity and unlock some goodies for the upcoming Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising.
Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising is Codemasters’ follow-up to the cult classic Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis released back in 2001. Operation Flashpoint, or OFP for short, was a brutally realistic first person shooter set during the Cold War. It featured many drivable vehicles and aircraft, a huge selection of realistic firearms and weaponry, massive, open lands filled with combat opportunities, a fully featured mission editor, and solid mod and add-on support. The game had an incredible learning curve and unforgiving tactics that required a great amount of patience for a player to master.
Codemasters has a very interesting promo site for OFP: Dragon Rising that rewards players with in-game content based on their performance with three cognitive tests. The three tests are categorized as memory, analytical thinking, and multi-tasking. Memory plays like a game of “Simon,” but is significantly more difficult. Analytical thinking has the test taker matching the font color of a word to its appropriate color name–the catch being that the colored word is the name of a different color. Multi-tasking has the user solving mathematical problems while moving the mouse to avoid contact with two moving spheres at the same time. The three tests become progressively more difficult as the timer speeds up and the questions are more complex. Depending on your score at the end, you are rewarded with unlock codes that give you bonus missions in the full game.
In theory it all sounds so simple. In practice, however, it’s a whole ‘nother ball game. After one run through I scored a collective 68%, a failing grade. I scored well in memory and analytical thinking, but I am absolutely awful at mental math. I completely fell apart in that section. The tests become intense and frustrating, especially knowing that game content is on the line. I slammed my fist on my desk on more than one occasion while attaining my D+. Here’s hoping there’s a bell curve.
OFP: Dragon Rising continues the trend of complete military accuracy while moving the time-line to modern combat. It has an October release date across PC and console platforms.
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