ArmA II

[kenja]

Great review! Maybe I'll try it.

[HansDuet]

Got the PMC dlc. The campaign was great fun. Especially the mission where you go out to hunt tank engines with anti-materiel rifle + thermal scope.

Better than Arrowhead campaign, miles better than Arma 2 campaign. Haven't played the British one.

[Bolkonsky]

I heard that BAF was more for content, and not campaign. I've yet to beat PMC though, as I want to finish OA first. Though my favorite's still ArmA II's. I just love Chernarus far more than Takistan.

[LuckyLewis]

I love ARMA1/2, its certainly not for everyone but I've had many hours of fun with it. Messing around on the editor or playing a coop mission with a couple of friends is always fun, especially considering the abundance of custom content available.

[Bolkonsky]

I've yet to do anything substantial in the editor. I had to uninstall ArmA II because it was taking up waaay too much of my time.

[misterbull]

NASA COMPUTER? HOW DO I GET NASA?

[HansDuet]

One does not simply get Nasa.

[cinco]

having been bored to death of the games i currently own(most games out there i know aren't even worth picking up), i've started playing this game again. i got so involved i started making custom characters:



based on vdv troops wearing ozk boots as slicker boots.

[Bolkonsky]

That's pretty nice! Are the legs supposed to be light green, or are you just not finished yet?

[rikibitta]

nice review mr.Bolkonskij,
congratulations and thanks!
ps:Arma series remind me my old times playing GTR 1&2,
racing online with LISGO(Lega Italiana Simulazione Guida Online)
simply great real pc simulations.

[Fracchione]

ok blokonskiyj

you made 2 biggie mistakes

-sound of ak 74 isn't ok,it's closer to real much more than you can think but still...
-game is poor coded, bad ram usage, still now

little mistake

-graphic is excellent for the sandbox world

I have made many missions with mods with editor, you wanna try them with me you contact me

[Bolkonsky]

I said:
1) The sound of the weapon effects were good.
2) The game is badly optimized.
3) The graphics were good.

The gun effects are good, semi-realistic I think, and generally fulfilling

However, sadly, your computer will most likely explode with everything on high, so you'll have to pick and choose,

The graphics are insane

I'm not catching your drift. You said I said the opposite.

[Cadmium77]

I've played with the editor quite a bit.

Let me add at the beginning that I'm running two quad core Harpertowns 3.0 ghz with 8 gigs RAM and a Nvidia GTX 560Ti x2 and I'm able to play this game quite comfortably with all the graphics settings to the hilt. And believe me it's worth it all.

I'm an older gamer, I'm 58 in fact and I don't like fantasy and I'm not crazy about run and gun. I want real world tactics and I want first person immersion in a virtual world that is highly realistic. Arma II gives me all of that.

What I'm looking for in a game is what I call "newsreel moments" like you get when you're watching real world news crews in a combat zone. There are times when you don't get that, usually because the people you're playing with online are idiots, but if you get in with a good server you can get a lot of newsreel moments.

My best newsreel moments come with the mission editor however.

I can set up huge operations. Bigger than a company. Dozens of tanks on each side, with APC with squads of infantry inside, air and artillery support, all on a huge beautiful landscape.

After all this game, like Steel Beasts Pro PE is a real military sim. VBS2 in fact.

http://www.bisimulations.com/

That's what I want. BF2 and 3 just don't do it for me.

My own scenarios have always been gripping affairs. 5 squads of marines, moving on a town on the other side of an orchard to clear out reported enemy emplacements. Moving in with light armor backup and an attack helicopter on call, at dawn. Terrific firefights erupt.

Someone said that the sole virtue of such sims for military training are for "situational awareness" and if you're commanding 5 squads in the dark and a firefight erupts as you're moving through an orchard let me tell you you're going to learn situational awareness in a big hurry.

I recommend you get your hands on military manuals that you can find online and read their tactical doctrines.

Also I recommend hooking up with a solid online crew that love team play. I personally love Project Reality and SimHQ with its military Mondays.

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.ph...lt_Series.html

http://www.realitymod.com/


One other point; right now it's dirt cheap. You can get both the original Arma II and Operation Arrowhead for something like $14.00 at Amazon. Dirt cheap for such an amazing game.

There's so much community material it's overwhelming but amazing. ACE mod is worth it for no other reason than for it's custom sounds. And there's a guy that did a scenario generator too...it's called Planned Assault. I can't recommend this service highly enough. I've had a ball cooking up incredible scenarios with this mission genrator..and it gets better all the time...he's constantly upgrading it.

http://www.plannedassault.com/

I've had some outstanding simulations playing this way; in one night mission I was a squad leader in a large mixed force moving into the biggest city at night. I followed my orders to move forward and I waited a long time. There was palpable tension in this. then the order to move into the town came with armor moving in from the left. I was ordered to halt on a narrow side street with my men deployed to defend in the event of a Russian assault. A tremendous battle erupted in the streets ahead but I followed orders and stayed put. Finally I was sent to move in on the objective and when we came round the corner there was the evidence of huge carnage; burning APC and heaps of corpses everywhere. Usually in a game you want a shootemup but Arma II is too cool for just that. coming around that corner and seeing all those heaps of corpses and burning vehicles was like watching one of those grainy videos of the Chechen war. Planned Assault will give you a lot of amazing virtual experiences like that. This is not your normal computer game.

I used to think TW was the best game possible but now I think Arma II is ....you can play it in so many ways...as one lone soldier in a battlefield trying to stay alive or as the commander of nearly a battalion of combined arms, or as a guerrilla operating in hostile territory carring out a specific mission. In many ways it's the ultimate game...


And for those of you who want a flight sim, it's not quite DCs A10 Warthog or DCs Black Shark II but it's still a lot of fun, particularly for helicopter pilots, though for faster fighter jets the map is a wee bit small even at 340sq km

[Imperator of Rome]

Great review, but try beating the campaign first. I personally can't wait to try this game out(even though I don't like modern settings that much anymore).

[Bolkonsky]

Campaign has been long finished my friend.

This game still ranks up there as the best environment, especially for a modern setting. The world is just great. It's almost like a Bethesda world.

[Fracchione]

Let's clarify things out: A2 is meant to be played in team squad AND with usermade missions, better with custom content. AI is dumb, especially friendly bots. Campaign is full of crappy scripts, single missions are ok, sometimes even good. The engine is the worst I have ever seen, and I am into pc gaming since early 80's(MSX). Multi is pointless, unless you join a clan, but even then you will face various issues, like instability, lack of cooperation etc, not to mention lack of time to play, this game really eats your time.
The core of A2 is the editor. It's complex and not easy to master, sure you can create good scenarios with a few clicks but adding triggers, synchro, special events etc is another beast.

Luckily we can enjoy some mods, like realtimeeditor, which does semplify these aspects.

What this game does great is the unpredictability. I have made 1 scenario with mods, first time all my squad died after a few minutes, while the main support group of the friendly-AI(light tanks and humvees) managed to conquer the first target( airport ) only to be encircled and broken to pieces right after; second time, I won with only a few losses. All this without changing anything. Another scenario was counterdrug op, the type I like most: isla panthera, with blackops and other stuff. First try, quick win. "Too easy", I thought, then I retried..... 3 out of 7 men of my team killed by a single nade after 3 minutes... where the hell that came from? All seemed quite, then BOOM, quick shooting and game over. Only then I discovered that enemy patrol, lurking around bushes... I could go on for ages. Won't do. Bolkoskyn.

[Cadmium77]

I just love that game..

[pathfinder82]

After playing ARMA II and ARMA II Operation Arrowhead Ive noticed that it puts any other type of combat game to shame. Even though ARMA II is classified as a military simulator. It puts Call of Duty Modern Warfare I, II, and, III to shame and even Battlefield. Even the tiny details are correct such as the snap and crack of bullets and is the only game that has actually ever got my adrenaline pumping. It's about as real to actual combat as you can get on a computer in my opinion.

[Holger Danske]

Indeed and ArmA 3 will completely trash BF3 and MW3. Hopefully they'll make it a bit more accessible than ArmA 2 so that more people will play, without making it appealing to the CoD kids!

[Bas92]

After playing ARMA II and ARMA II Operation Arrowhead Ive noticed that it puts any other type of combat game to shame. Even though ARMA II is classified as a military simulator. It puts Call of Duty Modern Warfare I, II, and, III to shame and even Battlefield. Even the tiny details are correct such as the snap and crack of bullets and is the only game that has actually ever got my adrenaline pumping. It's about as real to actual combat as you can get on a computer in my opinion.

I hope you're not playing vanilla ArmA II though. As good as ArmA II is, it becomes SO MUCH BETTER when you play it with mods Try ACE (plus all the ACEX mods), ACRE (for multiplayer), custom maps (Lingor, Podagorsk, Panthera etc.) and COSLX. You can then enjoy improved AI, better maps (custom maps >>> official maps), better sound effects, more units/weapons, more realistic sniping (wind!), more realistic communication (radios with ACRE) etc.