Shooters make a pact with you. Half-Life 2, Far Cry, even BioShock all have a basic formula: standard controls, guns that put bullets where you tell them to, enemies who are just looking for a lead injection. These games spit in their hand and tell you: "Yes, we will make shooting many, many people an easy thing." Offer your saliva-soaked hand to ArmA 2 and the game will slap it away. If you want easy, go somewhere else. What you'll get in ArmA 2 is a soldier's worst nightmare.
Head over to the ArmA II launch website.
Before you know it you're the leader of a four-man squad, creeping through the darkest night you can possibly imagine, crouch-running through a village looking for a hidden transmitter, and hoping you'll get out without seeing the slightest movement. Movement means people. Enemies, civilians: both bad. Bullets fly. You push yourself to find any cover - even corpses provide some - and hope your squad's out of enemy sight. Orders are barked and the map hastily checked. It only takes one bullet to kill you, and to catch one means you've done something wrong. You will die.
ArmA II
01:54 *Not* from the guys that are bringing you Flashpoint 2.
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ArmA 2 is the latest in the hardcore soldier sim series that began with Operation: Flashpoint and continued in 2007's ArmA: Armed Assault. Both turned the relatively simple notion (in gaming at least) of moving through a battlefield into a complicated series of button gymnastics. In Bohemia Interactive's games, war isn't a scripted series of dramatic set-pieces, but a fluid, dangerous and sometimes stunning approximation of a soldier's life.
This time we're in the politically complex faux state of Chernarus, a dynamic world that, at 225km2, is larger than a game this detailed has any right to be. The Americans are attempting to stabilise the region, but Chernarus's multiple factions are doing their best to tear it apart. At its best, ArmA 2 will leave you with war stories to tell, vivid, unexpected fights to describe, and a world to explore. The flipside is the weight of the simulation crushing what's underneath. Without structure and direction, ArmA 2 is liable to break like the previous games did.
The singleplayer game escalates at a slow pace, putting your small team through scene-setting missions that take you from squad leader to commander of an entire army. The four-man team you're part of is a recon squad that will stick together throughout the campaign. You're in charge of the team's movements, a notion that's made clear when you begin. Nearly every FPS finger-memory you have will betray you: the number keys, the preserve of weapons/powers in other games, are what you use to control your squad.
Yet every menu that pops up brings you a little closer to understanding what ArmA 2 is all about: control. As the squad leader, you have to make decisions on the fly to make the squad function. You're up against good AI: they zig-zag when fleeing, they aim carefully when shooting.
A bullet in ArmA 2 is a beautiful ballistic entity, capable of dropping you or a teammate with just one hit. You have to be careful at all times. Paranoid, even. You simply must have an absolute level of control over how your team approaches combat situations. The interface, how you tell them to move to a specific building in a particular way, is 80% great. The missing 20%? When the shit hits the fan, the same setup seems rigid and unhelpful. ArmA 2's ordering system is many things, but it's not quick. It takes time and a lot of effort to be comfortable with.
Comments
16 comments so far...
The_KFD_Case on 17 Jun '09 said:
Man! That does sound good. Parts of the review gave me flashbacks to basic training in the army. Covering squad movement (half cover while the other half advance, then vice versa, etc.); slowly walking through a field of high grass trying to look in every direction waiting for an attack and then suddenly hearing the first cracks of gunfire and the sergeant shouting the command word for seeking cover from a simulated grenade attack...the sun in yours eyes as you lie uncomfortably hot and sweaty in a dry field of grass, disoriented and desparetly trying to determine where the attack is coming from (muzzle flashes are hard to see during day time,) debating whether to brave raising your head above the tall grass line to get a better view vs. the potentially deadly consequences....ArmA2 sounds like it's pulled these aspects of soldiering off quite nicely. A shame the AI issues and bugs appear to hamper the game. I'll wait to see what OpsFlash 2 is like, and maybe by then some of the issues will have been ironed out in this game.
trooperdx3117 on 17 Jun '09 said:
This game sounds alright but is it coming out for 360, I don't have a computer made of lasers and this game was announced for 360 but I heard it was cancelled
Sleepaphobic on 17 Jun '09 said:
no i think its PC only. if you cant play it (which is a shame) then wait for flashpoint in the fall as that is for the consoles as well, how good it will be is the million dollar question though
and the bugs will be fixed as bohemia really do support their games post launch with fixes and extra sp/mp stuff.
Adam81uk on 17 Jun '09 said:
The game looks great and sounds amazing, i just think its going to be a little bit too hardcore for me. Not sure i have the time to invest to really learn to think like a soldier, nor the patience for that matter. Shame as the premise really appeals to me, i just know my lack of patience and skill wouldn't allow me to get the most out of it after playing other FPS.
lmimmfn on 17 Jun '09 said:
And the bloody spec of the machine used for the review was??????????????????????????????????
I know it'll come down to it was a box on the page of the magazine, but jez do these articles ever get reviewed before getting uploaded?
SAeN on 17 Jun '09 said:
3 GHz Quad core, 4Gb of RAM, 512Mb 3d card.
And as was said in the review, that made it smooth.
Players who bagged an early copy are reporting that it needs to be better optimised but that was to be expected. Most blame the fillrate slider that acts as a replacement for AA
The_KFD_Case on 18 Jun '09 said:
Thanks for the info. Asides from the Quad Core bit (I use a Duo Core,) my PC rig meets all of those specifications. Still, as previously stated, I'll wait until OpsFlash 2 is out before making my final decision. Perhaps a more optimized version will be out by then.
darthmelly on 18 Jun '09 said:
Agreed. Looks promising enough but definitely not the complete package. Will wait for OP2 and make a decision then.
It does seem the same problems that plagued the first generation games are still here (AI, specs, bugs) which is disappointing. I would prefer a complete game experience straight off rather than waiting until a couple of patches come out.
Speciala on 19 Jun '09 said:
The game is more than playable. The bugs wont stop you enjoying the game. If they do stop your enjoyment, the game is not for you.
Alex on 19 Jun '09 said:
Ok the competition link in the CVG email redirects to this page, is there even a competition to win a monitor cos I can't find one!
Alex on 19 Jun '09 said:
Found it!
For those who are also lost go here:
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=217925
lordirongut on 20 Jun '09 said:
You know, I heard someone say that this game would be 'genre defining' a few weeks ago on these forums, and I thought that they were being sarcastic, but the more I read up on this game, the more I realise that they might have been serious. Might have to go pick this up.
eksistenz on 20 Jun '09 said:
I was really looking forward to this coming out. All the previews seemed to indicate it would be so much better than its frankly woeful predecessor.
Got the game today, and it's just more of the same. Same naff menus, same laggy mouse control that makes hitting anything more luck than judgement, and graphics that will require several hundred pounds of hardware upgrade in order to make it playable.
I'm all for pushing technology forward, but please developers, make your games playable on normal hardware - we don't all have access to quad processors and dual SLI graphics.
Let's hope Flashpoint 2 is better, 'cos this was a waste of f'*king money.
Serenity on 21 Jun '09 said:
Quite enjoying it myself Craig. You need to spend a hell of a lot of time learning the controls and practising them but it's worth it.
Haven't stumbled over any game-breaking bugs yet although I can't help thinking text-to-speech would do a tenfold better job of the in-game dialogue.
You're also right about the AI. For the most part, they are crack shots and bloody smart, but driving is certainly not a strong point. Too many times I've seen an APC fly down the road straight into a parked bus or zoom past it's turning by 30 feet, still try to make the turn, take out two signs and whatever else is nearby.
Helicopters are easy enough to fly but VTOLS are a different breed. Way too twitchy. Getting stuck in trees is a favourite pastime of the VTOL too.
I really hope the bugs get ironed out as they're only little things but it's just the amount of them. When it's working properly, this thing will be epic.
funkyjack on 22 Jun '09 said:
This game is like crack, I'm totally addicted, it's the best infantry simulation I have ever played.
It has some annoying bugs in the training missions (which the patch seemed to fix), but I am really enjoying learning to fly and command tanks etc. I do agree the controls aren't very intuitive, but if you put some time in, they start to become second nature.
This game is going to eat up a lot of my time, the editor is fantastic...
DLoProH on 11 Feb '10 said:
It's only any good to play if you're playing with the right people in an organized and serious manner otherwise the game doesn't shine. After many months of trial and error with many different ArmA clans, I eventually decided to get into something more serious and eventually got into Operation Reality which is a mature milsim community! I've never looked back since and I've never played felt such a realistic military game/sim as when I'm playing with the guys ORC! Either way, good luck with finding some serious people to play with! I know it can be hard.