Arma II "...one of the most ambitious videogames ever made."

[Fuchs]

Import games from the UK, people. But keep an eye on the course. Games are cheaper in the UK, new games ship for around 30 pounds. In summer 2008 that was almost double the amount in euros but in april 2009 it was equal to 30 euros so thanks to a genius who pointed me at it (don't remember who, someone at FileFront) I bought Empire: Total War for 37 euros instead of 55. I paid like 7 euros extra on taxes/shipping. Amazon is something great, abuse her.

[Biiviz]

41.95 € here.

[Moku]

What I've seen Arma 2 is 45 € in my local stores while from Play.com (UK) you get it at 32.5 € and its free shipping to Finland.

[von.small]

so is Arma 2 like a modern day setting Red Orchestra, a game which I loved but found annoying with all the keystrokes needed to do anything, the clunkiness caused by my own lack of dexterity on the kyboard made me uninstall that frickin brilliant game... Is Arma2 liek that?

Is Arma 2 walk 500 miles and then one bullet you're in a spawn que, "...an' I would walk 500 miles, an' I would walk 500 more! Just-tah-be an Arma man..."

I'm dubious is all, I need the freedom of FH2, to go where I want and do what I want, without restrictions like in Brother in Arms, but I need the high def gfx like in BiA, with a sprinkly of CoD arcady mayhem. 

Thats all I want.  ...Oh and normandy of course

[Archimonday]

This game looks fun and tactically challenging, but ultimately I am afraid to try it when I am almost certain its one of these realism games that goes overboard and makes even simple things, like going prone, a pain in the ass.

[cRa5h0v3r]

to be honest, I find it bad. It´s almost a BETA. And the claim to be an Simulation is a joke.

Still wating for Operation Flashpoint.

[Osmanlizorb]

OFP was good, ArmA was good too althought it felt like OFP with a new Graphics engine, and ARMAII is nothing but recycled material.
I mean the M1 Tank is a perfect example, they took the ArmA I model, reskinned it slightly, the firing effect is the same one as a few good mods of ArmA I have to offer - and the biggest problem is the SOUNDS,
which they havent changed at all.

Especially the ACE mod of ArmA I reminds me of ArmA II, with features like pulling wounded allies around, remade explosion effects etc.

I hope OFP2 will be better, but its nomore the bistudio making it.

[Dukat]

To be honest, I find this confusing. I just googled Flashpoint 2 and it seems BI and Codemasters are in a dispute about the game.

What I wonder most for some years, is where the engine actually comes from. Does anyone know? To me it feels like an abandoned tank simulator for military training purposes.

All vehicle physics are very close to tanks. If you take a Humvee at fullspeed and alter the course, it slides sidewards like a tank. The left/right/forward/reverse commands are singing from the same hymn sheet.
Furthermore the game offers 10 different formations at 4 different combat states, offering crouched and prone positions. And that refers exactly to what the military needs.

On top of that targets, positions and destinations always refer to distinctive points in the landscape that have orginally been added to the groundmap or they are given as 6-digit GPS positions. Tankers do the same. Their field of view is divided into sections, each of them named after a distinct object in that area. Most likely a tree, house or any other object. The engine can assign these positions that easily, because only a small share of the objects have been added to the groundmap, which the engine is referring to. The rest of the vegetation and objects isn't part of the groundmap, but added afterwards. Accordingly the engine can refer to a single tree, though there are hundrets of other trees visible for the player that the engine consideres as non-distinct objects that are simple obstacles for the AI drivers to avoid when they close in on them.

In my point of view this indicates the purpose as a military tank simulator from the 1990ies with only very little vegetation, due to the poor performance of computers in this decade. If the engine is that old, it would also explain why it makes such heavy use of the processor and the harddrive, while the graphics are totally scaleable. An old military training simulator had most likely a slow processor, forcing the engine to make high use of the harddrive, as fast SCSI harddrives where only a matter of money in those days. And the military got money.

So, basically I believe the original purpose of the engine was a tank simulator, similar to this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcwDPZh6Se0

I just can't imagine that a developer designs such an engine for the game market. It simply doesn't feed the needs of the late 90's game market that prioritized totally other aspects if you think of engines like UT or Quake 3.

[Coca-Cola]

The game is based off this simulator if I remember correctly: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VBS2

All I have to say about Arma2 is that it definitely doesn't feel like a new game at all apart from the graphical upgrade and my biggest pet peeve is still the handling in vehicles such as the hummers.

[Archimonday]

Thats looks interesting, too bad theres no torrent for this 1000 dollar simulator.

[Dukat]

I played on version 1.02.58134. So far, this campaign is different from all previous campaigns.

Both previous games had different vanilla stories: A small democratic country with some U.S soldiers garrisoned is being attacked by some communistic faction. At first you're supposed to run, then reinforcements arrive and you crush the invaders.

Arma 2 starts with a U.S. peacekeeping mission in a former member of the soviet union where the communistic russion minority, a national religious party and a democratic faction fight for supremacy. The first 2 mission are business as usuall on an easy level. With overwhelming power you're going into the conflict smashing the communist party. Then you're being garrisoned on a hill camp with the communistic insurgents hiding in the hill and forests around or living their civilian lifes. You're taking off secret ammo camps and arrest ringleaders to calm the situation. Basically you behave like U.S soldiers patrolling in Iraq of Afghanistan. When the U.S. military is finally leaving, you're, of course, left behind in a re-erupting conflict.

However, the mission design is different. This time it is no island and most missions last several hours until you finally accomplished them. Therefor it seems like the overall number of missions has been reduced. They also added elements of an adventure, with misteries to solve.

I must say I can't complain about the graphics, and the landscape got beautiful autumn colors, like Sector 318 or Fall Weiss.

The only thing that annoyed me was that I could not finish the campaign. The game suddenly stops in the 11th or 12th mission in a scripted conversation. Great! On top of that you're getting options offered that cannot be fulfilled. In the context menu of a mission you get the choice whether you want to ride on your own or take a chopper. However, the chopper is doomed to be shot, developing the story further. If you decide to ride on your own, you can't finish the mission unless you finally call for the chopper. So why do I get the option to ride on my own if I can't finish the mission this way at all? Screwed.

Edit:// Pictures:

Moving up the hill to the U.S. camp in order to report and to receive orders from my superior officer:




Group photograph at the gas station. Don't ask me why the two are aiming at each other.




Damned civilian traffic is always slow. We're just trying to pass now hoping that the car isn't a driving bomb going to blow us up.




Lovely Landscape: