Arma 2 is a combat simulation game developed by Bohemia Interactive, the company responsible for Operation Flashpoint and Arma.
Operation Flashpoint was one of my favorite games and the only game I ever thought did a good job of modelling small arms - and somehow I managed to miss that the development studio released a spiritual successor (they no longer own the operation flashpoint name) - so I’ve never played the first Arma.
The demo was released today and the full game gets released tomorrow in the US on steam.
The game features a range of gameplay as you can fight as an individual soldier, or hop into tanks, helicopters, jeeps, whatever you find. All modelled pretty realistically (at least if OFP is a good indicator). It’s one of the few (only?) games that model combat at realistic differences - usually FPS games have you facing off with enemies at a range of 10-40 yards, but in this game you can fight at hundreds of yards - or further with vehicle weapons.
I’m a little leery because a few searches about Arma 1 seem to indicate it was pretty buggy - so I’m grabbing the demo.
ARMA (in my experience of course) was a good follow up to OFP. It was kind of buggy to start with but the company and the GIANT mod community cleaned it up nicely. I have been looking forward to trying ARMA2.
I downloaded the demo installer off a major file site but it was broken - so I just thought I’d let people know the demo was on steam and it’s probably easier to install it that way.
Hey, I’m usually a Call of Duty gamer, and I bought this because it looked pretty and Steam said it was a good game. I’m lost like a Jew in a sausage factory. Some pointers here?
The Official Forums are a great place to start. The game developers participate there to some extent. Post noob questions in the noob thread, and read the sticky post headlines to see if they’re relevant to you. Don’t ask questions about hardware outside the appropriate threads, the developers are sensitive to the game performance not being that great. It’s more CPU dependent than most games.
Overall ARMA2 is an amazing buggy vast framework. Lots of weapons, vehicles, objects, etc. Powerful scripting capabilities. But the included missions are mostly snippets, there isn’t one big storyline.
I’d try to play through the tutorials of course. They can be buggy though. Once you figure out your basic controls I’d suggest hosting a local deathmatch server and practicing against bots. They are reasonably challenging and will get you used to moving around and aiming, which feels quite different from most FPS games. Lots of control tweak possibilities.
It’s a great game for co-op missions, there are tons of those and tons of mods at http://armaholic.com. Be sure to read the sticky post on the ARMA2 forums for help installing mods.
Hey, wait, was this the game where I couldn’t finish the driving tutorial because the instructor got sniped in the head at boot camp? Because that was awesome.
Yep that sounds about right. The AI has a certain amount of free will and anything can happen.
I remember in one Operation Flashpoint mission I was waiting on an officer to arrive and he never did. I walked up the road he had wrecked his jeep and was incapacitated. :rolleyes: So apparently the mission had commanded the AI to drive from point A to point B but the driving skill of the AI wasn’t up to par.
IIRC, one of the first training missions, the one where you’re supposed to administer first aid, is completely bugged and the commands they tell you to issue don’t actually work.
I got past that somehow and had some fun playing, but I hit a mission where you’re supposed to get in a huey and fly somewhere, only the command to tell the pilot to take off isn’t in the command menu. As far as I know, two years later my squad is still sitting in that chopper waiting to take off.
Once you figure out your basic controls I’d suggest hosting a local deathmatch server and practicing against bots. They are reasonably challenging and will get you used to moving around and aiming, which feels quite different from most FPS games. Lots of control tweak possibilities.