Great review! although its a shame I have to wait until Tuesday 30th to play it on steam :|

Very much agreed.

Had it since launch day, and have played it every day. Friend and I loved ArmA and its expansion packs, this is a very welcome overhaul.

Infact, my biggest problem with it is some of the weapon sounds. The M107 sounds very, very subdued in comparison to a real one. I guess its only a matter of time before that's modded or changed, though.

I found tank driving to be incredibly difficult in the third person perspective - Although a lot easier to 'drift' the tank, actually commanding and getting decent hits was a damned nightmare.

Very impressed with the game, though, especially in Veteran mode - So goddamn hard.

I dunno about you, James, but I found it incredibly hard to pilot planes/choppers/anything faster than a tank with mouse&keyboard. I actually failed one of the bootcamp missions because I accidentally veered off the road and hit a cow >.> Still not passed the flying training, either.

If you're having trouble mastering flying I'd suggest loading up the editor, plonking down the aircraft of your choice and just flying around freely. The benefit of pracitising in the editor like this is that there are no mission objectives or enemies to get in your way so you can simply fly around and do as you please.

Also buy a 360 controller. :p

Also the flying training seems to be bugged on the transport mission as either nothing happens after you land the chopper or it says you fail the mission for Friendly Fire.

I may have missed this in the review, but for the flight vehicles can you use a joystick/fly stick.
I have a Saitek ST290 Pro which worked well in BF2, so could potentially make this game/sim very enjoyable too.


I'll be honest though.. it looks complicated and massive, and a huge time sink. I had feelings like this when trying Supreme Commander for the 1st time as well though.

Thanks for the review, really enjoyed the reading that. I've been excited about ArmA II for a while now, started downloading the demo last night and depending on my experience(s) I'll most likely purchase it considering my [gaming] community are all salivating over the idea of actual tactics and the potential to have some freaking awesome matches.

One thing I did spot was easy instead of ease..

Originally Posted by James Gorbold
... any budding pilot should be able to jump into a fixed-wing aircraft and take off with relative easy.

... grammar Nazi or something ay?

;)

Yes, you can fly with a joystick. However, although I'm also a flight sim purist I actually find it easier flying helicopters with the keyboard and mouse.

Originally Posted by Lizard
If you're having trouble mastering flying I'd suggest loading up the editor, plonking down the aircraft of your choice and just flying around freely. The benefit of pracitising in the editor like this is that there are no mission objectives or enemies to get in your way so you can simply fly around and do as you please.

I would if I felt like pouring the time into getting good - I much prefer sniping :D

Much, much easier, and (IMO) much more satisfying. One hit kills <3

My friend is a chopper addict, though, so he usually does all my flying for me on LAN's/online games.

Originally Posted by Jack_Pepsi
One thing I did spot was easy instead of ease..

Thanks :), it's fixed now.

What would one consider the minimum system to run this with the 3km view distance? I need to get a new budget video card anyway.

(This is what I thought FarCry 2 would be: Massively Open World First Person Shooter)

It would seem to vary enormously depending on what OS you are running, although we haven't had to chance to check this claim out, according to multiple reports on the official forum, Arma II runs much better on XP than Vista or 7. As an example, my Core i7 and GeForce GTX 285 rig running Windows 7 can just about cope with a 3.6km viewdistance most of the time at 1,920 x 1,200 with most of the setings on high, and a few on maximum.

oooooooh this is bf2 sized timesink ALL OVER AGAIN! damn u i had plans for the summer! :P

what kind of settings/view distance could i squeeze out of a q670@3ghz, 4gb ram and a 4870 512mb at 1400x900 under Win XP???

Could it even run 10km for a laugh or would that be a frame buffer issue??

Originally Posted by Action_Parsnip
oooooooh this is bf2 sized timesink ALL OVER AGAIN! damn u i had plans for the summer! :P

what kind of settings/view distance could i squeeze out of a q670@3ghz, 4gb ram and a 4870 512mb at 1400x900 under Win XP???

Could it even run 10km for a laugh or would that be a frame buffer issue??

I get decent performance on the rig in my sig at 1920x1200 with most settings at high/v.high and a draw distance of ~2.3km. Running Win 7RC

I turned shadows down to medium-ish settings, though.

I'd have thought that you'd be able to either match or get close to those settings at your res on XP.

Great review, first one i have properly enjoyed reading in a long time!

I will definitely be purchasing this game, it sounds like a game that can be totally engulfing.

Having been a big follower and supporter of the OFP and ArmA (1) series, Im much looking forward to porting my projects into ArmA 2.
ArmA 1 was great when you actually sat down to mod it and customise it, or install other mods that improved gameplay.
BI studios are very much a community games house, unlike others, a lot of what you see in arma 2 is directly from the community.
Its quite big.
The loadouts for soldiers seems fairly accurate, although I'm sure the modding community will change that in weeks to come.

Overall Im impressed with the game, and Im looking forward to playing it modded to hell.

Thanks for the review, I've played OFP and Arma in co-op for many hours over the past few years, simply awesome and I cannot wait for the next installation.

vast amount of lot of data to process and render.

That doesn't sound quite right ;)

Well spotted - fixed now, thanks.

For everyone asking about system requirements and optimal settings - just go ahead and download the demo. It's very full featured and has tutorial, single player missions, multiplayer and editor all included.

Originally Posted by Lizard
Yes, you can fly with a joystick. However, although I'm also a flight sim purist I actually find it easier flying helicopters with the keyboard and mouse.

lol i flew straight into a tree trying to use kb + mouse in a chopper
plugged in my trusty sidewinder FF2 joystick and yay, full force feedback support!

my biggest issue so far is the terrible cutting together of voices
man
FRONT!
FAR!

target
THAT!
man

etc
it actually really breaks the immersion imo :(

Most frustrating p.o.s. I ever played.

Bug ridden throughout. I couldn't even complete the training levels due to the amount of bugs. Needs another year of development to make it playable.

The controls are the worst thing ever, you would of think that they would have learned from their previous releases that they needed overhauling.

Also squad management needs to be overhauled to a decent gui like bf2.

Far too many buttons to do anything. By the time you press escape find the right button you are dead.

Wait for Operation Flashpoint 2.

Originally Posted by bogie170
Far too many buttons to do anything. By the time you press escape find the right button you are dead.

It's got a lot of buttons because it's a milsim - not a first-person shooter, such as BF2.

Besides, you can do almost everything you need via the scrollwheel on your mouse.

Great review I enjoyed reading that, is this another good reason to wait and build in Sep when hopefully ATI will release some even more powerfull dirrect x 11 cards ?

For those new to the game and wanting to improve it, check the sites to see how involved the players and modders are with contributions.

Modding is the biggest part of the game even since OFP to ArmA 1, ArmA 2 continues the tradition.

http://www.armaholic.com/

http://forums.bistudio.com/

I'm currently working on my ArmA 1 mapping project and prepping it for porting to ArmA 2.

This winter shall be FUN

Downloading the demo now, seems great!

What's the DRM like on this game? Sometimes even the steam version installs the same DRM crap.