Arma II and stand alone expansion

[NilSatis]

Anyone had any experience of this game? Loved Operation flashpoint a few years ago, and was after a bit more of a realistic military sim again.....got COD Black Ops/BC 2 etc for console and although it has its place, to me the realism isnt there; will this do it for me? Looks good on reviews etc. especially the recent expansion but reports of bugs has slightly put me off. Anyone got it?

Also looking for a good looking game to run on the new rig. Metro 2033? Obv. not on highest settings....but will it still look good?

Apart from that might give Two Worlds 2 a go for some bad voice acting RPG fun to go with ARMA 2; and cant wait for Skylar.....hopefully gonna be epic. Nb. I already have Dragon Age: Origins Ultimate Edition on xbox 360....could get the sequel but dont know when its out?

Ta

Pete

 

[Meds]

Arma II, JackAttack is the man to speak to about this, I'll forward this thread to him - he loves the game.

 

[NilSatis]

Nice one Meds, thanks

 

[JakAttack]

Sorry I didn't post yesterday, manic day!

Arma 2 is probably the best military simulator money can buy, the company who do it do the VR programs for the US Army using the same graphics engine (http://www.bisimulations.com/).

Basically you've got about 50 sq. miles of terrain (with add on maps packs available), a realistic damage engine, good physics and very good real world features. Military sounds etc are all reproduced and all the guns handle like you'd expect them to (i.e. fire a Barrett M107 stood up and you'll find yourself at a 90 degree angle looking at the sky. Lying down required for heavy MG's etc.)

I used to play Operation Flashpoint, and got the addon pack for that and also played ArmA very heavily (1000's of hours logged on Xfire), and the funny thing is I very rarely played the campaign or the multiplayer, although I did go through the campaign quite far. The most fun you can have on this game if you have the patience and the creativity is the mission editor, you have 2 types, the simple one, which creates a quick mission with a basic goal (e.g. kill all enemy, or defend a location for a certain amount of time), or you can go to the advanced mission editor, here, you can add, group, create and use ANY item from the game (be it plane, man, tank, car, ship etc.), and create your own missions on this, Gorman and Medz have seen me play around on this at great length and you can truly create some epic battles, or you can create a little hunter-killer mission with you as a sniper and a few guys to kill and see how long you can go undetected (the AI is smart, and manageable).

The manual for the mission editor is about 147 pages full of different things you can do.

I've never seen a game with as much to do on this, you could literally create missions for the rest of your life and not have them the same, mine range from the simple to the downright diciulous (e.g. 2 huge armies fighting over an airfield, Pc runs like a dog usually).

And there you have it, this game is not for the faint hearted, impatient or followers of the CoD/Battlefield style games, the realism is... unreal... lol. If you get shot in the legs bad enough, you have to crawl around until somebody patches you up (presuming you remembered to include a medic/corpsman in your team!).

I could rant on forever how much I love this game, but to be honest it's one of those games where you see it your own way, if you liked Operation Flashpoint 1, or if you played ArmA, you should love this, as it's basically an overhauled version of the ArmA engine, but with new features (fence in the way, no problem, now you can 'step over' it ).

Here is my review for the ArmA 2 games, I've just got my brand new spanking GTX 580 today and will be doing some Fraps work tonite, so I'll try and upload some Hi-def gameplay footage.

Hope this helped out to anyone who wishes to play this Behemoth of a military simulation.

 

[NilSatis]

Absolutely spot on JakAttack; that was exactly the sort of review I was hoping for. Have a bit of time on my hands at the moment so the mission editors sound perfect; and the realism level is exactly what I want, will let you know what I think when i get it, defo on the purchase list this one. I loved Flashpoint, and just stopped PC gaming before the dragon rising installment. Now I am back I intend to get right back on it, and this sounds perfect.

Thanks for taking the time to post + Rep. COD And Battlefield both have their place and are enjoyable in their own way; have both on the xbox 360. Im a fan of most good games; and have a varied selection I have purchased but for the PC a simulation is much more up my street. Looking forward to it, will probably buy the combined operations package after a quick demo so will be in it for the long haul! If you do download any footage would love to see it....

 

[Haz25]

Great game. Wasnt it made by the same guys who did opflash anyway? Bohemia interactive went different ways from codemasters (publishers) but Codemasters had the rights to the operation flashpoint name/brand.

Same great modding community aswell, be sure to check www.armaholic.com 1000's of mods/player created content to add to your game...(thats even IF you get bored of whats already a massive game)

Also to note, The developers are still improving it with regular patches.

Haz

 

[JakAttack]

Yes if you were unlucky enough to play it the day it came out and got stuck on the second mission it was a bit disappointing, as they didn't make the mission right and you could spend the next 3 years walking around looking for this bloke who doesn't exist! But has now become alot smoother and more playable.

Bohemia were the main players for Operation Flashpoint one, but went sperately afterwards, Operation Flashpoint 2 is absolute garbage in comparison and I was very disappointed with it, although the add-on looks decent, but ArmA and ArmA 2 by Bohemia have been incredibly replayable games.

Haz25, I agree, Armaholic.com has LOADS of stuff, if they carry on with the VTE (Vietnam Experience) mod that will be great, as I created some very enjoyable missions in ArmA 1 with that.

 

[Haz25]

Jak, Did you ever try the SLX mod for arma 2? although it isnt updated anymore and recent patches have rendered it less playable...but wow.

During firefights the AI drag other wounded ai to safety while popping smoke, occupy buildings and in general gives more immersion. Nothing like having a 10/15min firefight then walking through the carnage of whats left...wounded AI screaming in pain, smoke, fire and the "look what I did" feeling lol

I should calm down now.

Haz

 

[NilSatis]

Have been reading about that mod, and others. Im going to definitely have a sound mod installed I think. My copy of both ARMA 2 and Operation Arrowhead came today, really wanted to buy it in the combined operations package but couldnt get it anywhere. Got a lot of training ahead of me....(Remembers failed training scenes in Full Metal Jacket)...oh dear. :gunsmilie:
Also...... the joys of purchasing games when PC hasnt arrived yet (or even been built lol) at least my girlfriend is finally correct about me being erm.....premature in one area. Ahem. :yawn:

 

[Haz25]

One of the major modifications is the ACE mod, improves AI, Animation times and adds things like deployable Heavy MG's and the likes, most mods created now have it based on ACE. You can however pick up non ace versions for most mods if its not your cup of tea.

As for sounds , I'm running a mix of HiFi and JrSS.

Premature lol? no. Prepared? more like.
Besides youve got something to read whilst sat on the bog

 

[JakAttack]

Just got latest VTE, looks like they've completed it, 2GB package, seems good fun so far, just need to get my script working for a simultaneous platoon pickup and dropoff in the middle of some trees with 4 hueys, withouth them all crashing into each other... although firey death never goes amiss.

 

[NilSatis]

Lol I can definitely see the majority of my scripts ending in certain "firey death"; especially involving that much in one space; this also looks like a great mod; complete with some 60's classic vietnam era music tracks to get you right back in the zone after your huey has just beheaded.....5 palm trees , 3 bushes, 6 of your own men, and no vietcong. 2GB package must be a hell of a lot of content; a big ol' mod! Love the look of the scenery etc.

What are this games mods (not this one as its standalone, with different equipment files etc. but things like ACE) like with running with the visual/sound tweak mods in addition? Any experience? Do you run any yourself/ have you had many conflicts with other mods?

 

[JakAttack]

The scenery doesn't look too good up close, I've been using the standard Chernarus map, but using units and especially the napalm jets for a bit more firey death

Haven't played around with too much other mods, but you can get a hady little Launcher tool which allows you to select certain mods and deselct others (mods are VERY easy to install, you simply put the files in your 'Addons' folder and away you go!

You don't tend to get conflicts, but you DO tend to get packages with dependencies (e.g. other addons needed first).

 

[NilSatis]

Thanks for the quick reply Jakattack, + Rep, there does seem to be a couple of launchers available for the standard ARMA 2 mods, did some research and installing them seems easy enough too. After looking at your post, I snuck a little look at a few screenshots etc. and tbh not too fussed about the scenery up close on the vietnam mod; its the era-vehicles and gameplay that will interest me on that one; thanks again for a quick reply; napalm jets......cant ask for more lol!:saddam:

 

[JakAttack]

cheers NilSatis, nice to have some appreciation for my favourite game

I'll try and get some screenshots tonight, I got some videos of an epic city battle I made but theres so much going on it slows down (25 groups of 16 allied vs 20 groups of 10 enemy, 6 fighter jets making bombing runs, Shilkas dotted around the city, and almost every group of units has a specific waypoint, be it guard, move, attack, or S&D, no scripts running on this one though, I also selected 20 different allied unit's as 'playable', when you use this, simply hit 'T' and you can switch to a different unit, you can also choose between being an subordinate or a leader or a potential leader if the team leader gets downed), all this slows it to about 9fps even with the spec on my sig! Needs ridiculous processing power for full scale war missions (which I love making ).

I'll make a couple of quick missions and get some stuff up tonite hopefully. Some good old sniper missions.