Arma2, Monkeys first impressions Options

[MonkeyFiend]

Blowing a cow up with an anti tank-rocket.... I skipped most of the tutorial content and launched into some scenarios to see how easy it is to pick up. Once I'd got past my initial bovine extermination phase I settled down to the game itself.

Having never played Arma and skipping the tutorials, I figured I'd see how easy the game is to just pick up and play. Considering this is more of a reality sim than an arcade shooter, the answer was that it suprisingly easy to pick up the key points.

Firstly I don't think this will replace BF2 as a game for everyone to play, it is a lot more hardcore and realistic. Further it's a beast on system resources so I suspect even if many clan members wanted to play they couldn't without some rather pricey system upgrades.

That being said it is very very pretty and the execution of general effects and atmosphere is very good. Although this isn't final version of the game due to be released (it has been released like this in Germany, so I'm not expecting many changes for the rest of the world editions) one of my issues with it was that it was buggy - many instances of not being able to pick up kits and the ability to glitch into many places where you're not supposed to be (and this was purely accidental too )

The language pack I used to convert into english was fine - the audio itself was in english for the most part and the subtitles did seem to match up (guess there must be a few language packs out with differing quality)

There's also no jump - instead a pressing V when close to a wall makes you hop over it. At least that's the plan.. I was caught on several occasions by walls approx 1 metre high that for no apparent reason could not be jumped over (identical to the ones that could) - this was an embuggerance when under enemy fire... or at least it would be if the enemy AI wasn't a gibbering tard..

I liked the ability to build defenses and units - it was like briefly switching to command and conquer

The vehicles were slow and unrepsonsive, so Tess should feel right at home dirving them. For a game that seems to like realism, picking up a motorbike and riding it into a tree seems to do no real damage to the rider. I can only assume this is because the game portrays all vehicles capable of what seems like a 10mph maximum speed.

I also didn't like nto being able to skip pre-arranged cut-scenes where you get to listen to some banter from your squadmates before a mission, frankly if wasn't for the fact that friendly fire incidents (or throwing grenades at civilians, who must be packing some serious drugs since they react to nothing.. even being shot) could end a mission then the chumps on my team would probably be the first to have me wheelspinning on their faces with a supply truck.

So Pro's:

Realistic
Nice shooting/aiming
Good selection of weapons
Atmospheric
Very pretty

Con's

Large spaces to traverse, adds realism lacks bf2 style action
Heavy on system resources
Very buggy
Ricockulously stupid AI
Motion blur reminds me of crysis

[MonkeyFiend]

After a whole lot of faffing around I managed to get a copy of the game onto online play.

To be honest arma2 has grown on me a lot, the sound effects are still irritating ("enemy...ahead...near...by"). I found tinkering with the fill optimisation setting drastically adjusts framerate - so if you're having laggy problems try turning this to 80%

but then... I had a breakthrough... rumaging around in an enemy supply box I found most glorious object... my precious gp25 noobtube >:D

In the space of 1 evening my account was banned from 2 servers for aimbotting. The noobtube has 8 tasty rounds (I'm now favouring HE ammo) and aside from the slight inconvenience of detonations in trees and no close-ish range shots the arc is a fair bit deeper than bf2, unlike bf2 it's also rather effective against vehicles. (and even damages apcs like the btr90)

Essentially I found with a little practice I could dance around out of range of even snipers spraying down noobtubey goodness on their heads. One server (called something like de-spielespaff or something) after tolerating this for a while started sending specific helicopter and tank units to kill me

When not irritating a random cross-section of german players, I found the online play good fun (very 4 man squad based) - it'd be nicer to have spawn points that a squad leader can create like in PR. When your squad gets wiped out it's a long trek back to the fight; transports while faster don't half draw enemy fire