need some input (should i buy arma2)

[athlonix 10]

Hey guys first time post on here.

Been thinking of gettin arma 2. however i got ofp:dr and was really disappointed. So my concern is how good is arma 2 ?

Obviously you peeps love it, but can someone give me a straight answer on what to expect? I played the demo worked well enough on my rig, but I felt The action was very on off. And the demo was a bit short to gather a true opinion of it.

Now I played flashpoint way back. Whenever it was, completed the sp. And at the time was a big LAN gamer, had friends over all the time playing. How its the multiplayer? the game looks fantastic but with no online community it will go stale quickly

in short I suppose I'M asking whether this is flashpoint with better a game engine and a better multiplayer base. ?

Steam are offering arma 2 + arrowhead for 25 quid. so seems worth it, but is like someone's inside view of the full game

Cheers.

Luke.

[rundll.exe 12]

If you manage to play the game for more than a week, you will fall in love and never leave it. Money isn't a factor after that :)

more to the point: Yes its OFP with a much updated engine (but you saw that in the demo) And the multiplayer base is quite solid (but not too big). The action is indeed on/off. but you got to like that, or search for missions with instant action, wich is not what the majority does in here.

And comparing A2 to OFP:DR is like comparing a fine dark beer with the average pine-tree height in the mid-alpes; they can not be compared.

[RomeoSierra 10]

Well I have been playing both demo's & hanging around this forum for a few weeks now. (Downloading CO on sprocket right now! ) I can tell you the game isn't without it's flaws but BIS do listen to their community & fix problems.

Rome wasn't built in a day & such a complex open ended animal that ARMA 2 is won't be either but even with it's flaws (which every game has but I'm sure you know that!); IMO from playing the demo's its awesome!

As for multiplayer its seems to be a little tricky for us noobs (what with all the adds/mods that servers run).

That's really all I can tell with my limited experience

Hope that helps a little, perhaps a more experienced user can chime in.....

[santafee 10]

You will be frustrated by the game often, maybe more like any other game.

On the other side its complexity and possibilitys are nearly endless and so is the fun you can have with it. Im actually play only SP, cause public MP is horrible in this game, but i have fun since a year with it and it will be much more.

[MengJiao 10]

Hey guys first time post on here.

Been thinking of gettin arma 2. however i got ofp:dr and was really disappointed. So my concern is how good is arma 2 ?

Obviously you peeps love it, but can someone give me a straight answer on what to expect? I played the demo worked well enough on my rig, but I felt The action was very on off. And the demo was a bit short to gather a true opinion of it.

Now I played flashpoint way back. Whenever it was, completed the sp. And at the time was a big LAN gamer, had friends over all the time playing. How its the multiplayer? the game looks fantastic but with no online community it will go stale quickly

in short I suppose I'M asking whether this is flashpoint with better a game engine and a better multiplayer base. ?

Steam are offering arma 2 + arrowhead for 25 quid. so seems worth it, but is like someone's inside view of the full game

Cheers.

Luke.

I guess I would say two things (which may or may not make sense to you):

1) with OA, this is now the best state the whole game series from the original Opflash on has ever been in. There are aspects of OA that make Aram2/CO/OA an instant classic and with the mod community and the multiplayer game modes already out there...its only going to get better...so get in and see all the fun

2) I've had more fun in this Multiplayer environment than in any game since Red Orchestra as it was in 2006-2008.

Edited August 4, 2010 by MengJiao
more fun

[metalcraze 290]

Now I played flashpoint way back. Whenever it was, completed the sp.

If you liked it you will be disappointed in AA2 sp part. Apart from a few OK'ish singleplayer missions the campaign is really terrible. In OA it's better but still a way behind OFP.

And at the time was a big LAN gamer, had friends over all the time playing. How its the multiplayer?

Much much better. All new features of Combined Ops provide for pretty original coop missions.

the game looks fantastic but with no online community it will go stale quickly

Oh it has enough of an online community. What's rare is a good tactical clan to play with and missions that are more than ultraboring "go and clean that village". I still don't understand why people keep churning them out with all the new features of CO/OA they never use for some reason.

in short I suppose I'M asking whether this is flashpoint with better a game engine and a better multiplayer base. ?

In short - yes. Provided you will find those two things above.

[Gunter Severloh 4056]

I'd like to add to this if i may..

Arma 2 is worth it, had it since it came out, same for Arma before that and OFP, like rundll.exe said

its an upgraded version of OFP, but leaning more towards and upgraded Arma.

Keep in mind that Arma 2 has a huge 2 game background with a vast community going back to 2001.

there are so many things you can do with OFP, Arma, and Arma 2 that it makes you wonder why other

gamers that dont have Arma 2, dont get the game.

Considering that

you can play/build:

- singleplayer missions

- Multiplayer missions

- your own SP,MP, coop,RTS, DM, TDM, capture the flag, ect.,. missions

- your own islands

- your own addons and mods

- do an overhaul of the GUI ect.,

The game has as deep and complex editor that is as simple and complex as you want it to be, meaning you

can build things in complexity based on how far you want to go with it, theres really no limit, the editor is rather

easy to use, but has the deep complexity to it based on what you want to do.

Now if your not a fan of the editor, then lets not forget the vast community of addon makers, and modders,

that are always working and releasing stuff, let alone all types of missions.

If you look at the Armaholic Download section

http://www.armaholic.com/list.php?c=files,

which is all free stuff for your game (game required of course) you can seriously play any type of game you wish.

Like when OFP was the main game, you go to the Ofp.info site and there are literally a couple thousand addons,

and surely a few hundred if not more mods for the game, its rather insane.

The limits are of your imagination.

With Arma 2 and really just the whole series, theres really nothing you cannot play I mean you have stuff ranging from

modern day war, to scifi, to ww2, to vietnam, to aliens, and star wars, its rather insane, and that goes without saying.

Unlike OFP DR which feels really limited as well as F*cked up Arma 2 is revolved around the player, not like some games

where the player is stuck with the limits of the game.

With BIS games (OFP,Arma,Arma2, OA) the game is stuck with the limits of the player's imagination and creativity, you can

make the game as slow paced or intense as you want, its not limited, the game really just has no boundries!

Been a fan of the series since 2001!

[andromedagalaxe 10]

Public servers largely consist of co-op domination (at least the ones I get low ping on) and a few team vs team capture the island (warfare mode). I get some frustrating lag lately. Best bet is a clan, although I don't like the clan experience because I can't play at set times, just randomly.

So playing domi with a group of random players can be great or frustrating as hell or both in the same session. My Last game session:

1. waited for blackhawk pilot to take us to mission, got shot down and crashed killing everyone.

2. respawned, decided to take a Bradley to mission, engaged an attack heli, which recognized me as a threat, did a 180 an hit me with rockets.

3. respawned, blackhawk picked me up, took me to old instead of new mission area, picked up others, went back to base to rearm everyone.

4. Meanwhile, some guy is asking for a heli pickup every two minutes and getting more and more obnoxious about it.

So at this point, I've been playing for 1/2 hour and haven't even really done anything yet and getting pretty frustrated. Then somehow I make it to a paradrop and drop in behind enemy lines in the next AO. AND SUDDENLY I"M LOVING IT. I'm flanking enemies who are engaged by my other troops, sneaking around on rooftops and dropping grenades on unsuspecting enemies, got major fear of death as a BMP comes racing by (knowing that if I have to respawn it will be 15 minutes to get back into the action), getting a nice view as a-10 and LB pilots are blowing sh*t up everywhere.

So that's the A2 experience from my side of things. Both the high and the low.

[meade95 0]

As someone who is somewhat new the ARMA series - I was more an old time player of the original R6/GR/...somwhat RVS....

I can say, ARMA 2 (especially with AO) is very much worth it. The only major drawback in the CQC..... ARMA 2 handles this quite sub-par'ly for the most part. If ARMA 2 could provide some type of AI CQC, it would be nearly impossible not to own for anyone that is serious about MILSIMs....

[Dynamic Echo 10]

You will be frustrated by the game often, maybe more like any other game.

On the other side its complexity and possibilitys are nearly endless and so is the fun you can have with it. Im actually play only SP, cause public MP is horrible in this game, but i have fun since a year with it and it will be much more.

I get frustrated by this game a lot less than most. At least in this game when you die or fail a mission you can normally work out why or what you did wrong, rather than the CoD random blam going down. I also play StarCraft 2 multiplayer. That is frustrating.

As others have said - the only part of ArmA which I really don't like is the CQC, after playing the Rainbow Six games it is just awful. The flying model and vehicle physics are also...interesting.

[Fox '09 14]

to me all games are frustrating on first release

and over time they improve

is ArmA 1.18 as frustrating / fun as 1.0?

is ArmA 2 1.07 as frustrating / fun as 1.00? (don't answer this one, especially if you've bought it during the German release)

[fideco 1]

Hi luke,

buy it!

You will not regret..

Every day you will discover new and beautiful things (mods and scripts) that will improve your gaming experience.

Cheers

[Blade89 10]

It's all about your patience and finding that group of people to help you have a great time in the game. Luckily, you found the BI forums. You can post and find people to play games with. There are many types of games to play from RPG's to Super-Ultra Realistic.

So find your niche in the game with a group of similar minded players (whether it be playing a medic, rifleman, transport, etc) and you will find that those things that used to piss you off about the game don't really bother you anymore.

[RedCanoe 10]

I bought dragon rising because I thought Arma2 was too complex and difficult. Needless to say, I uninstalled that game after 2 missions and bought ARMA2. I play this game every night. It is just fantastic. I pretty much make all my own missions in the editor. Never touch the campaign or anything else really. You can dial down the difficulty very low to get used to the controls (It's pretty easy with the enemy at zero) and learn the game. It has taken me a while to memorize the commands and I'm still working on it. The editor is pretty easy to use and with a little searching and asking on forums you can make great simple missions (briefings and all that kind of flash takes a bit more work, but you don't need it, or you can...whatever). I can make a mission in an hour that takes 5 hours to play.

I would recommend this to anyone disappointed with dragon rising. It can really be tailored to what you want it to be. This is a sandbox in all sense of the word. Like playing soldiers, only digital.

The community is great and there seems to be no end to how big the game is.

Cheers,

Rob

Edited August 5, 2010 by RedCanoe

[Barso 10]

What codemasters did by using the operation flashpoint name to sell dragon rising is blasphemous to the work that BI do.

ARMA and ARMA 2 and OA are the greatest games in my game collection and one of the reasons why I will never leave PC gaming.

The editor, the mods and the freedom this game has is unparallelled and has never been equalled.

Buy it, enjoy it and never look back.

[-Total- 0]

ArmA and it's successors are most enjoyed when viewed as either:

A) First Person, Coop, Real Time Strategy Game

B) First Person, Single Player, Real Time Strategy Game

The game is not geared for CQC. Not necessarily because of the animations and such, but because the map itself does not restrict the players with the choke points that are associated with CQC FPS's. Without those, camping all over the place is practiced and a flank can come in from pretty much any direction.

"Where did I get shot from?" is a perpetual question in ArmA series PvP.

That being said, we run several different coops on our server. This includes our own modified Domination (one that takes away toys and options to increase the challenge) and role specific coops.

Then there's always the sandbox singleplayer :)

[metalcraze 290]

As others have said - the only part of ArmA which I really don't like is the CQC, after playing the Rainbow Six games it is just awful.

Don't forget that R6 is a corridor game - where it's easy to force AI to act in a way that will seem natural through heavy scripting because they will do all the same things during the same circumstances.

In OFP-ArmA though there are no artificial limits and lots of free approach and so AI reacts to everything dynamically. This causes quirks and weirdness at times. To this date I never saw a free approach game with AI that acted more or less like human. I think the example of OFPDR which was developed by a much larger studio than BIS with a higher budget where AI couldn't do anything smart at all is very telling. Compared to AA2 where they try to work as a team (although you have all rights to bash BIS for needing Zeus AI for AI to use something as simple as smoke grenades).

Not having a good CQC is a fair price for the sheer scale of AA though. Maybe someday... (Although I hope BIS will improve it now that we have so much content dedicated to enterable buildings and bigger towns)

Edited August 5, 2010 by metalcraze

[xps 10]

this game is really awsome buy it ! i buy it becuase of demo played night time battle WOW ! so i buy both of them :cool: oh yea forgot + the mods are awsome for this game