Lets do bad review of ArmA II

[cscuk 10]

This is so glitched it is beyond belief.

It took months to program a joystick to be able to have a chance of operating your infantry avatar.

I started playing the single campaign called Harvest Red.

I lost my whole campaign after a few days, it just decided it would not read save files. I spent more than a day playing back to the point of loss, then it decided suddenly to give me a black screen and on restart it would not load its own autosave would not even see my user saves but at least it still knew where I had got up to the previous day so this time I only lost what I did today on this one mission. I have never known any software so bad as this and it is a warning to newcomers to this ArmA II you are just heading into a disaster zone. The whole idea of game save files is to recover from individual instances of program failure when this program fails which is often it loses those files, it is just unbelievable.

Oh game play what is that, so far that is just stupid scenario after stupid scenario. It is just so babyish. Also the AI has just got you totally beat, the AI can shoot hundreds of yards you will be lucky to shoot tens of yards, where a target is on other side of hill your AI mates can shoot through that hill but although you know bad guy is other side of hill you cannot shoot him, the bad guys can kill you at hundreds of yards in an instant you cannot actually see them and hit them until tens of yards, and they can aim quick and deadly your aim is ponderous and slow, basically you are outgunned. What I do so far is spot for my AI team members and I have to leave them to do the killing for these sorts of reasons.

For latest crash I think I tried to take dead man's map in case it had any clues such as enemy positions marked on it, glitch happened when I went then to open map.

For example of scenario mission. Your team leader lets your squad get taken for a ride by corrupt bad guys who kill him, somehow you get rescued, now you are set to find these guys, god knows where, you have two intelligence officers one USMC other local, both of them give you total rubbish, I think you should just wait in base until a spotter spots the guys on the road and then you jump in helicopter and fly in front of him to intercept but I don't really know, the two times I played it the bad guy always gets away cos I was in the woods following intelligence leads. So-called. Thrilling eh?

You even have thrilling conversations with locals in their language, to find out what was discussed you have to go into map screen chat log and see there the translation in text, this makes conversations somewhat difficult.

This whole thing is just so terrible and not at all what 'legend' says of it, you get better play and user controls on xbox 360 and playstation 3 games.

I think there really are only a few people who play this game, probably people who revel in the difficult user interface and all the glitches, but so far I just cannot see any real game behind this, just terrible software development after terrible software development.

I have a suspicion that every day at least you need to save all ArmA II's data files recording progress to a separate disk or directory and be ready to recover from there.

[mrcash2009 0]

Looks like this game wasn't for you then, or at least stock SP isnt.

Play MP, grab user made content/missions & campaigns, check out some mods and things.

I have never completed A2 campaign, didn't like it, never did with Arma1 either, although I did with Arrowhead and I am with the new DLC.

Your review isn't a review of "arma2" its a review of its campaign which is about 10 percent of the whole thing.

Edited August 30, 2010 by mrcash2009

[Jelliz 10]

Either you have some serious issues with the game, or you are just trolling.

You even have thrilling conversations with locals in their language, to find out what was discussed you have to go into map screen chat log and see there the translation in text, this makes conversations somewhat difficult.

Simple enough, enable subtitles in the options menu...

I think there really are only a few people who play this game, probably people who revel in the difficult user interface and all the glitches, but so far I just cannot see any real game behind this, just terrible software development after terrible software development.

I have a suspicion that every day at least you need to save all ArmA II's data files recording progress to a separate disk or directory and be ready to recover from there.

Ok, trolling it is then...

[Daniel 0]

It took months to program a joystick to be able to have a chance of operating your infantry avatar.

And therein lies the problem. :butbut:

Do you mean joystick for movement or for aiming? Either sounds horrendous.

[cscuk 10]

I play campaigns to learn before I go online, most online players don't want to play with noobs who do not even know yet how to play. Also for some games the single play is deeper than the online. For this type of game online has to be short paintball type runs around the woods cos players online only have an hour or so, but maybe online missions for ArmA II are different but other players still want you to have basic competence I am sure.

I crashed out of recruit training by the way. When commanding tank, driver drove into sea, we all swam ashore and then wewereleft in never never land cos the ArmA II tutorials are badly designed and do not recover from disasters yet disasters are to be expected in basic training and you need such training so you canlearn the dreadful complicated controls. So I wa

[Sgt.Spoetnik 10]

Hi, we all know that the campaign was buggy in beginning but with latest patches think it got most fixed, your not the first that mention it and def not the last 1.

And No its not some FPS you can play on PS3 and finish the campain in hours and the game in days! Arma you keep playing!!! you got SP,MP, editor custom missions,groups and communities,great addons and ever greater mods.

So there is plenty more stuff to keep entertained than only the campaign.

It got a steep learning curve but ones you got the hang off it you wont go back to anything else:D.

[cscuk 10]

Well how are you supposed to aim a rifle in ArmA II?

The joystick I use is programmable so I put the keyboard commands in there.

It is Saitek X52 Pro. For this joystick you cannot program the central parts of the HOTAS because ArmA II just goes crazy, I had to disable the joystick in ArmA II's options controls, I had to remove programming of extra modes by use of pinkie in combination with mode switch cos that drives ArmA II crazy, the only things you can program are Saitek stuff not necessarily found on every HOTAS such as POVs and fire buttons.

Anyway, the HOTAS is used in keyboard mimic mode and transmits scancodes to ArmA II accordingly.

[Sgt.Spoetnik 10]

Uhm, A mouse mayby? just use keyboard and mouse.:confused:

[mrcash2009 0]

Well how are you supposed to aim a rifle in ArmA II?

The joystick I use is programmable so I put the keyboard commands in there.

Just use keyboard!? im sorry but maybe your arma2 issues are your joystick based issues, maybe your frustration might be less if you dont fix your solution on the joystick so much maybe?

[cscuk 10]

Well, I shall progress for a while but I must find a way for it stop losing my game saves,this bit is just disastrous.

I suppose I could look at editor and see if in there you can effectively make a campaign substitute, only thing is you would have prevision and also there are unlocks in the game for new weapons, I see most weapons have to be unlocked though you are not specifically told how. I have an awful feeling they are unlocked in the campaigns. The disastrous campaigns.

---------- Post added at 08:12 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:08 PM ----------

I do not use PC mouse for aiming because in part I run out of mouse pad, I have a mouse on the HOTAS throttle by my thumb and that is what I use, also this only takes up a thumb not a whole hand, so I can have a chance of operating other buttons and thereby functions at the same time, nevertheless moving the aim is very slow. The targets I notice move faster than my aim can track, especially once they get less than 100 yards.

[ProfTournesol 956]

Obviously, this game isn't made for you. You'd better give up and find some other ones. I'd like to play guitar but i suck at it, not a big deal.

[l mandrake 9]

Thank you, I really enjoyed reading your review; it is well researched, balanced and insightful. Have you considered writing professionally for one of the major gaming magazines or web sites?

[mrcash2009 0]

Mate you really need to read up on what Arma2 is about, this isnt some FPS shooter type game. unlocking weapons isn't how it works, its a sandbox, you add weapons etc how you wish via editor, or how missions were created to use them and so on.

You can unlock viewing/using weapons etc with the "Armoury" by doing tasks etc but that's just in the Armoury only. I just think you might have to re look at it, and away from the same mindset as "other games" its not quite how you are seeing it.

Granted BI have learned though recent released to be a tad more user friendly but having said that its a learning curve to anyone new to it as its quite a different beast to the others.

As regards your save games, for them all of a sudden not load, have you patched or updated as you were playing? Any save games before the patch will fail, you have to run the mission from that start point of the mission you were on reverting will fail, same goes if you add any mods or make any kind of updates/patches or changes to mismatch the game save to the current state you are loading.

I think a bad review of Arma2 on this forum is actually more about your frustration of needing to learn it better, bit of a knee jerk reaction to be honest. Check out the site more and read up on it.

I do not use PC mouse for aiming because in part I run out of mouse pad, I have a mouse on the HOTAS throttle by my thumb and that is what I use, also this only takes up a thumb not a whole hand, so I can have a chance of operating other buttons and thereby functions at the same time, nevertheless moving the aim is very slow. The targets I notice move faster than my aim can track, especially once they get less than 100 yards.

Honestly, re think your controls, your are causing yourself more ball ache than is required.

Standard mouse & keyboard for infantry (which pretty much works for all other vehicles), joystick or controller and slight combination with keyboard and mouse for vehicles & flight.

This thread should be called "Lets watch someone make it harder for themselves" :)

Edited August 30, 2010 by mrcash2009

[Guest]

When you actually think your Graphics card is a Vista Ultimate 64-bit one I think consoles are the way for you, PC gaming sure is not.

Join Date: Mar 2010

Location: graphics card, Vista Ultimate 64-bit. Joystick is Saitek X52 Pro.

Unless of course you were trying to make us aware you have a graphics card and an OS, in that case I have to repeat my advice though.

:D

[mosh 0]

I think there really are only a few people who play this game, probably people who revel in the difficult user interface and all the glitches, but so far I just cannot see any real game behind this, just terrible software development after terrible software development.

Well, psychology and computers are not your strong points I see. :rolleyes:

I have no difficulty in running the game nor do I suffer from 'all the glitches' nor have I noticed 'terrible software development'.

Not every person will enjoy the game, obviously. Thanks for your feedback and hope you have luck with your next purchase... but if it takes you two months to program a joystick, I suggest consoles such as XBOX and PS2 that do such tasks for you automatically.

[jblackrupert 14]

I think you should stick with a console.

[dmarkwick 261]

Call me a cynic, but I think the OP is

:)

[dale0404 5]

I do not use PC mouse for aiming because in part I run out of mouse pad, I have a mouse on the HOTAS throttle by my thumb and that is what I use, also this only takes up a thumb not a whole hand, so I can have a chance of operating other buttons and thereby functions at the same time, nevertheless moving the aim is very slow. The targets I notice move faster than my aim can track, especially once they get less than 100 yards.

Mate, something seriously wrong there, the basic controls are mapped to the keyboard and mouse, I dont even use a joystick / gamepad and the game is perfectly playable for me.

Leave the joystick under your bed mate next to those magazines you think your Dad doesn't know about.

[Dead3yez 0]

when commanding tank, driver drove into sea

FPDR oh dear.

[Zipper5 74]

Someone seems to have bit off a bit more than he could chew buying Arma 2...

And who the hell doesn't use a mouse because they run out of mousepads? :confused:

[l mandrake 9]

Leave the joystick under your bed mate next to those magazines you think your Dad doesn't know about.

:icon_eek:

[[frl]myke 14]

And who the hell doesn't use a mouse because they run out of mousepads? :confused:

I do, i use a Trackball and i am happy with it...at least i hit my targets in ArmA 2...more or less.

But this thread reminds me that i have to write to Ferrari, the Testarossa feels clunky since i mounted the tractor wheels. I need them because the road to my house is more a dirt track but i don't see a reason why my ferrari should behave different with tractor wheels. Hope they will fix that very soon.

Edited August 30, 2010 by [FRL]Myke

[Daniel 0]

I have twenty five mouse pads laid out in a square on the floor, works for me. They're cheap enough.

[Dead3yez 0]

People still use mouse-pads?

[SPC.Spets 21]

Ok, a joystick to move youtr infantry avatar? WTF?

Thats why you can kill even a cow from 2 mts distance

I can see enemies from 2-3 km away and make a headshot from 1Km with a sniper even with the ACE2 mod that adds wind and more relaistic balistic fx.

You has to set your graphics view distance, if your rig can handle it. I know this game have many bugs, but I didnt find them to stop me to enjoy the game.

The Single players mission is just like a "presentation" of the game, the real game is online and coop, not to mention of TONS of addons and missions.

Use the beta patch releases, it doesnt overwrite the original exe, they fix many bugs and you can use it until a new full patch comes out