Which campaign was better? Arma2? And arma: OA

[steevn606 10]

I have not played them

But I am planning too.

[Hanzu 10]

To answer short in my opinion Harvest Red campaign was better than Operation Arrowhead campaign if measured by enjoyement factor and certainly not by well tested/finished design.

Arma2 Harvest Red campaign has 10-11 playable missions (excluding 2 observer missions where you don't have to do anything except wait). It still has quite many known bugs, but none of them prevent you from completing and enjoying the campaign. If you play campaign cooperatively in multiplayer you will notice much more bugs, but it can be enjoyed too with right attitude. Harvest Red campaing includes a lot of cutscenes which are the main source for bugs however cutscenes have major role creating unique plot with twists. Most of the mission include option to collect evidence of warcrimes and the more you collect them more help you will get in a form of friendly troops. When one of the 4 main characters die, you need to load savegame or restart game. 2 last missions include Warfare 2 elements, which most people think should have not been designed there to decrease feeling of realism.

Arma2 Operation Arrowhead campaign has 6-7 playable missions (excluding 2 observer missions where you don't have to do anything except wait). Virtually no bugs, no cutscenes, no evidence collecting, no warfare 2 and considerably shorter campaign. When human controlled character will die annoying forced respawn happens (human player will take control of one of the AI controlled friendlies). When played cooperatively in multiplayer all 4 players usually start in different locations and have different tasks, making the experience a bit lonely and more like playing singleplayer. There are no intresting twists in the plot. After you complete it, you are likely to get a feeling I never learned to know any of the main characters.

Haven't (yet) played Eagle Wing, BAF and PMC campaigns, but I can tell EW and BAF are singleplayer only campaings and PMC singleplayer or 2 player cooperative multiplayer.

Edited June 2, 2011 by Hanzu

[metalcraze 290]

OFP CWC > AA1 > OFP Res > AA1 QG > OA > BAF > AA2 > PMC

[MissionCreep 12]

Just get ArmaII Combined Operations (CO). It has both the original Arma2 (Chenarus/Utes) and OA. Some user-made missions/Campaigns are better than the official BI ... and there 1000s of missions to choose from.

[andromedagalaxe 10]

Personally I liked the Arma 2 campaign the best, although the BAF was a close second. Most people who don't like the Arma 2 campaign said it wasn't "Arma" enough in that it focused on a small team doing impossible things.

But for me it was the most complete and enjoyable.

I did not like the OA campaign much as some of the missions were very "arcadey" and it was short. And PMC I never even finished after I had made significant progress in a rather boring mission and I had to restart the level due to an automatic update from Steam.

I also like many of the single missions that come with the game, especially the BAF ones.

[wyskass 10]

It's hard to say which is best, because people enjoy different things.

I've played A2, AOA, BAF, PMC, and have to say they are all different and would appeal to different people.

A2 (Harvest Red): Infantry/Spec Op the whole time, and you progress from follower initially, to leading your 4 man squad for most of the campaign. You get into the character the most, and deal with mainly small operations, taking down small groups, gathering intel, various tasks. It ends with a couple warfare style missions, and does a good job of giving you increasing exposure to game features, and giving good variety. I enjoyed this campaign the most of all. If you don't like chaotic rush and want to focus on strategy and control in a small, manageable, independent team, you'll like this.

A2 (Eagle Wing): Small pilot focused campaign. Quite enjoyable. You fly a chopper and eventually get shot down. It's fairly focused in goals and story and plays from an interesting perspective.

A2OA: Much different in that you're playing a part of a full scale move. You play different characters including mechanized infantry, armor, chopper and spec op team. You never feel as connected to your character as in Harvest Red, since you're switching. You would like this if you want to be part of all aspects of an attack and like playing with machinery. I felt that this campaign was designed more as a demo of units and tech, so you can learn various aspects of the game and later focus on what you like most.

BAF: A very good campaign where you're infantry again. It feels more connected to the war beyond your unit, yet stays focused on your characters. You end up doing spec ops, and some skirmishes. Feels more like Harvest Red, but in Takistan. Kind of in between OA and Harvest Red in terms of control, tasks and scale. Generally praised.

PMC: Very story driven and a bit more contrived. You're dealing with protecting clients the whole way and manage to get into some hairy situations. This is a more defensive campaign where you're getting attacked more and it's always a small group. I found that most missions were repetitive where you're dealing with the same kind of threat the whole time. Drones attacking you one mission, then slaying attackers with a mini gun the whole time. Doesn't ever require the strategy and cleverness of the other campaigns and can be frustrating. Either way it was a good effort in idea and is a good change of pace, but not as good as the others.