CWC & Resistance campaigns - retrospective, comparison

[Polygon 11]

Almost everybody is praising CWC and Resistance campaigns, presented back in 2001-02. Why they're considered special? What made them so? What could BIS learn / already did / will do?

I'd like to make several points on CWC, how it affected the genre:

1. first serious military story-driven campaign?
   
2. large scale battles.
   
3. multiple roles - from infantry to pilot, blackop.
   
4. varied environments - 1985 conflict spanned across 3 diverse islands.
   
5. tough, unforgiving gameplay style.
   
6. difficult choices to make early.
   
7. good gameplay design - flexible missions, varied endings.
   
8. player's character progression: not statistical (skills depending on measurable parameters, adding up, etc.), but official/mental - ranks up, survival.
   
9. excellent premise, storyline, average characters (fitting for military title?).
   
10. atmosphere (believe it or not - bad graphics is part of it).
    
11. multiple endings - no stupid cliffhangers.
    

Now onto Resistance, which inherited a lot from CWC spiritually and mechanically:

1. a personal, touching story.
   
2. survival elements - scavenging, team management.
   
3. great characters (though, a lot about them remained secret).
   
4. sense of progression - becoming a leader, establishing an opposing force, advancing.
   
5. not so political, official.
   

Obviously, each campaign has its own + and -. In some cases, both camps lack military / human logic, probably due to gameplay, also cliches. I'd say CWC was better simply due to its scale.

How does / will A3 campaign compare to these? Too early to compare fully, though.

Add your own remarks on the topic. Perhaps I've missed something.

This thread serves as a restrospective. I could go on into detail further, analyze each mission of CWC & RES, but it'd be 12 years late. :D

[IndeedPete 1038]

I recently bought CWC and Arma 1 + AddOns on sale and now I'm making my way through all the campaigns on some rainy or snowy evenings. :)

I just finished resistance and it was a really good. It's right, it is totally unforgiving and not like most mainstream games nowadays. The Arma gameplay is still a unique yet not always pleasing experience.

As for Arma 3 I enjoyed the first episode but I hope (and expect) that they develop it further, giving the player more freedoms and maybe some influence on the storyline at some point. I don't see any real interesting characters yet but honestly, I forgot about most of them but this british captain and Kerry. Anyway, I'm looking forward to the next episode and hope they release it soon.

[NeuroFunker 11]

I believe, it was the athmosphere mostlikely. I was playing CTI a lot, and i felt really under pressure everytime, when i knew, if i'm to slow the enemy will be knocking at my base with tanks pretty soon. Arma 2 and 1 esp. had not the same athmo as ofp had, when i played cti/warfare in armas, i had not the same feeling anymore, even arma 2 is much closer to ofp, and i can't really tell why and how to describe that feeling in ofp. I remember playing cwc campaign for first time, where i could run anywhere i wanted, where i could shoot friendlies and they started to hunt me down, where i could start up editor and drive around on huge (for its times) islands.

Overall that ingame feeling was undescribable. Probably another thing, why we liked ofp campaigns so much, we were much younger this days, (most of us maybe) And when you are younger, you get hooked in to something and geting deeper impressions much easier, then when you are older. I imagine, kids today, having same impressions from CoD games, as we had from ofp when we were same young.

But i must admit, the first episode for arma 3, felt somehow much closer to ofp, then arma 2 camaigns. The athmosphere, being abandonned and surrounded by enemies, music, characters, voice acting, everything is at it's place, and i can't say i felt boring in any mission in survive campaign.