My personal take on ArmA

[Codename46 0]

I've been playing this game for a whole day now and am already loving it. It's a drastic improvement over OFP and introduces many features that are non-existent in other tactical shooters, such as ricocheting bullets. However, I've noticed some details that have been overlooked. These include (as of patch 1.05):

*MAJOR BUG: Occasionally, in Single-Player, you suddenly just die and then respawn as a bird (spectator). Then a quote that says "Good birds don't run away" at the bottom of the screen once this happens. Reloading from the last save will fix this, but this is a pretty annoying intrusion to the gaming experience. I've only experienced this once in the campaign so far.

*MINOR DETAIL: Your hands often don't sync up with the rails when you're climbing a ladder. Minor cosmetic detail. No biggie.

*MODERATE DETAIL: Bohemia somehow doesn't like to accurately show you reloading your weapon. Since OFP, all there is is some off-screen hand movement manipulating your weapon, and a few seconds later, you're done. Red Storm did an excellent job with reloading animation in Rainbow Six: Vegas. I wish Bohemia did the same.

*MINOR DETAIL: Sometimes you can't make out the enemy because he looks like a blob. This is mainly an issue based on YOUR computer's performance. I have a 256MB Geforce 7600 GT OC with 1 Gig of RAM, but I only have an Athlon 3700+, so high settings cause low framerates for me.

*MINOR DETAIL: No longer do you see yourself entering a vehicle. Instead, the screen fades to black, and when it fades in, you're in the vehicle. Others can see the entering animation scheme, but you can't. I wonder why Bohemia took that away, since it was there in Flashpoint.

*MINOR DETAIL: Your arms don't move when you turn the wheel in a vehicle. I really shouldn't be complaining because NONE of the FPS games I've seen do that. Usually you don't even see your hands on the wheel, but some smooth movement would be nice.

*MODERATE DETAIL: Aiming with the M203 grenade launcher is purely by trial-and-error. There are no aiming ladder sights for the M203, just some shitty crosshair. I'm sure it'll be fixed, but come on, even Novalogic's Joint Operations had ladder sights on the GL.

MINOR BUG: I think I actually noticed a bug in the re-arming feature. Before a mission, when you select your arms, I think I managed to make one M136 AT4 round and a satchel charge actually DISAPPEAR from existence. I'll try it again to make sure, though, but I'm fairly confident I started with 4 AT4 rounds in stock.

What is your opinion of it so far when it comes to it being a mil-sim?

[Jinef 2]

Quote[/b] ]What is your opinion of it so far when it comes to it being a mil-sim?

Quote[/b] ]I started with 4 AT4 rounds in stock.

The two sentences contradict themselves in my little world. No military sim would portray the M136 disposable launcher as reloadable.

As for your other issues, I found them mainly irrelevant to the overall experience.

[Wolfrug 0]

I don't know about the accurately reloading your weapon bit Try reloading, in first person, and then holding down the left-ALT key (freelook) and check out your man as he's changing magazines. Admittedly, there's no actual magazine-holding going on, but unlike OFP the mag -does- disappear from the weapon, which is kinda cool.

As to the major bug : I haven't experienced this myself, but judging by the text and the scenario, it seems you might've run too far off the "beaten path" so to speak - were you getting a lot of messages from crossroad to "return to your mission" or somesuch prior to dying and sea-gull respawning? I remember that some OFP missions featured this as well, and would end the mission in failure and a "you ran away" quote if you moved too far from the mission area.

That's my theory, anyway.

Agree on the M203 though. Egads, I couldn't hit anything with it Trial and error, I suppose : at least you're not limited to like three rounds like you were in OFP!

Glad to have you around, and welcome to ArmA gaming.

Kind regards,

Wolfrug

[Infam0us 10]

I've heard that the random dying whilst playing as a bird is actually the new and improved fade? Not entirely sure on this though?

[robert(uk) 0]

Regarding the reloading anims, yesterday I was reloading my Mk.12 SPR, and I looked down at the floor as I was doing it, which showed the reloading very well...

[Balschoiw 0]

Quote[/b] ]*MAJOR BUG: Occasionally, in Single-Player, you suddenly just die and then respawn as a bird (spectator). Then a quote that says "Good birds don't run away" at the bottom of the screen once this happens. Reloading from the last save will fix this, but this is a pretty annoying intrusion to the gaming experience. I've only experienced this once in the campaign so far.

Busted I´d say.

[shadow 6]

Codename46 is post-restricted pending proof of purchase.

[RogueRunner 0]

hehehe, about the same as those posts long ago where guys started complaining they cannot hit a guy standing 1m away from them. F.A.D.E for the win

[Timblesink 0]

I thought that publishers did the copy protection...

Or do BIS own FADE?

[Fred DM 0]

friggin' ridiculous !

apart from the whole pirating issue, you shouldn't post a review after only one day of playing. most of the issues only surface over an extend period of time anyway.

[zinc 0]

*MINOR DETAIL: Your arms don't move when you turn the wheel in a vehicle. I really shouldn't be complaining because NONE of the FPS games I've seen do that. Usually you don't even see your hands on the wheel, but some smooth movement would be nice.

Smooth movement can't be done at the moment even if they had the arm animations to do it. Hands and arms would simply get tangled up in a corkscrew fashion.

The reason is there's FAR to much travel on vehicle steering in my opinion, especially trucks and cars. The AI would be much better drivers if the internal values were tweeked to turn quicker, this would avoid the 'over compensation' and constant swerving they do. Not to mention the 21 point turns!

If the current steering 'left lock to right lock' value was halved it would solve many problems, namely the AI constantly crashing into each other and destroying vehicles while 'attempting' to turn.

At the moment the truck it's akin to steering a Traction Engine, hopefully BIS will look into vehicle steering sometime soon. Especially the bikes from hell, which try to kill you at the earliest opportunity once mounted.

Edit.. Oh, I just noticed some new posts regarding your 'copy' of ArmA while I was writing this up.. Har, Jim Lad.

[Duffers 0]

Rumbled...  I can't wait for the next; "Hey, I suddenly die and become a bird!" thread.  

You thieving lot just line yourselves up and the rest of us'll knock you down.  I'm glad FADE is working.  It makes my money spent on this quality game even more worthwhile.

Back on topic, that's not a review anyway... just a list of minor bugs and wants.

[Maddmatt 1]

Especially the bikes from hell, which try to kill you at the earliest opportunity once mounted.

Bikes are damn hard to control with the keyboard, but with the mouse it's very easy and smooth.

[Fred DM 0]

*MINOR DETAIL: Your hands often don't sync up with the rails when you're climbing a ladder. Minor cosmetic detail. No biggie.

*MODERATE DETAIL: Bohemia somehow doesn't like to accurately show you reloading your weapon. Since OFP, all there is is some off-screen hand movement manipulating your weapon, and a few seconds later, you're done. Red Storm did an excellent job with reloading animation in Rainbow Six: Vegas. I wish Bohemia did the same.

ladders and hands: in the history of computer gaming, no game has ever gotten that right. you'd be a fool to expect it here. it doesn't even matter.

reloading: you've gotta be kidding. this game has the best reloading animation - ever! you actually see how the magazine is removed from the well, put in the pocket and the fresh one is inserted. there's few games that have correct reloading animations. this is one of them.

it's one thing to point out bugs and problems, but building a "review" on irrelevant issues and plain wrong facts and getting busted for having a pirated copy is just priceless.

[Danbri 0]

You must say it takes a big pair of balls to write in to an official forum and complaining your illegal copy doesnt work

Or if hes just stupid. Cant decide!

Humorus it is, aswell as sad.

[Maddmatt 1]

*MINOR DETAIL: Your hands often don't sync up with the rails when you're climbing a ladder. Minor cosmetic detail. No biggie.

*MODERATE DETAIL: Bohemia somehow doesn't like to accurately show you reloading your weapon. Since OFP, all there is is some off-screen hand movement manipulating your weapon, and a few seconds later, you're done. Red Storm did an excellent job with reloading animation in Rainbow Six: Vegas. I wish Bohemia did the same.

ladders and hands: in the history of computer gaming, no game has ever gotten that right. you'd be a fool to expect it here. it doesn't even matter.

reloading: you've gotta be kidding. this game has the best reloading animation - ever! you actually see how the magazine is removed from the well, put in the pocket and the fresh one is inserted. there's few games that have correct reloading animations. this is one of them.

it's one thing to point out bugs and problems, but building a "review" on irrelevant issues and plain wrong facts and getting busted for having a pirated copy is just priceless.

Fred are you being sarcastic? I was about to point out that you were wrong but now it just looks like sarcasm.

I'll just say it anyway:

Several games have got the ladder animation perfect. Splinter Cell and Hitman being two of them.

The reloading animations in ArmA just have the magazine disappear at the start of the anim and reappear at the end. Far from the best ever. GRAW PC had excellent animations with weapons, every action with them was animated including looking through sights and changing fire modes.

Of course these are not major issues in a game like ArmA, just minor details.

As for getting busted with a pirated copy: . More games should use the kind of software copy protection that BIS does.

[boecko 0]

it's one thing to point out bugs and problems, but building a "review" on irrelevant issues and plain wrong facts and getting busted for having a pirated copy is just priceless.

I did some googling of his username and "Armed Assault". It seems to me, that he will actually buy it, when it's released in his part of the world.

On the other hand, he only should have looked in other threads (gogamer,fedex,etc) to know how it could be done.

Bye

[Fred DM 0]

You must say it takes a big pair of balls to write in to an official forum and complaining your illegal copy doesnt work  

Or if hes just stupid. Cant decide!

Humorus it is, aswell as sad.

just stupid because he didn't even realize that birdie thing is the FADE copy protection system.

way stupid, actually.

[Fred DM 0]

*MINOR DETAIL: Your hands often don't sync up with the rails when you're climbing a ladder. Minor cosmetic detail. No biggie.

*MODERATE DETAIL: Bohemia somehow doesn't like to accurately show you reloading your weapon. Since OFP, all there is is some off-screen hand movement manipulating your weapon, and a few seconds later, you're done. Red Storm did an excellent job with reloading animation in Rainbow Six: Vegas. I wish Bohemia did the same.

ladders and hands: in the history of computer gaming, no game has ever gotten that right. you'd be a fool to expect it here. it doesn't even matter.

reloading: you've gotta be kidding. this game has the best reloading animation - ever! you actually see how the magazine is removed from the well, put in the pocket and the fresh one is inserted. there's few games that have correct reloading animations. this is one of them.

it's one thing to point out bugs and problems, but building a "review" on irrelevant issues and plain wrong facts and getting busted for having a pirated copy is just priceless.

Fred are you being sarcastic? I was about to point out that you were wrong but now it just looks like sarcasm.

I'll just say it anyway:

Several games have got the ladder animation perfect. Splinter Cell and Hitman being two of them.

The reloading animations in ArmA just have the magazine disappear at the start of the anim and reappear at the end. Far from the best ever. GRAW PC had excellent animations with weapons, every action with them was animated including looking through sights and changing fire modes.

Of course these are not major issues in a game like ArmA, just minor details.

As for getting busted with a pirated copy:     . More games should use the kind of software copy protection that BIS does.

slightly sarcastic, yes.

the ladder thing: i have several of the Hitman games but i don't really remember if it was perfect or not. perfect would mean that the feet would always step on the right spot and the hands would move in between the steps. i don't remember a game doing that right. but that doesn't mean there are no such games.

the rule is that games don't do it right because there's no need to. as always, there may be exceptions.

the reload thing: well at least the magazine actually disappears. what did GRAW do so much better? the best game in terms of such animations is still Global Operations. that game had animations for every single action. it would even put the safety on every time you holstered your weapon.

the bottom line is: ArmA does those things better than many other games, thus it is not right to complain about it. ArmA does have issues, but those are not among them. i think we agree with this, right?

[Fred DM 0]

it's one thing to point out bugs and problems, but building a "review" on irrelevant issues and plain wrong facts and getting busted for having a pirated copy is just priceless.

I did some googling of his username and "Armed Assault". It seems to me, that he will actually buy it, when it's released in his part of the world.

On the other hand, he only should have looked in other threads (gogamer,fedex,etc) to know how it could be done.

Bye

would, should, will. no matter. but to come to the official forums with a pirated copy, please...

so because it's not yet out where he lives it's okay for him to use an illegal copy? what's the big deal anyway? this is the internet. you can order games from half way around the world. you live in the US and want to play ArmA now, you order the 505 british version or download from Sprocket.

i can't stand software pirates.

[Falken 0]

One of my friends has the 505 release and he occasionally gets the good birds don't fly away thing.

Don't jump on the poor guy, he MAY be innocent.

[Balschoiw 0]

The horse is dead. Why are you still beating it ?

[Kirby 2]

Because we're sadistic little brats who like beating dead horses untill they are mush...

Anyway, I agree with Falken.

Is there any new yet on if he purchased it or not?

[Maddmatt 1]

slightly sarcastic, yes.

the ladder thing: i have several of the Hitman games but i don't really remember if it was perfect or not. perfect would mean that the feet would always step on the right spot and the hands would move in between the steps. i don't remember a game doing that right. but that doesn't mean there are no such games.

the rule is that games don't do it right because there's no need to. as always, there may be exceptions.

the reload thing: well at least the magazine actually disappears. what did GRAW do so much better? the best game in terms of such animations is still Global Operations. that game had animations for every single action. it would even put the safety on every time you holstered your weapon.

the bottom line is: ArmA does those things better than many other games, thus it is not right to complain about it. ArmA does have issues, but those are not among them. i think we agree with this, right?

Hitman Blood Money seemed to get the animations perfect with ladders, feet and everything.

I never played Global Operations. GRAW has some pretty good animations with weapons, from both first and third person view. The guy would take the magazine out and put the new one in perfectly. The finger and trigger were animated, and the fire mode switch too. GRAW itself wasn't an amazing game though, it's just that the weapon animations were good.

I'm not really complaining, just pointing out the imperfections . Overall, no combat game beats ArmA .

[boecko 0]

One of my friends has the 505 release and he occasionally gets the good birds don't fly away thing.

Don't jump on the poor guy, he MAY be innocent.

No,

he is not ...

Google and you'll find torrent sites with his username.