I enjoy ArmA!

[sektor 2]

I read lots of threads and comments saying ArmA sucks and it should have this and that. When i played demo, it was lazy and not so good, but i bought the game anyway. And the game rocks, it is absolutely great, and i'm opening the topic about that

The visual side is great, the islands are very realistic, the landscape and towns, the nature feels alive! Gameplay is crucial for me, but this is job well done Bohemia! There is room for improvement, but if no one reskins AK or soldiers or wheichles, i wouldn't mind 'couse they look great right now. One thing that bugs me are the dammage textures, they should be reworked.

All in all, i enjoy the game now, and will for few years at lest

PC:

AMD Sempron 2600+

Asrock k7 6000

7600GT AGP

1 GB ram kingmax

[rundll.exe 12]

/signed

[Daniel 0]

/signed

(Nothing else to add but to agree. )

[The Susser 0]

I have not played another game which does the night so well. Its a joy night fighting. Come on map makers I am sick to death of these bright sunny day missions. FDF was really dirty and the atmosphere was fantastic I want more fog more night (no day option plz) I want rain.

On a serious note the night vision is such an improvement I love the way it takes you time to adjust.

[r2101 0]

yup... the night graphics are beautiful, love the shadows and the moonlight... it is err.... kinda creepy in a good way

actually it is kinda distracting... i find myself quite often just watching the different shades of grey whilst the squad passes along and well... get shot

nice...

and then that brilliant urban patrol script

yumm!

[Heatseeker 0]

I worship the much improved engine. It looks better in a realistic way (not the HDR though) and its much more efficient, capable and improved.

I can make a really huge list of things that i like and a large list of things that i dont but i see unique value in Arma that i dont find in any other games .

[smellyjelly 0]

To tell the truth, I don't think the HDR is supposed to be realistic. If so, BIS has failed that part, but I think the way it is now is kind of like a signature. If it's "fixed", then Armed Assault may not feel like the same game.  

But anyways, to add a bit more on topic, I do like this game. Most aspects could be improved, but that doesn't mean it's bad to begin with.

[BraTTy 0]

PC:

AMD Sempron 2600+

Asrock k7 6000

7600GT AGP

1 GB ram kingmax

Wow your playing on a Sempron 2600+ and enjoying the game....

I knew most all those complaining that it needs a high spec machine were off their rocker

[Duffers 0]

I agree. The number of issues directed toward a game made by a small development company, when compared to the 'cash cow crap' churned out by the likes of EA (BF2 still isn't fixed), tend to drag.

This is THE soldier sim. Move over America's Army.

You know what as well...? if you take time to understand the ballistics, movement and tactics you will actually become good at the game.

Since buying this gem I've uninstalled COD2 and cancelled my STALKER pre-order. COD2 is just a point and click bunny hop fest in comparison, with the victor being whoever fires in a straight line first.

The community >and my heart felt thanks goes out to all you guys< will keep ArmA afloat for years.

Looking forward to addons BIS

[Dwarden 1124]

well i'm sure Stalker will be worth to buy after 3 patches ))

[sander 14]

Hi,

I fully agree, I enjoy Armed Assault immensely. While there are some minor problems, to me the good outweighs by far the bad.

Regards,

Sander

[sektor 2]

Quote[/b] ]Wow your playing on a Sempron 2600+ and enjoying the game....

I knew most all those complaining that it needs a high spec machine were off their rocker

Well, the settings are mostly low, but i keep AA at low to, at 1024x768. Still, it looks very nice. I overclocked sempron a bit, and i have above 20 FPS in town ( depends how many units are there ), and up to 35 FPS in the wild.

[Second 0]

Arma is great

so

/signed

ps. Nights are indeed beatiful: Thunder, fog, muzzleflashes... yum-yum

[thr0tt 12]

I just bought an X-Fi sound card to replace the mobo built in Nforce one, seems to give me better performance ! Just an idea.

Anyways: Sound now is superb, EAX enabled and hearing distant gun shots, explosions, vehicles is just amazing, makes the game a true long player for me!

/Signed

[-23rd-_2Lt_Griff 0]

/Signed

Nothing more I could have hoped for from Arm A. Over time with editing tools everyone will be able to edit and change the game any way they wish. Can't wait to see what Mod's and addons are released when the tools are out.

Fantastic work BIS, I never complained promise.

[maatz 1]

i have to agree

PC:

Intel Core 2 Duo 6600

Asus P5B-E Plus

Sapphire Ati Radeon X1950 XTX

2 GB Corsair Ram DDR2 800

[Gloops 0]

I agree. Tis fun. Now I've got the enemy AI sorted - skill level way up, accuracy way down, it's a lot more fun! They still shoot me from 500 m away, but only with the second or third shot, and not always in the head.

I love the way they retreat to cover and then regroup to flank you - which is quite a technical achievement for a game as open and variable as this. Compare with the Battlefield series retarded AI.

And what other game can you just drive down to the beach and watch the sunset?

[Bad Pilot 0]

what other game can you just drive down to the beach and watch the sunset?

You too, huh?  

Did ya catch my new prayer?

Quote[/b] ]Our Coders

Who art in BIS

Hallowed be thy game

Thy Kingdom come

Thy Republic be done

In shops as it is online

Give us this day our daily fix

And forgive us our teamkills

As we forgive those who teamkill against us

And lead us not into ambushes

But deliver us from Rambos

For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory

For ever and ever

Yeah, man!

[benreeper 0]

Ditto.

New players say this game is too hard because you can't take a lot of damage and there are no health packs. However, once you learn how to play, you can be in intense battles and not DIE. You learn that when some shoots at you, instead of firing back at them, you take cover first. I get wounded a lot but only die when my position is compromised.

I also think that most of the performance issues stem from the fact that people with high end systems want to play at maxed settings. They don't realize that therer has not been a computer created that can run this game maxed. This was the same for OFP in fact, my PC plays ArmA better than OFP due to the newer rendering engine. Medium settings for this game is more than adequate. I have an AMD 4600X2, 2 Gigs, NV7950GT. The next upgrade will be the SB X-Fi.

--Ben

[4 IN 1 0]

/signed

i have no idea why ppl using 8800 cards are have so much problem, well i dont care now as mine works fine! (mostly on high BTW, tested it on my living room LCD TV and still works with reasonable FPS)

now lets see how many post could this topic last b4 some A hole came and try to set fire upon it

[AfrographX 0]

If it wasn't for the pc requirement thing i'd totally sign this too. But my comp is outdated so that's nothing I can blame on BIS.

Island is really one of the better ones I've seen so far in a PC game.

The island as a whole is not realistic, as its Flashpoint predecessors. Different climate zones, two different states on this tiny island and the overall layout is a combination you won't find in the real world. But, well, it's just a game and it offers a variety of beautiful and detailed scenery for the player.

[BroK3n 0]

Arma + 30 FPS + Multiplayer Coop map + 6 hours + some really weird/funny/cooperative players = WIN.

Ive been playing for about 13 hrs and stopped when the lod texture bug started popping in. If it wasnt for that id still be playing!

I cant thank BIS enough for the improvement to the Flashpoint engine.

I've kept a valuable treasure to myself too much so this weekend im actually planning to bring my friends over and demonstrate Arma and all its goodness to them!!111!!!!

[EDcase 87]

I'm adding my thanx to BIS for an excellent and unique game.

Since playing the original OFP I was hooked and ARMA is so much more.

Still a few things to fix and maybe improve but I'm sure that will happen given time.

Like OFP, I'm sure I'll be still be playing ARMA for years.

Cheers

[Dallas 9]

I would like to add something more, but:

'/signed'

says it all.

[Fekin-Detri 0]

Well, it has been some years since I bought Operation Flashpoint, and now, finally ArmA, Armed Assault has been released.

My first thought was to come to the forums and see what people think of it in it's infant release form, but decided against that and would wait until I knew a few patches had been released before buying, giving the game as much of a head start before I bought it.

The morning came at the start of nearly 2 weeks off work after I had a minor operation, that I got my mitts on a copy of ArmA, popped it in the DVD drive and installed it.

I didn't really know much about ArmA, other-than it uses the same OFP engine, though hopefully heavily modifyed for improvments over Flashpoint, better graphics, which I had seen quite a few screen shots which looked quite impressive.

Game installed on a system consisting off...

Intel® Core2 CPU 6400 @ 2.13GHz (2 CPUs)

2046MB RAM

NVIDIA GeForce 7500 LE 512 MB RAM

LG L194WT(Digital)

Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 2

Game version 1.5

As soon as the in game screen came on I noticed it seemed to take quite a few seconds for the rolling background to finally load up, choose options and set everythiong to normal for the first play test, and went straight into the editor, where I spent 90% of my time with Flashpoint.

Just getting to the editor you see there is only one major Island in ArmA "Sahrani", unlike the 3 major Islands you had in flashpoint, plus the desert Island, which In ArmA's case is the size of a shoe box, but Sahrani is much larger than the older Flashpoint Islands.

First impression of the editor screen was it looked basic, unfinished even, simple text over white backgrounds for the option buttons, and not even in nice looking fonts.

Very low quality "swishing" sounds when clicking on buttons and not the crisp sounding clicking that you got in the Flashpoint editor.

All the old features seem to still be there but while we have some new vehicles to try out, a few old favorites seem to have been dropped, Russian T80's, T55's, American M60's are no more, which I think is a shame.

Off I went into the preview of a very basic mission setup consisting of me as a single AT soldier at one end of a long bridge, and a small squad at the other end with a move waypoint towards me.

Once in game I thought the graphics were quite good, considering I have a low cost graphics card at the moment, the new lighting effects are nice, with the sun totally blinding you if looked at and also your soldier now actually moves his feet around as you turn 360 degrees instead of simply turning on a dime without moving his legs.

Had a quick run around as I waited for the squad to cross the bridge towards me, got out the AT launcher and was very pleased to see you can now run while holding the launcher instead of being stuck in a crouch, so good points there.

Animation of soldiers going from safe walking to aware prone are good too, although I did like the animation of soldiers walking with their rifles slung over the shoulder, it did make the look awkward when fired upon and them switching to prone stance.

All exteriors of buildings look quite nice aswell, though the limited amount of buildings you can enter is still very small, and the ones you can enter are still as empty as Flashpoint, which was a bit dissapointing.

Finally, returning to the bridge it soon became apparent that AI units STILL cannot cross from one side of a bridge to the other without getting stuck near the end section of a bridge\road join, something I would of expected to have been fixed by now, but no, it hasn't.

Tried changing the squad to a truck with an AI driver, truck gets 3/4 across the bridge and swerves to the right into the railings.

Tried a tank and didn't get halfway across before going mental and trying to drive off the edge, and you can still hear the tank loading it's first shell from half a mile away at the start, even if it's empty with no gunner.

Sometimes the tank dosent even move for 20 to 30 seconds at the start of the mission preview, then does a u-turn and drives 3 miles round the city to get to the other side of the bridge.

To say this is a whole new game, and not an addon, this massive game error should of been sorted out before bringing ArmA out.

So, I decided to put this mentally challenged tank out of it's misery and shoot it instead.

First thing, hardly any sound of the AT round impacting on the hull, not much more when the tank detonates either.

Gone is the horrible bending and twisting of the model though when destroyed, but is replaced with a drastic instant texture change the split second it is destroyed, along with the tracks, machine gun and other various bits that do a flick now you see me, now you don't disappearing act, though the bits of debris, smoke and fire effects are a good improvment, it now has an annoying "beep beep beep" that sounds across the city louder than the explosion as the tank errupts ?!?!

Shooting tyres is even more rediculas, why they change to a burt\rusted texture when shot and not the original going flat animation is beyond me, and frankly looks stupid.

The same goes for shooting a jeep a few times and the paint does a runner, leaving a rust effect on the entire body shell while the jeeps is still drivable.

Also a BMP can still be destroyed with a handfull of grenades, tracer fire still looks terrible, things that either shouldn't be there or should of been fixed by now is starting to blight this game.

I do like the effect of buildings now can be brought down by shooting them, though they do leave very little in the way of debris when done. Also hand grenades don't explode the second they hit an object now, and do bounce off objects, but first they hardly have any sound of them hitting say a metal wall and also, what are they made off ?, rubber ?, they can sometimes bounce like 20 meters away when throws at a wall. Same goes for shooting objects, very low sounds effects, if any.

While shooting soldiers it seems very hard to headshot people now.

I was stood infront 10 meters approx from another soldier, lined up the aimpoint to the middle of the soldiers forehead and fired, shooting him in the "chest".

Tried this at different distances and always got a chest shot, but if I fire from the soldiers side I am more likely to get a headshot, but from either infront or behind it's nearly always a back or chest shot while aimed at the head. Never had that problem in Flashpoint, if you shot the head at any angle you got a headshot,and we still don't have a good reload animation either.

Animation for entering a vehicle is no better, still the same is stepping into mid air to get into a chopper, these are things that I would of thought BIS would of wanted to improve upon, though we can now swim.

Enemy soldiers now seem to have been given x-ray vision too where they can pick me out while Im enclosed in a bush without moving and drill me full of lead from 400m away, even on the lowest AI skill setting.

The sound changes are a good idea, where sounds are muffled say when a helicopter flies behind a building or a satchel charge blows behind a house, but this muffling is sometimes confused and muffles the sound of a chopper when it flies overhead and beyond a small wall to which you are stood and is only chest high. Also the chatter between teammates is even worse than before, sounding like a 20 year old voice synth, too choppy between words making them sound more like robots.

Once you quit the preview and go back to the editor, where is the debrief screen now, telling you what you killed etc etc, for me it just goes back into the editor now, telling you nothing of what you just did in the preview.

All in all, I have to say ArmA is a huge dissapointment, where BIS seem to have taken a step forwards in some respects, they also seem to have taken 2 steps backwards in either things they have not improved on, or taken out or have replaced with inferior sounds\animations or textures and so on, though crash detection is much better I feel ArmA only deserves to be called a graphically improved Flashpoint addon still broken in many aspects and others missing.

Not what I expected.

Thank you for reading and feel free to give your feedback on any of my points or others I have not mentioned.