Royal Flush Impressions

[Marcus-Ergalla 0]

I liked Royal Flush much more than Rhamadi Conflict, hoverver, I'm missing a real end for ArmA's maincampaign in them.

In the last mission of ArmA you find out that the King's troups are responsible for the masacre in Cayo but this part of the story get not continued in both campaigns. I think it's a bit pitty, but Royal Flush also has a really great campaign.

I really liked the story and that it's a bit like Resistance which had the best story I've ever seen in a game right after Cold War Crisis.

Of course RC isn't a bad campaign, however, I'm missing a huge story in it, but i also enjoyed it of course

[Death006 0]

Woah. So you guys are telling me that the US campaign in ARMA ended with the South being bad guys? Also you mention reporters and whatnot?

Ok, that's not how it ended in combat ops. In combat ops you find out that SLA troops disguised as RACS killed civiies in huge numbers. Also, the story is told from a soldiers perspective, the only reporter in the game is killed during a siege at the airport. I'm as pro-American as they come, I support the war in Iraq, I even find common ground with Bush many times, etc. but I don't like the idea of having things selectively edited for a different audience, even if it wasn't govt. censorship, I find it uncomfortable that a company edits its own content to suit the eyes of a different audience. Perhaps it was a marketing decision, but to me it seems condescending like it was talking down to the US saying "Awww. Americans simply can't handle being shown that US policy is even capable of failure..." While I would not have liked it as much, the self editing that took place has bothered me even more, based solely on principle.

Is that what went on here?

Oh and here's another thing, how about the campaign goes US supports RACS against SLA and turns a blind eye to human rights abuses, then a few years later, bombs the heck out of RACS for invading a neighboring oil rich island, then ten years after that, the remaining RACS are supposedly making weapons of mass destruction, so the US bombs them again and adds some kewl counterinsurgency fighting after loyalists don't accept that they lost fair and square? (This campaign derives no inspiration from real life events or real countries, especially Iraq)

[Spokesperson 0]

Well, they modified the content in the US release to make it less anti-american, thus improving sales.

The oil wells explain the military presence. And the fact is still that the southerners fled north when the front lines were north of the cities mentioned.

The US is known to support dictatorships world wide. And has done so at every opportunity in the past when american corporations have been threatened. The orginal campaign is very realistic. The US government is just one big corporate tool following the principle of the dictatorship of the capital that just makes people believe in a freedom that doesn't exist.

[Death006 0]

Well, they modified the content in the US release to make it less anti-american, thus improving sales.

The oil wells explain the military presence. And the fact is still that the southerners fled north when the front lines were north of the cities mentioned.

The US is known to support dictatorships world wide. And has done so at every opportunity in the past when american corporations have been threatened. The orginal campaign is very realistic. The US government is just one big corporate tool following the principle of the dictatorship of the capital that just makes people believe in a freedom that doesn't exist.

Your politics aside, yes, I think anyone with a brain knows the US is not perfect and made many poor choices during the Cold War in supporting any dictatorships that were anti-communist.

I just think that it could have been released unedited to the same welcome, I'm not fond of it when some assume that US citizens can't tolerate criticism of govt. policy, its almost a national pastime ever since the 60's and 70's.

[Beagle 684]

I just played through the royal flush campaign and I must say that the story realisation and mission design is a lot better than what it was in the official campaign. But the story is stereotypic, simplistic, urealistic, fairy-tale-like and stupid. With a good implementation though.

Rebels that fight for some prince? Hah, this ain't the middle ages when people fought for some "King under god" and some stupid religion because they didn't know better or got forced to. In these times people fight to get rid of monarchs and despots.

The original campaign had originality, a clever story but poor implementation. It also took the economy and reasons behind the conflict in consideration realistically. Royal flush ignores the ending of the official campaign. Where it in a genious twist turned out that the people didn't get liberated by the royals and the US. South mass-murdered their own and northern inhabitants. Southerners fled to northern refugee camps (not concentrations camps) and so on. The only realistic follow-up would be a new resistance campaign as seen from the civilian side based on the real campaign.

I also dislike the liberal political propaganda the new designers/developers included. "Free Tibet" pins etc. Tibet has never been free. The Lamas ruled the country with an iron fist before.

come on... it depends. the Americans love this kind of fairy tail much more than "hey, we kill them for the oil."

Cool thing is, that they told the rebels use (biological) weapons of mass destruction. like the US told the world before invading and killing innocent Iraq people.

CMDGabriel... that could not be more wrong.

First off Haliburton lost over $900 million dollars throughout 2003. Also there is no proof of us taking oil. And if we wanted to do that we could have done that in the Gulf war when we were in Kuwait.

Also we could have kept the Food for oil programm up if we wanted to.

Also the WMD thing came from years of quotes from the Democrats saying that Saddam had them. It also came from Saddam having actually used them in history. You know like in Halabja.

Also there was numerous other reasons for invading.

Ties to al-Qaeda. Such as meetings and documents between al-Qaeda and Saddam or him harboring Al-Zarqawi from the King of Jordan. Or the group Ansar-Al-Islam an al-Qaeda group in Kurdistan that actually helped Saddam.

Saddam breaking the cease fires and rules from the surrender he signed from the Gulf War.

Saddam kicking UN weapon inspectors out.

The Oil For Food program taking money from the UN to get palaces and weapons.

And many other things.

Quote[/b] ]Also there was numerous other reasons for invading.

Ties to al-Qaeda. Such as meetings and documents between al-Qaeda and Saddam or him harboring Al-Zarqawi from the King of Jordan. Or the group Ansar-Al-Islam an al-Qaeda group in Kurdistan that actually helped Saddam.

Saddam never had ties to any islamic fundametalists. In fact he fighted them since the Iran-Iraq War...this is known and not doubted in most parts of the world, exept the USA, of course.

Saddam breaking the cease fires and rules from the surrender he signed from the Gulf War.

By trying to defend from attacking US and UK Bombers in the '98 Baghdad palace bombing skirmishes, when you tried to kill Saddam?

Quote[/b] ]Saddam kicking UN weapon inspectors out.

Yes he did kick them... but there are enough countries that do not let them in first.

Quote[/b] ]The Oil For Food program taking money from the UN to get palaces and weapons.

And you helped those poor people by bombing them to paradise and destroying their remaining infrastructure, destablizing the whole country... Nice try

Quote[/b] ]And many other things.

Yes I'm sure that the US-Administration will find enough reasons for breaking internation law... do you think the current flood of accusations against the US at the international court of justice come out of nothing

BTW: I have not forgotten the "leaking" of "theoretical" Invason plans for the Netherlands in case of an accusation of US- Soldiers or Administration Members at the international Court of Justice into the Hague....and the following dropping of the lawsuit against Donal Rumsfeld...

Btw...Bin Laden is saudi arab, not afghan...what the hell are our soldiers doing there...exept beeing targets for suicide bombers that want to liberate their land.

[Flat!!! 0]

Does anybody have any of the main characters in the hotel protection mission? I didn't lose any and still I need some other soldiers... I only have one "main character" and apart from that some of the east rebel units...

[Spokesperson 0]

I managed to save one guy apart from myself.

Royal Flush tries to neglect politics, but to neglect politics is to take a stance against change! Which is a political position in itself.

Edited for political content. -- Franze

[franze 196]

Spokesperson, this is neither the time nor the place for political discussions.

Post edited.

To all:

The place for political discussions - if you MUST - are the offtopic forum. However, I'd much rather you take it off these boards.

On further review of the thread:

No more political discussion at all. This ends now or thread gets a padlock.

[Sdstorage 0]

I actually found the setting and basic plot of the ARMA UK-European version of the storyline, though poorly implemented, to be a rather savy look at modern political alliances.

Both the northern and the southern nations of Sahrani are depraved regimes and oppressive to large groups of their own people.

The explanation and reasoning behind the US forces allying with the south are taken from a historical trade and commercial perspective. The south has money and oil, has a more tropical climate, and is not anti-US. However, the King is a tyrant and slaughters his dissenters. The US turns a blind eye to his human rights abuses because he agrees to oppose the communist nation in the north. This echoes Vietnam, North/South Korea, and Saudi Arabia among others.

The exact impetus the leads to the invasion of South Sahrani by the North is never implicitly explained, but we are led to believe that they perceived a weakness during the withdrawl of the US forces and saw a golden opportunity for conquest. Again, this echoes the Soviet expansionist policies following WWII in Europe, which is something the developers are all too familiar with.

By the conclusion, the US forces have stopped the bloodshed, but also learned just how unscrupulous their southern allies really are. I took it as both a lamentation about the true nature of war (i.e. who suffers the most) as well as some adroit political commentary. It is novel, yes, but ultimately unsatisfying for a video game.

Now then, Queen's Gambit is a much more dramatic and movie-influenced storyline (though highly enjoyable, IMO). It follows a charismatic prince who is thought of as a reformer and is likely to undue the damage the that tyrannical rule of his father had wrought. You and your team of mercs, though initially on the side of his sister, the Queen, quickly learn the truth and switch alliances. This reminded me most of the movie Syriana.

In the end, ARMA wins for realism and novelty and QG wins for storytelling and character-driven high-drama. You can see what both are striving for and ultimately it is QG that captured my interest the most. We need characters and drama to drive our story and that is what it delivered.

[IronTiger 0]

Royal Flush!

[Shadow NX 1]

Royal Flush is great campaign. Don't know if it's BES' fresh stream, but it's a good mix of Resistance and beloved JA2.

Look here - change princess for Deidrana, prince for Enrico Chivaldory, Arulco for Sahrani, resistance for partisans.

Damn, everything is well copied from there including storyline (faked crush, princess that took down her competitors on the way to throne, fighting back prince, bright and not like another PMC fighters mercenaries). Even the "private guard" of princess sounds like Deidrana's elite soldiers!

Moreover, Arulco seems to be a spanish speaking country with wide terrain variation. And so is Sahrani!

So, in the end - there our rocket rifles are, I ask?!

Indeed, but we lack a Isabella model and a slap animation for her poor assistant that always has to bring her the bad news when the PMCs liberated something