ArmA 2 Press Coverage

[Colossus 2]

One thing is sure, it's going to be PC and Xbox360 (1st page, top-left). Before its only been referred as next gen. console.

No big surprise though..

[kavoven 4]

Each time I see the screenshots I think:

Man, THAT looks like OFP

[Crystal 0]

Yes, sometimes I have the same feelings, "yes OFP is back" but today..

All "alpha" screens of ArmA2 are nice, but there is something what I dont like so far... the ground texture for example.

Is that Next-Gen:

I dont think so... megatexture's aren't good for HD Gaming today. This is like the "Gen-2001" and old OFP megatexture style. Of corse there is a huge viewdistance. But other games for example Just Cause (2006):

Have nice water effects, like reflections.. (some modifications for OFP had that too). And nice viewdistance and good performance (with this engine quality).

or

viewdistance & quality

yes to much colours and fully arcade game.. but those engine features like reflecting water, better textures would be great in ArmA2 and it would be make ArmA2 really NextGen I think. But I hope at the otherside that they would not include heavy bloom/light effects like other NextGen games. Or the vegitation screens of ArmA2.

Balance of performance + viewdistance + texturequality + and good phyisc engine/ai/animations make a nice engine. But ArmA1 look not realy great, have bad ai, nearly no physic's but need high end hardware. I dont want to see that same in a NextGen Game like Arma2 should be.

Sry for my bad english but I see after 8 years things that are not changed, but they should be, if the game want be called NextGen. Or it is only a marketing trick

[Colossus 2]

Oh, I wouldn't worry to much. When the bullets starts flying I doubt you will look so much on the ground and think "Hey, this ain't right!"

Besides, I think the frase "next gen." was only a reference to the [next gen.] consoles like Xbox360 and PS3.

Games have different kind of priorities and engines, and games like ¨Crysis¨ and ¨Just Cause¨ is more for the show then the wastness of ArmA and OFP. Although it would be nice with some improvements, graphically, you must remember that Crytek is alot bigger (About 180 employees) then BI (New website so no list over employees any longer. 30-35 maybe?)

Quote[/b] ]Roy Taylor, Vice President of Content Relations at NVIDIA, has spoken on the subject of the engine's complexity, stating that Crysis has over a million lines of code, 1GB of texture data, and 85,000 shaders.

Crysis - Wikipedia

To build such a strong and flexible engine, which can carry the load of so much graphics, it essenstially comes down to how much manpower a company have. Crytek, for example, is a whole other level then BI, which has a little crew in compared.

I think BI has come far to be so small. Who knows what it would be if they had as many as Crytek on their team, but that's not reality. You'll just have to bite the dust and let it roll, see what they come up with next time.

[stakex 0]

Oh, I wouldn't worry to much. When the bullets starts flying I doubt you will look so much on the ground and think "Hey, this ain't right!"

Besides, I think the frase "next gen." was only a reference to the [next gen.] consoles like Xbox360 and PS3.

Actually "Game2" was also refered to as "Next Gen PC Game" long before was ever announced for console, and by then they were current gen consoles, not next gen... so your assumption there is incorrect.

As for the bad textures... really to early to tell, tho I would highly doubt the ground in the release version of the game will look like that. In reality, it better not if ArmA2 is going to be a successful game. I truely hate to say it, but graphics sell games now adays. Look at GTA4, Halo 3, COD4, Madden 08... none of them were a step forward for their respective series. In fact, they were all just graphicly modified versions of their predasesors with almost no gameplay improvements, and they were all smash hits.

Not to say ArmA2 needs great graphical improvements on the level with thoes games, but its graphics can't be too bad or its never going to sell enough to be a success.

[shinRaiden 0]

Oh, I wouldn't worry to much. When the bullets starts flying I doubt you will look so much on the ground and think "Hey, this ain't right!"

Besides, I think the frase "next gen." was only a reference to the [next gen.] consoles like Xbox360 and PS3.

Games have different kind of priorities and engines, and games like ¨Crysis¨ and ¨Just Cause¨ is more for the show then the wastness of ArmA and OFP. Although it would be nice with some improvements, graphically, you must remember that Crytek is alot bigger (About 180 employees) then BI (New website so no list over employees any longer. 30-35 maybe?)

Quote[/b] ]Roy Taylor, Vice President of Content Relations at NVIDIA, has spoken on the subject of the engine's complexity, stating that Crysis has over a million lines of code, 1GB of texture data, and 85,000 shaders.

Crysis - Wikipedia

To build such a strong and flexible engine, which can carry the load of so much graphics, it essenstially comes down to how much manpower a company have. Crytek, for example, is a whole other level then BI, which has a little crew in compared.

I think BI has come far to be so small. Who knows what it would be if they had as many as Crytek on their team, but that's not reality. You'll just have to bite the dust and let it roll, see what they come up with next time.

I'm pretty sure that if you extract the various ArmA pbo's you'll find several gigabytes of textures not counting terrain, and that's assuming packed data and not TGA sources. VBS2 is delivered on two DVD's, and has several more gigabytes of textures there as well.

Crysis may have the shiny, but they don't have to worry about the frankly absurd detail requirements of BIS's engine.

[EricM 0]

Quote[/b] ]he frankly absurd detail requirements of BIS's engine.

What do you mean ?

[opteryx 1562]

Yes, I would like you to elaborate on that too.

[shinRaiden 0]

It's quite simple, look out your apt window and count all the tree's on God's Green Earth, then figure out how to index and place them all on a map.

CoD4 and Crysis look pretty, but like with BF2 the sandboxes are really tiny or narrow supporting high-detail false fronts. OFP/Arma you can go anywhere, so it all has to be detailed everywhere, all the time.

Basically, you're trying to get FPS detail with an FS capacity, everyone says that should for all intents and purposes be impossible, yet BIS somehow manages to pretty much make it work. That's the absurdity of it.

[stakex 0]

It's quite simple, look out your apt window and count all the tree's on God's Green Earth, then figure out how to index and place them all on a map.

CoD4 and Crysis look pretty, but like with BF2 the sandboxes are really tiny or narrow supporting high-detail false fronts. OFP/Arma you can go anywhere, so it all has to be detailed everywhere, all the time.

Basically, you're trying to get FPS detail with an FS capacity, everyone says that should for all intents and purposes be impossible, yet BIS somehow manages to pretty much make it work. That's the absurdity of it.

Yea, COD4's maps a very detailed, but really small. Mostly because they were developed for consoles... but Crysis does in fact have some rather large maps, thats are many times more detailed then ArmA. So if the graphics on Crysis were dropped a bit, and the engine optimized for larger environments.... I faill to see why it wouldn't be very capable of ArmA sized maps, or at least very large maps.

But forget about Crysis and COD4... how about Oblivion? Again not as large of maps as we have with ArmA, but far more detailed. And with modding, can be very large. Or better yet, Far Cry 2... FC2 is going to have a very large map with no loading zones, and its maps are going to be highly detailed. And what about some of your MMO's that have large, detailed environments?

So I wouldn't say that everyone says its impossible, as several developers have done similar things... and its becomeing a very popular concept. It was absurd when they first did it back in 2001, but times have changed and the large scale environments of ArmA/ArmA2 really are nothing too special anymore, especially since the detail added to them since OFP days hasn't been all that high in comparision to how much other games have advanced in the last 5-7 years.

[NoRailgunner 0]

Farcry2 map ~50 square kilometres

ArmA map ~400 square kilometres

Farcry2 combat range ~100m

ArmA combat range ~up to 5000m

Hope that ArmA 2 dont change into another (stupid) high-detailed FPS/corridor shooter. Many people would like to see better AI, storyline, realtime editor, tools etc instead of shiny graphics.

[Commando84 0]

Dont compare Mmo's into the mix! Very few MMo's have any good graphics..

[rowdied 44]

It's quite simple, look out your apt window and count all the tree's on God's Green Earth, then figure out how to index and place them all on a map.

CoD4 and Crysis look pretty, but like with BF2 the sandboxes are really tiny or narrow supporting high-detail false fronts. OFP/Arma you can go anywhere, so it all has to be detailed everywhere, all the time.

Basically, you're trying to get FPS detail with an FS capacity, everyone says that should for all intents and purposes be impossible, yet BIS somehow manages to pretty much make it work. That's the absurdity of it.

But forget about Crysis and COD4... how about Oblivion? Again not as large of maps as we have with ArmA, but far more detailed. And with modding, can be very large. Or better yet, Far Cry 2... FC2 is going to have a very large map with no loading zones, and its maps are going to be highly detailed. And what about some of your MMO's that have large, detailed environments?

Oblivion? Your kidding right? Arma blows it out of the water.

What is the max view distance in that game 500m's and after that you get cardboard cutout trees or a picture representing the distant landscape. Comeon, the graphics and detail are good BUT not that good even with everything maxed out.

[stakex 0]

Yea Oblivion might be a somewhat bad comparison, but forget that, well go back to Far Cry 2. Its map might be smaller, but it has highly destructable environments, GOOD physics, and its graphics are far more advanced then ArmA. All my point with that was, its no major accomplishment that BIS has made such large environments for a FPS. Sure, it was when OFP came out, but not any more. ArmAs maps are very lacking, and are not really all that detailed. If they had highly detailed urban areas, where all buildings were actually enterable and stuff....... then Id say its quite an accomplishment, but not untill they are more detailed.

And NoRailgunner.... Far Cry 2 has a view distance of 1 kilometer, which is around about a 3rd of the view distance ArmA has. And also, as I understand it Sahrani itself is not 400 square kilometers, as that number figures in the water surrounding the map which has to take up a large part of that. So the comparison between the two games is not nearly as far off as you attempt to make it.

Don't get me wrong... as I have said a dozen times, I personally don't care about graphics. I think the games graphics should be tuned down, the maps shrunk a little, and actual gameplay improvments like physics, better collision detection, and all that be added. Im very sick of over developed graphics, with under developed gameplay... But I also actually want to see the BIS game series survive, and now adays graphics sell. So the map graphics for ArmA2 can't look as bad as OFP graphics... thats all.

[hardrock 1]

Yea Oblivion might be a somewhat bad comparison, but forget that, well go back to Far Cry 2. Its map might be smaller, but it has highly destructable environments, GOOD physics, and its graphics are far more advanced then ArmA.

Can you go to any point on the island as well or are you limited to certain areas?

[Raptor 10]

Yea Oblivion might be a somewhat bad comparison, but forget that, well go back to Far Cry 2. Its map might be smaller, but it has highly destructable environments, GOOD physics, and its graphics are far more advanced then ArmA.

Can you go to any point on the island as well or are you limited to certain areas?

Guess you can go anywhere and do anything you want on this island.  

[EricM 0]

Speaking of Crysis, it is without a doubt the pinnacle of real time graphics at the moment...

BUT the Island is still much smaller than Arma (maybe like South Sahrani?) and if you played with the sandbox editor (awsome, by the way), you would see that for instance in the first level, there is nothing past the mountain chain... and missile frigates prevent you from going anywere else...

So in a way, in this "level", they only have to populate about a third of South Sahrani...

So basically it's still a corridor shooter... except that the corridor is bigger...

[bella1 0]

Have anyone seen this

[dale0404 5]

Have anyone seen this

At work so cant view it

Anyone want to tell me what it is or do I need to wait until I get home in about 7 hours. 7 HOURS

[Crystal 0]

Nice find bella1 Can someone translate this?

[Radnik 18]

Have anyone seen this

last seven seconds are interesting.

[EricM 0]

The JSF VTOL and low altitude flight is nice... The landscape really feels authentic, it shows it was based on an actual location. Many things still look blurry and temporary, but youtube quality doesn't help either. So can't really judge...

And yes very the last bit is VERY NICE... but I don't want to spoil it...

Everytime I think : Why didn't they include this in Arma ? I see it in Arma 2 (UAV, KA52, C130, Osprey, VTOL...). Arma really feels like the transition product and Arma II the real complete one (or did they kept some things voluntarily out of Arma 1 not to canibalize Arma 2 later?). But, man I don't complain, it's already a lot of fun.

[dale0404 5]

And yes very the last bit is VERY NICE... but I don't want to spoil it...

Damn it, I want spoilers! Still 4 hours to go until I finish work.

[Average Joe 0]

And yes very the last bit is VERY NICE... but I don't want to spoil it...

Damn it, I want spoilers! Still 4 hours to go until I finish work.

Soldiers standing on a boat. a big one.

[smellyjelly 0]

Nice video, though doesn't really show any updated features aside from the grass and different vehicles. The ending is cool, but I'm going to assume that the ship isn't moving because I think it was already stated that Arma II won't allow for moving vehicles to hold objects, (hopefully BIS changed there mind).