Latest ArmA2 & ArmA2:OA Press Coverage | NO discussion here!

[POTS 0]

Tiscali is a bunch of liars, so poorly executed as well.

[Raphier 0]

Positions are same even with the correct link.

Nope :p x1980 is more to left and the other is more to right. Also resolution scale difference. So I say this is genuine.

But to be fair, it doesn't look anywhere good as the Alpha Arma 2 GFX. (character faces seem to be the only impovement, else is like fall down)

Edited April 25, 2009 by Raphier

[An-225 0]

No wonder the FPS was so low, they were using an E8600.

Thanks for the translation Deadfast.

[Praelium 0]

Game star TV has a preview of a video preview of Arma 2: (6mins), (preview is 9 mins)

http://www.gamestar.de/videos/gstv/

on right panel. (no floating point, to keep the gun on screen :D)

You can do that in Arma through the option menu, and I'm sure it'll be the same in Arma II. The video is nice though. It shows a little bit of the AI taking cover and it looks good.

[Deadfast 43]

You can do that in Arma through the option menu, and I'm sure it'll be the same in Arma II...

I think he's just poking fun at GameStar for doing so ;)

[Raphier 0]

You can do that in Arma through the option menu, and I'm sure it'll be the same in Arma II. The video is nice though. It shows a little bit of the AI taking cover and it looks good.

Well, I'd rather have a floating point reticule with the gun visible (which usually disappears when watching right,thus making 3rd person more immersive), something like from Inflitration mod of UT (http://dslyecxi.com/botg_infiltration.html).

Currently it's just....clunky? not interesting enought and I can only preach about it thousands of times. It's not 'smooth' enought in ArmA 2.

I think he's just poking fun at GameStar for doing so ;)

and yes ;) you're right!

------------

But on the other hand, that's might even be the reason why this game is getting mixed feelings/previews. (clunky gunview might be to awkward they want to keep it steady instead). It should be rewarding to use floating point.

Edited April 25, 2009 by Raphier

[Kristian 47]

Finally!

[Cobra84 0]

No wonder the FPS was so low, they were using an E8600.

What's wrong with an E8600? Its faster than what 90% of us probably have and probably not too far from a low end quad core, unless the game in very efficient when using 4 cores (most aren't).

[An-225 0]

You'll have to forgive me, my experience with computer parts comes from Flight Simulator X, in which not even an i7 965 is enough to run it.

I think its just a lot to ask of a Dual core to run the game on Very High. No doubt it will be fine on a slightly lower setting, but I just don't see a top-end dual core coping very well.

[z190075 10]

Kristian> Nice spotted:-)

[someboy 0]

Here is the translation of the spanish preview posted here http://www.meristation.com/v3/des_avances.php?pic=GEN&id=cw49ef6baacf681&idj=cw46cc10e6b4725&idp=&tipo=art&c=1&pos=0 a couple days ago. Not many new things said in it (and a few contradictory or senseless statements by the author), but here you have anyway. I tried to translate it as literally as possible. Enjoy.

(PD: in that website forums, the author claimed to perfectly know the complete saga)

Page 1

“Welcome to the definitive militar Simulator for PC. Don’t get fooled by the fact that it looks like other FPS. In ARMA 2 you must forget all your usual tactics from other games, you must think and act like in a combat in real life…â€. This is the first thing that our screen will display once we load ArmA 2. A declaration of intention of what it has always aspired to, and in many aspects managed to fulfil, Bohemia’s saga. In this, their last version, they are closer than never to achieving it.

This warning will be very useful and will help both people who didn’t enjoy the saga becoming patient enough and also calm down those who do know it and hope its essence isn’t changed. Just as we described in our first preview of ArmA2 (http://www.meristation.com/v3/des_avances.php?id=cw49246792f3e24&pic=PC&idj=cw46cc10e6b4725) (which we recommend you reading for better understanding this new text), the fact of its release on consoles, the totally new concept of action based on an attack team around you and even the improvement in graphical quality, made some fear that the values which had allowed it to stay apart of the rest of FPS where lost: realism, difficulty and infinite options to face the goal. Since now we can tell you that, even though the game has noticeably changed since Operation Flashpoint and Armed Assault, its spirit remains the same.

Once we have shacked the fear to the lovers of this saga, we will get into describing what we are going to find in this new version of what for both Bohemia and many followers is not a game, but a tactical combat simulator. In order to keep “good mannersâ€, we will find the already usual high HW requirements. All the AI, physics, impacts… require a good processor, and the graphical environment demands a good GPU.

Once we install the game we check why all that graphical power is needed. Visually, ArmA2 implies an importance advance over ArmA, but it does not event get close to the level of titles such as Far Cry or Call of Duty. Graphical resources are not focused on dramatic explosions, illumination or extremely detailed models; ArmA mainly aims at two goals. The former is offering the highest possible view distance, showing objects or individuals over which we will be able to interact up to two kilometres. The latter si the maximum fidelity to both vehicles and weapons, becoming in a real encyclopaedia about how the weaponry is, how it is used and what effects it causes.

In any case, the representation of Chernarus, fictitious name of what in fact would be the current Georgia, is more than perfect, showing from highly dense forested areas to building areas such as towns or refineries. All of it while maintaining the maximum coherence with reality, and leaning on real images of the area. In conclusion, the graphical advance will never hurt the spirit of real combat simulator that the game pretends.

Once we have adapted to the environment, we will quickly sense to obvious improvements in the game. The first, very noticeable if we have played previous versions, is that our character runs a lot more. He still gets tired and his level of tiredness still affects his aiming, but it is not so difficult to cross the map on foot, as it was in previous versions, something to which we are thankful. In addition, we are finally able to reload our weapon while running, jump over small obstacles, and even focus the attention on a point while we run towards a different one, a great improvement. The second improvement is related to movement as well, but this time is due to the entire environment that surrounds the player. In ArmA2 the vegetation moves and, what is more important is plagued of civilians and animals… Something which might seem banal, completely changes the style of a game in a saga where the easiest way to locate an enemy was searching for the slightest movement on our screen.

Edited April 25, 2009 by someBoy

[someboy 0]

Page 2

Another improvement with respect to the scenario is that we will finally be able to use is as a more effective way of concealment. We will be able to use bushes and the highest grass itself as an effective concealment. Stress is put on the difference between cover and concealment. It will depend on what we are using to hide and what type of weapon and ammunition we are being shot with. One thing is that the enemy cannot see you, and a totally different thing is that his bullets cannot go through your cover and equally hurt you. In this facet Bohemia claims to have put a great amount of effort implementing a physics necessary for using guns, focusing on the bullet behaviour, which will be great for realism lovers or frustrated snipers who can tell the advantages of the match ammo, the subsonic ammo, MOA index, coriolis effect and the rest of parameters that are not taken into account in any other game.

Game modes

ArmA2 allows a variety of game modes, but we are going to divide them into two. On the one hand, the classical single player campaign mode and on the other hand the almost infinite possibilities that it offers us to create our own custom fun,

With respect to the campaign mode, the importance of the storyboard has been recovered, as it was in OFP, but rather questionable in ArmA. The story in ArmA2 seems to be really well presented with the advantage of varying depending on the continuous decisions the player must keep taking. The destruction of an objective, rescuing a hostage or capturing a prisoner will be fundamental in the events of subsequent missions. The campaign will be long and complex, and it by itself already justifies buying this game.

However, the most attractive feature for the lovers of the saga will be the possibilities that ArmA2 offers by means of its mission editor and its multiplayer mode. Bohemia is conscious of how much the series has been supported by the community thanks to mods. Now they directly give us “the keys to the labâ€, being now the limits of the game our own interest in taking advantage of it, either playing individually through out own missions created with the editor, or with other players, playing coop, teams, warfare or any other way we want.

The potential of this title is fabulous in this aspect. In fact, it is the only real alternative in case we want to “play war†in a realistic enough manner. For that they put to our disposition the recreation of 225 square kilometres terrain fully accessible by a great variety of vehicles, both military and civilian, and a complete arsenal, Russian and American, which reproduction and functioning have been realistically modelled.

It is worth mentioning the possibilities that the so called “Armory†offers, in which, as we fulfil objectives, we will be able to unlock, study and test elements such as guns, vehicles or military ranks by means of different challenges that the game will offers, from shooting a plate (something funny to do with a Barret gun) to animal hunting in the forest or survival games, assaults…

[someboy 0]

Page 3

Combat

Once it is clear that we will stand in a realistic environment, with realistic weaponry and vehicles, and with realistic physics, there is only one factor left for experiencing a totally realistic situation: the “human†behaviour, or the so called AI.

The AI has been one of the more criticised elements in Bohemia’s games. In what it pretends to be a simulator, it was a real pain to see how men of a squad got “stuck†in any place of the scenario of the stayed aiming at a wall while enemies where passing by their side. In ArmA2 Bohemia promises us an advanced AI called semiautonomous AI.

Before going through the advances on this AI, we have preferred to note that, even though the AI was more “ignorableâ€, in Arma2 it becomes fundamental. The reason is that in previous games our allies let themselves get killed like rabbits but you didn’t really need to care and could end up playing the missions as a lone wolf without any need of help. In ArmA2 this will not be the case since your team mates, the Razor Team, is always the same through all the campaign, and loosing one of them the mission will fail.

This circumstance had been seen in other games… but in those games your team mates didn’t start running everywhere in a chaotic manner putting their lives in danger, and therefore your mission. It is the same with event detection, another curse that the series has been dragging. In certain situations you will find running from one place to the other without knowing what you have done or are left doing for the current mission not to finish. In most cases this is due to an enemy which, since it itself also counts with the semiautonomous AI, might have run to a nearby forest and is hiding, with the given difficulty of the game not ending if you don’t kill him as well.

Given that we are two month away from the game release, we are not too confident in these kind of bugs to be solved, basing our opinion in previous games in which these issues were not addressed in any patch.

However we cannot but acknowledge the great improvement that the AI has gone through, mostly in out team. While the enemies, when being attacked from distance, simply lay down on the ground and see how the die one by one, our team advances covering with the environment, repels attacks quite well, heal themselves and share ammo and, in conclusions, is not anymore a burden, but a really helpful company. Still, we fear that, just the way we saw in the Beta version, we will spend a lot of time regretting the death of a team member that we didn’t even know where he was, and to which we were not even able to cover, or why we were hurt but no one came to help us while the keep running around, or why the same enemy that was unable to see us two meters away, is now able to finish us from one kilometre away one with one single shot. But, oh well, this is ArmA and all that is part of its main appeal, its difficulty.

[someboy 0]

Page 4

Regarding the existing four difficulty levels, the highest ones are not only frustrating, but they sometimes make the game way too complex as well. One of the most evident factors is the total lack of help over the screen when locating your objectives, allies and enemies. Something to which we were used to in this type of games, but that obviously is far from realistic, and therefore in these levels we will be force to rely on our sight and intuition to recognize between allies and enemies, knowing where out team mates are and where we have to go. We will not have a map that shows us where we are exactly nor the direction towards the objectives either. Still, we have our watch and compass. Didn’t we want realism?

In the lowest difficulty levels all this hints are activated, together with an increased impact area of the enemy, the resistance of our character, the possibility of playing in third person and, in conclusion, making the game a lot more bearable.

We will see it in June

Two month away from the release, ArmA2 look very good, if not excellent. It still maintains part of its features that most have fed up the patience of players, but, in exchange, it maintains and further exploits all those features that have made of it a cult game for those who were seeking something more than shooting down enemies the most spectacular possible way and then laying down to miraculously recovering health.

One of the strengths of this sequel will be its complete localization to Spanish, something very useful given the great amount of dialog and the crucial of literally following our orders for the successful accomplishment of the mission.

Wrapping up, if we wanted like to define what the new ArmA2 represents, we would say that it is able to maintain the interest of the saga followers, and event greatly alleviate its usual issues, and that it has achieved enough level of attractiveness and gameplay to attract those who fled from a rough, complicated and problematic game. ArmA has simply has reached maturity and turns out to become an essential for those who look for at least a slightly serious tactical action game.

And we cannot but finish this first contact without mentioning the coincidence with the release timing of Operation Flashpoint 2: Dragon Rising, the sequel to this saga but this time under the direction of Codemasters and without any participation of Bohemia fellows. Or what is equivalent, the same recipe cooked by two completely different chefs. We foresee a tough competence and ArmA2 arrives with good credentials. It seems clear that we will be spending a lot of this summer ambushed waiting for a convoy… either Russian or Chinesse.

[TeRp 1]

German preview: http://www.gamestar.de/preview/action/taktik-shooter/1955585/arma_2.html

It's a nice review, yet they say there are still a lot of bugs left, and ArmA 2 will either be a total disaster or a perfect game:

They mentioned that the AI is still "bad", sometimes they don't react at all, there's no suppressive fire, and they still move like robots: instead of walking sidesways, they run forward, turn 90 degrees and run forward again...

sounds pretty familar to me.

Another thing they mentioned is that at night the graphics are not good at all.. there are no dynamic light sources, and, this is my opinion, shaders are disabled. Also, in the distance gras is disabled and enemies can be clearly seen while in close range the gras is looking pretty neat and hiding everybody and everything.

Well, that's about most of the negative parts of the preview, I won't quote the rest. Perhaps somebody else is willing to post a complete translation.

Edited April 25, 2009 by TeRp

[Zipper5 74]

With a machine like the one Tiscali posted, ArmA II should run quite well. I think that they deliberately turned down the settings in order to make it look bad. That PC should be able to handle more than they had it at. Very unprofessional.

But if that's not the case then I am concerned. I've got a GTX 280 and an E8400 @ 3GHz and if ArmA II doesn't run well on that I will be very sad.

[kavoven 4]

Thank you very much for the translation someBoy! :)

[telejunky 0]

Yeah i guess gamestar.de don't know that this is an early version of february. They say that there is not enough time left to fix those issues (they date a release at the end of may). But like BIS said, those bugs are already fixed but not implemented these days, so sure they can fix those mistakes until ArmA II is release :) I am optimistic!

[cm 0]

With a machine like the one Tiscali posted, ArmA II should run quite well. I think that they deliberately turned down the settings in order to make it look bad. That PC should be able to handle more than they had it at. Very unprofessional.

But if that's not the case then I am concerned. I've got a GTX 280 and an E8400 @ 3GHz and if ArmA II doesn't run well on that I will be very sad.

Why do people even listen to tisacli anymore :confused:

[Zipper5 74]

I don't think I will be now. So far, their review is the only totally negative one. Obviously biased journalism.

[Alex72 1]

They mentioned that the AI is still "bad", sometimes they don't react at all, there's no suppressive fire, and they still move like robots: instead of walking sidesways, they run forward, turn 90 degrees and run forward again...

sounds pretty familar to me.

They test version 0.7x something. So they shouldnt even comment on things that arent even done yet. If BIS say they will supress in ARMA2 - im sure they will. I never got the impression that BIS lies about their intentions (like some other devhouses).

What i read and see now from all previews im leaning more to that ARMA2 like ArmA 1.00 will need some patching before it goes perfect - just like almost all other games. Buy ARMA2 - play it - leave constructive critisism and leave bug reports to make it what it should be i think is the healthiest approach instead of bitching about idiots previews (game sites, not mil sites...). I got no fear that ARMA2 will be amazing when its done to BIS satisfaction wich probably means some patches down the road.

Alex out.

[SaBrE_UK 0]

The Gamestar video showing the game looking good and performing well. If only AA wasn't so intensive, the medium settings could look so much better.

Will there be more previews with more recent builds of the game, BIS? Or will the next things we see (after this batch of previews are done) be reviews?

[lecholas 2]

72;1275551']They test version 0.7x something. So they shouldnt even comment on things that arent even done yet. If BIS say they will supress in ARMA2 - im sure they will. I never got the impression that BIS lies about their intentions (like some other devhouses).

Well' date=' it's not that easy. There were features that were supposed to be in ArmA but they didn't make it (suppression was one of them, I remember interviews in which BIS' members told us we would get that). But I'm still optimistic when it comes to suppression - there's VBS2 suppresed event handler for VBS (since VTK i think) so it's not impossible. Of course the question is if the AI will actually use suppresing fire not if they will only be affected by it. But I still hope for the best.

[walker 0]

Hi all

For those of you who missed it ArmA will be heavily advertised in the US!

This is who will be doing the promotion:

http://www.clevercomm.com/press.html

Here is the anouncement from last week

http://www.gamersdailynews.com/story-10491-IDEA-Choose-Clever-Comm-for-North-American-PR.html

Kind regards walker

[mr.g-c 6]

Hi all

For those of you who missed it ArmA will be heavily advertised in the US!

This is who will be doing the promotion:

http://www.clevercomm.com/press.html

Here is the anouncement from last week

http://www.gamersdailynews.com/story-10491-IDEA-Choose-Clever-Comm-for-North-American-PR.html

Kind regards walker

I predict at least 1 million sales.... :cool: