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ArmA2 1.03 Impressions - ALL Impressions/Videos/Screenies Here

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As far as I'm concerned it's become "accessible" after ArmA1. By that I mean that yes, it's much more polished but ... in some areas it's just not as good ...

Graphics are kind of OK but the first game looked more impressive. I'm noticing the faults much more in ArmA2.

Movement is great, as is headbob etc.

Movement sounds are amazing, absolutely great.

The campaign ... I don't think I'll even mention that. You can't out-CoD CoD ...

Lighting, I suppose this comes under graphics. In some areas, yeah, it's quite nice ... others ... not so good. I liked ArmA1 more for lighting, it felt more ... unified.

So, on the whole I'd say it feels like a "soft" version of ArmA1. Impressive, but not quite there. Also, many of the features feel really dated now, I never really noticed the health based damage system on vehicles back in the days of OFP but now ...

Aside from that, great mission editor and the re-playability of a ... of a ... well of a BI game!

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Tophe For The Win!

Seriously, most artistic and yet respectful complaint I've ever seen/heard on the net (or at all for that matter). All good points raised.

My main complaint with the game (and this is a complaint because I do love Arma2, and its older siblings, not because I hate them) isn't primarily with the performance issues. It's more the underlying issues that have been in the games since OFP. As mentioned before, the AI being unable to drive, getting 'stuck' on small things while ignoring massive obstacles and walking straight through them. Also the 'drunk AI pilots' thing gets old after the 10th time you have to restart a mission cause the pilot conducted a controlled flight into terrain. A lot of the performance issues also seem to be similar ones to previous Arma series games. So its not that I have issues with Arma2 bugs. They're not arma2 bugs. They're almost all Arma bugs and for what I can see, mostly OFP bugs before that. It just seems like a lot of effort has to be expended on BIS's and the community's part in an attempt to correct the same things with each release, and I don't understand why BIS haven't attempted to correct them in such a way that they are ironed out of the engine for good.

The best analogy would be that you build a massive house, its a great house but its got termites in it, but you put on extension after extension until its a palace. If you have the builders in, to put the next wing on your palace, wouldn't you want to protect your investment by at the same time getting rid of the termites which were in your original house, so they don't keep spreading to the new bits you put on?

At the same time, I acknowledge I'm not privy to the inside workings of BIS, perhaps there is some reason that they haven't addressed these things, but honestly, when every critical appraisal of every game they've done keeps throwing up the same complaints, wouldn't it make sense, from a business perspective to address them in future products?

*Edit* To give context, I barely play the main campaigns and BIS standard missions, I predominantly use Arma1/2 as a platform for making my own missions and playing those. So none of what I say refers to the campaigns, as I never even bothered to finish the one in Armed Assault (too busy playing with the editor) and have quickly skipped my way though the Arma2 one and am now just using the editor most of the time.

Just my 2 cents.

Edited by r3volution

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Do you review Arma II as a game or as a platform for gamers?

If i had to review Arma II as a game that you install and press PLAY it would get a bad score since the campaign is faulty/broken and the game's performance atm is rather bad. The game has a huge amount of content in it but the quality isnt consistent so it kind of feels like using addons (some stuff is really great but some stuff is.. not).

Chernarus is brilliant, atmospheric, beautyfull and unlike Sahrani it feels authentic but some of the villages do look repetitive, the architecture is sweet and there are many nice places to explore and use in missions. The cities are a little disapointing since all major cities are coastal and their layouts dont resemble those of large, communist era style cities, no wide avenues or streets but everything sort of thrown together, city blocks mixed with small village huts, etc. So Chernarus is better in style but not really better in layout except for the fact that we have more open fields to smash rabbits with heavy armoured vehicles.

The a.i. is much better, actually the a.i. itself is the same that came out in OPF 8 years ago and is still the best out there, what it does better is that it manuevers thru towns better and no longer walks in the middle of the street sharing the same paths with cars, even in the fields they use trees, bushes, hay stacks or whatever is available for cover or concealment and better team movement.

Many of the improvements are small things, lots of small things that you will notice while you explore the game. Arma II needs work but its the game i expected the first Arma to be and more, except maybe for the campaign wich i expected to be more like a modern day 1985 CWC.

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I waited for this game with baited breathe and I was totally dissapointed.

I have not had more than 2hrs game play fragmented over near 2 weeks and 20 hours of trying to get the game to work. One thing I know about ARMA2 is the settings and config files back to front.

Would I recommend the game? Well before it came out and during the demo time I did but since I got the full version and had all the issues I have had I could only say to those that ask "Wait 6 months to a year and then read the forums again to see if there are happier people around and then maybe buy it"

Just like ARMA ARMA2 has the same Receiving issue, LOD issues, CTD issues except magnified at least 3 fold it seems to me. I was at the beginning of ARMA and now ARMA2 and both have been bad experiences but ARMA2 takes the cake.

I am sorry if I sound like I have given up, I havn't but I am close.

In Summary: Game not playable out of the box for a lot of people, don't waste your time buying/trying to play now but wait for several dozen patches.

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Thank you guys for detailed reviews. As for me, I feel both satisfied and disatisfied with the game. I cay say I'm satisfied as far as techincal issues are concerned because the game ran quite well on my machine without serious problems. But I'm truely disatisfied with some of the gameplay mechanisms because they are so inefficient and time-wasting, e.g. static weapon with no gunner, units available only at HQ. They are not bugs, but developer's absurd decision. Besides that, I think it's far better than its predecessor in all aspects and in that it reminds me of OFP. So I can safely say ArmA 2 will become the best military shooter if some wrong gameplay mechanisms are fixed so that the game uses its maximum potential properly.

Edited by scener

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Great game! Beautiful graphics and huge number of gameplay possibilities. However, the gameplay would be a lot better if there weren't countless noobs running around on every server with NO F**KING CLUE WHAT THEY'RE DOING!!! Don't get me wrong. I AM one of said noobs. This is my gripe. We have no official source of information on how to play the game. How friggin' ridiculous is that?! I don't understand how anyone can go through all this trouble to make such an in-depth game and then not provide a detailed manual. I've been playing for around a week and I still get the feeling that I really don't know what the hell I'm doing. I don't know what most of the symbols on the map mean and it took me two days to figure out how to change my chat channel so I could actually communicate with people. It all just seems very strange to leave people with so little information about what amounts to one of the most staggering games, in terms of shear size and open-ended gameplay. Certainly, this is a poor business decision. I have experience with most of the mainstream games. I've played every game in the medal of honor, call of duty, and battlefield series'. I understand, this game is on a different level. It's not the kind of game that one can just dive into and kick @$$ at. There's a learning curve. I played Project Reality mod for battlefield 2 quite a bit, and the game play couldn't be beat, until I found ArmA 2. But at least Project Reality had a manual and it was easy to find tutorials. It seems, though, that everyone who plays ArmA 2 well must've been born knowing how to do it.

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Hi Sergeant Poop

How to play ArmA II

There is a manual that comes with all copies of ArmA II.

There is also the official ArmA II Website

http://www.arma2.com/

There is a video there telling you about the basic controls.

There is the BIS Wiki

http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Main_Page

Which is a wealth BIS's OFP and ArmA knowledge.

If you look in the first page contents links OR use the search OR use the index you will find the Hints and Tips section:

http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Category:Hints_%26_Tips

There is sticked in this General Section "Dslyecxi's ArmA2 Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures Guide"

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=74994

I would agree there is a need for a single sticked thread in Multiplayer for all mission authors to place a link to their mission manual and help files.

As no one else is doing this, I will make the post and ask the moddies to sticky it then over the next couple of days get all the major public mission type authors to post a link there to their documents.

Kind Regards walker

Edited by walker

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Well when the game runs ok i'd have to say

1) AI - much better. Several times I have mistaken them for players, since they move so much more natural now. The other day I saw one AI that slowly lurked around some branches i a tree. Some problem with it still, but when it works it's great.

2) Atmosphere - amazing. The sound, colors and overall feel is great. When you hear the loud pops and whizzing bullets it's scary. Much more than in the earlier games.

3) love the setting. The map is great. When you enter a village it is often more spread out. Houses, vegetation, fields and good variations.

Can't wait to play it when it's patched up.

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Hi Sergeant Poop

How to play ArmA II

There is a manual that comes with all copies of ArmA II.

There is also the official ArmA II Website

http://www.arma2.com/

There is a video there telling you about the basic controls.

There is the BIS Wiki

http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Main_Page

Which is a wealth BIS's OFP and ArmA knowledge.

If you look in the first page contents links OR use the search OR use the index you will find the Hints and Tips section:

http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Category:Hints_%26_Tips

There is sticked in this General Section "Dslyecxi's ArmA2 Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures Guide"

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=74994

I would agree there is a need for a single sticked thread in Multiplayer for all mission authors to place a link to their mission manual and help files.

As no one else is doing this, I will make the post and ask the moddies to sticky it then over the next couple of days get all the major public mission type authors to post a link there to their documents.

Kind Regards walker

Walker,

Many thanks, bro. I read the manual that came with my downloaded version, but it seemed very abbreviated and left me with almost more questions than answers. I've picked up quite a bit from loitering around on these forums and I've managed to find some patient people in-game that have been helpful. I'll check out those other links, as well, but I remember seeing on another post that the Dyslexic's guide thingy was more strategy and battle theory oriented than actually explanatory. I'd like to see some type of map of the commands and squad funtions and stuff. Do you know of such a thing?

---------- Post added at 06:25 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:23 PM ----------

So are all versions of multiplayer user created or is there at least one official multiplayer mode? If so, is there at least a tutorial/manual for that?

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Had some fun in the studio last night...

What to do while waiting for the patch?

Thank you Bohemia...

Tophe ur tha man!! :D

Amazing work thank you.

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The only real thing I like on ArmA 2 is the map, amazing. All the details, now very carefully placed. The/those artist making the objects and tweaked the placement.....:459:

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Tophe awesome song for Bohemia! :D

I hope they find it and listen to it :)

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Tophe! Hahaha bara för mycket! :D

Awesome song. Cant stop listening and now the chorus goes around in my head "Boooheemia". Hahaha you made en sommarplåga. Topp!

Alex

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Walker,

Many thanks, bro. I read the manual that came with my downloaded version, but it seemed very abbreviated and left me with almost more questions than answers. I've picked up quite a bit from loitering around on these forums and I've managed to find some patient people in-game that have been helpful. I'll check out those other links, as well, but I remember seeing on another post that the Dyslexic's guide thingy was more strategy and battle theory oriented than actually explanatory. I'd like to see some type of map of the commands and squad funtions and stuff. Do you know of such a thing?

---------- Post added at 06:25 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:23 PM ----------

So are all versions of multiplayer user created or is there at least one official multiplayer mode? If so, is there at least a tutorial/manual for that?

There are a few missions stock with ArmA 2 and I think they are self explanatory (not 100% because I installed some user missions to fool around with), you just don't see any servers running them. The thing that gets confusing is the player made missions that have different interface styles, rules, etc and if you didn't play them in ArmA 1 , you are pretty much lost.

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That's because you lost connection to the server for some reason. Not sure that's something BIS can fix...

Not likely, this happens 5+times a day, to my friends and other players on the same servers. This used to happen in Arma1 until 1.14 patch fixed it.

Here's hoping 1.03 fixes it to;)

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When the bugs are fixed for the tutorial missions ie boot camp, then peeps`ll be able to play it... they will have a better idea.

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Not likely, this happens 5+times a day, to my friends and other players on the same servers. This used to happen in Arma1 until 1.14 patch fixed it.

Here's hoping 1.03 fixes it to;)

I think I've read somewhere 1.03 was bringing some mp optimizes :D

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Well I thought to make a separate post but wow - that's a lot of impressions posted here.

I thought that with all the negative coverage I've seen in "Troubleshooting" and elsewhere, there is something to be said about some of the awesomeness of the game as well. I just did a custom mission (self made by defining parameters) and I just wanted to say wow! I spend 3 hours sneaking around, avoiding the random ambient combat, getting to my mark, and then exfiltrating. Wow!!

Once this game gets a little shine polish and a couple of new maps there will be no price to put on it. If the reason why you release these games so early lies in some guy pushing a deadline, please mutilate him for me.

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^ one of the things Ive noticed that I like and dislike is that missions can take AGES !, they take my day away , totally addictive - literally feeling your pulse rise when you hear russian voices in the distance. I would like to know how to respawn from the custom missions - noone has given me a definative answer yet ! - I keep dying.

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I have played ARMA since right after its release probably 2-3 times a week. I play mainly solo, playing warfare variants and often rerun some of the best missions ARMA, QG, OFP offered.

I followed the release of ARMA2 closely and was worried buy what I saw in the forums and press. I bought the game after the 1.02 patch with hopes the game was working enough to be played. I am amazed in this day and age they would release a mess like this. BIS fanboys can explain away all the problems by talking about how complex the game is, yada yada yada. Its 2009 and game players don't have the patience to spend 2 days "tweaking" their computers to run a game.

It took me less time than most but I had to spend 3 hours + reading forum messages testing this and that to get mostly playable results. Luckily others had spent 3-4 weeks filling up the forums with info I was able to use in testing. I cannot imagine the anger those users experienced spending 10 hours getting a video game to run acceptably. I changed settings in my nvidia configs that I had never heard of - did BIS really expect every game buyer to do this? I am scared to run some of my other games with my current settings.

I have bought nearly every FPS with a strategic bent that has been released in the past 2 years and I cannot remember one that required significant tweaking to run properly. Far Cry 2 (which was terrible) ran like dream and the graphics requirements of that are far greater. FC2 has less going on compared to the ARMA2 but it looks much better, runs smooth and I can fight against an entire town of AI without the game turning into a slide show.

The greatest thing ever about ARMA for solo players was warfare, I realize it was added as a patch long after the original game's release, but the current versions of warfare in ARMA2 are basically unplayable from a commander's perspective. It might work fine in MP, dunno, don't care - I bought the game for single player, the game was advertised as single player/multi-player, single player is broken in many aspects, especially the parts that kept us playing ARMA for years.

I wanted ARMA 2 to be a success, success=expansions and newer versions. BIS has shot themselves in the foot by releasing this game too early and untested. The bad press will lead to fewer players and less chance of expansions in the future.

I think OFP and ARMA are the 2 best games I have ever played, the ONLY games that have kept me interested for years. ARMA 2 needs to be a big success if we expect more from BIS in the future, the door is closing fast on a failed launch - get it together.

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It is 2009 people don't put up with nonsense like that anymore. Is it that hard to learn from your mistakes and get it right the 3rd time. Attention spans drop and expectations of quality rise every year.

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So, I've had the game for a week or two now. Mostly focused on playing the campaign in multiplayer mode. This game is seriously buggy.

When loading a saved game in MP campaign all connecting players usually end up with the 'receiving data' screen and have to disconnect and reconnect in order to play. Even though every player has 20-30 ping, there might be such a lag that units seem to teleport somewhat randomly around the map (even a few hundred meters at a time). Sometimes after loading a MP game an error message appears and the 'tasks' section in the map screen is nonfunctional. I managed to accidentally kill Shaftoe by pressing 'v' near his desk. What's with him usually standing up through his chair? Once when leaving an osprey at the ground my character got stuck with it and fell from about 50 meters above the ground. The driver of a hummvee usually seems to drive standing up, with this head through the roof. Anyways, I've forgotten most of the most bugs I've encountered.

So. It's a fun game, but I do wish they fix the saving/loading/connecting issues with the multiplayer campaign.

Edit:

I haven't even played 'Manhattan' through yet.

Edit 2:

I tried the next mission in the campaign. During briefing I could look inside my body pretty well, with two different characters. During a plot-related conversation in FOB Manhattan I tried to heal someone and the game crashed to desktop.

Once (in the co-op campaign) our truck exploded in the middle of the road for no apparent reason, and everyone stayed alive for about five seconds before dying for seemingly no reason. No worries though - a counter appeared on the screen saying that we would respawn in 20 seconds, which we did, yet died again in 5 seconds. Go figure. This happened in another situation, as well.

Once our medic got injured, but after healing himself appeared as laying on his back, so it was amusing to see him slide on his back at a running speed. We got a lot of plot-related scripting errors too, and hideous desyncing.

Seriously, the co-op campaign is way too buggy to be played.

Edited by karva

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It is 2009 people don't put up with nonsense like that anymore. Is it that hard to learn from your mistakes and get it right the 3rd time. Attention spans drop and expectations of quality rise every year.

surely you dont think Arma 2 is the ONLY game that has ever been released unfinished. I have to use my fingers and toes and i still run out of space to count the unfinished products that have been released.

What you fail to understand though is that BIS will fix the issues where most companies would flash the middle finger at you and take your money all the way to the bank.

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