Xanthus

After Montignac is one of the most memorable experiences for me, because it was so brutal compared to what was prior to it in the campaign. I rage uninstalled the game maybe 3 times before I managed to complete it :). I also had a little problem with tank missions in the campaign, somehow I couldn't order the gunner to switch weapons while commanding. Overall I'm pleasantly surprised by how well everything worked so far, allthough CWR gives me different vibes compared to OFP, it's still a blast to play. It's a shame that model quality is fairly inconsistent, but that's kinda expected for a mod of such scale. I don't remember that cutscene with Victor Troska in old CWC campaign, was it taken from OFP:E or is it your own creative work?

That story is an old joke, author himself has stated that a few times. For me closure of 3DRealms is the end of an era when games were made by gamers for gamers. The only companies that have been around as long as Apogee/3DR that I can think of are Epic and id, and they're not the same as they were in the nineties. As long as DNF was in development I could hope that when it's out it could bring back the same feeling that I've experienced playing Duke3d, Blood, Shadow Warrior and other old Build engine games. The closure is hardly unexpected, but it's certainly sad when you think about it :'(.

ArmA 2 is the only game that I'm actually looking forward to at the moment, but I'm not going to buy it if BI desides to use DRM a la Spore.

Quoted for emphasis.

OFP was a remarkable game and one of the greatest experiences I've had as a gamer. That said, I think OFP characters should be left in peace. I think BI is a creative bunch and they can come up with new characters that are as believable and lovable as David Armstrong, James Gastowski and Robert Hammer . I don't mind having a few remixed tracks from OFP returning with ArmA2, having new renditions of Main Theme, Frost, The Fallen or Heroes, that would save some time converting old OFP music for my missions .

Roughly 10 million ukrainians died during 1932-1933 starveling in Ukraine, which was a direct result of Stalin's industrialisation and collectivisation policy. And these are pre-war numbers. I'd really like to see where you got those numbers from. Unlike you I'm grounding my arguments based on primary sources. My grandfather was expatriated to Siberia and his only crime (he was a teenager at the time) was that he came from a somewhat large farmers' family. Surely they'd give a hundred years sentence for such an atrocity in America nowadays. Moreover, gulags weren't just prisons where you sit around all day doing nothing, they weren't much different from nazi labour camps, only soviet repressions were carried on based on class, not race or ethnicity. Gulag prisoners are accountable for laying major communication networks and errecting massive hydroelectric power stations in Siberia. Soviet troops requited like for like. Read up on fates of german civilians in east Prussia after the war. It's funny how you bitterly dismiss western propaganda and swallow soviet propaganda so easily. You can't be serious. The situation was much more complex than that, and still is. And I wouldn't call any action that requires numerous sacrifices of human life splendid. Rights of speech, free religion or free election aren't that important, as long as you have something to fill your stomach with, right? I've heard that people who criticize government in private conversations in the US disappear without a trace everyday. This is somewhat true, however neglecting simple market laws was one of the main reasons why the Soviet Union collapsed. Only high functionaries of the Communist party could afford having a dacha. The fall of Soviet Union was extremely traumataizing for it's citizens, even in countries like mine, which are blamed for it. Shifting to market economy was painful in most post soviet countries, wihich led to high average of suicides and ultimately brought former communists back to power. There was no Soviet campaign for a reason, it would be hard to imagine a game from a soviet point of view made by a Czech developer. I don't think there will be a campaign from Russian point fo view either.

I like that every video has a distinct feel to it, and I liked this new military propaganda video . Hopefully there will be more remixed OFP tracks in ArmA II.

Having two gameplay modes might not be so bad in theory, but it never works in practice. I can't think of any shooter that tried to do different gameplay modes, but it has been tried in RPGs/tactical strategies (turnbased/realtime combat hybrids), in any case it resulted in a game with two half assed combat modes that don't really work well. In OFP's/ArmA's case difficulty settings are more than enough.

The Hind looks gorgeous, but we already knew that . It's nice to see improved mounting animations, hopefully they made them better for vehicles as well. The rattling sound from t72 as it went by was a nice touch. Loved the music.

That's a nice video, I've noticed a tiny leaf/fuzz falling at one part with Abrams tank in the background, very subtle. It's pleasant to see that M1 has a working suspension, A10 sound was rather impressive.

Don't know about Russian version but Czech ArmA is pressed almost a week. So GOLD status of first ArmA version must have been long time ago Some guy from Akella claimed that IgroMir demo had some major differences from earlier versions in levels of detalisation. Animations were improved, you couldn't loop the loop with a helicopter (it was possible with mi17 in earlier builds), trash and leaves got scattered by the wind in towns. Read it on Flashpoint.ru, can't find the exact link now. And no, it's not final version yet.

I disagree. How many quality usermade campaigns for OFP did we have? Retaliation, FDF stuff and maybe CSLA2 campaign (didn't like it personally, 2 hour intro movies ftl). That's all, so let's hope BIS makes a quality product. After all, they haven't disappointed us before.

I'm gonna go to Kaliningrad to get my copy in case local publishers are too lazy to distribute Russian version in my country. 150km is not that much . By the time english version is released i'll be certain if it's worth to get another collector's edition copy .

Akella has changed the name and the cover so the game should be sold as "Armed Assault" in all countries.

I'm pretty sure russian version will be available (in Lithuania at least, we have a local publisher which distributes Akella's games). If you want english version... well, buying online might be a thing to consider.

I'm seriously worried about how opfor soldiers look in some latest screenshots. The NATO body armor issue has been mentioned before, i'm not a hardcore realism fan so I can live with that. But look at their FACES! They look like they've been drinking for a month before they got bundled into urals and brought to fight capitalist opressors. and the EYES! It seems these soldiers came straight form the 9th circle of hell. If anyone was still in question who the bad guys are these latest screenshots should leave noone doubting. Most of BIS forum dwellers probably don't care about this cause they'll be playing for US forces mostly, but i'm going to play as North Sahrani and current quality of NS soldier models is unsatisfactory.

Honestly, I don't mind waiting another 5 years if that's what BIS needs to make another spectacular game. I'm mostly playing games that are 5 or more years old now, only because current games have nothing to offer except decent graphics. No depth, no immersion, no fresh ideas. I've seen enough franchises going down because of poorly executed/rushed sequels, i'm only hoping it's not the case this time. BIS seems to be one of the few studios that still enjoy making quality games, I hope ArmA will prove that when it's released, even if it's Q1 2007

I remeber having this alpha channel bug when i was experimenting with addon making on OFP, hope they fix it in the final version. Awesome video nevertheless

In original OFP and Resistance expansion you could swap localised stringtable.csv with one from english CWC or Resistance demo, which gave you someting close to original english OFP (it was somewhat playable). Well, at least it worked with russian localization. Something similar might be a solution to impatient folks around here, though it won't work if BIS changed the way language files are managed in ArmA.

It's still beta. But from general tone of his posts it seems to me that Starforce will remain in the final (at least Russian) version.

I was checking flashpoint.ru news comments about infamous russian ArmA cover and i found some posts from a person who claims to be Akella's sysadmin and OFP fan. It seems they had a number of covers sent by BIS, for some reason they chose the one that has the most resemblance to BF2 . He also claims that there aro no trademark problems with Codemasters as phonetic transcription "operatzyja fleshpoint" belongs to Akella. Sad news - ArmA is using StarForce. It does not perform well on amd 2600, 512mb, radeon 9600 pro machine, he says that he felt like playing a turn-based strategy . He also promises a quality localization with voice acting, not just russian subtitles. You can read his original comments here.

Obviously you haven't been to former soviet countries before, it's common sense around here.

New release date in Russia: 2006-11-28 Source: http://www.akella.com/ru/games/armedassault

I must say i like russian cover better, dunno why they still call it Operation Flashpoint 2 tho

As long as russian version has decent fonts (unlike OFP) i'll be happy with it. Ofcourse multilanguage support would be a nice thing, but that is not very likely imo, who would want to buy presumably more expensive version from western publisher when you can get the same thing from russian/polish/czech publisher for lower price?