By John Walker on July 7th, 2009 at 9:01 am.
In the great Operation Flashpoint 2 Vs. ArmA II debate, I’ll tell you which side I come down on. I’m on [the opposite side to you]. I can’t believe you think the other game is the better one! What about all the inevitable problems with AI?! It’s so unrealistic in your game that you can run so far/reload so quickly, and it’s just ludicrous that you [something about damage]. What ARE you thinking? In case there’s anyone who’s yet to pick a side (because it is AGAINST THE LAW to want to enjoy both), there’s a new trailer showing off OpFlash 2′s spooky night time paranoia, and a military tactics montage from ArmA II. The latter is of course already released, and you can read Jim’s review here. OpFlash 2 is due in September-ish.
Here’s the new dark footage of Operation Flashpoint 2:
And here’s a montage of various bits and bobs you can do in ArmA II (although it fails to come close to the full awesomeness of this):
But will op flash 2 have the same scope as arma2. Arma2 for me is amazing. last night went in to the editor and created a quick battle with some troops and lots of helis. best game ever is what i thought when i hit the preview and saw the carnage.
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What irks me about the Opflash2 gameplay I’ve seen so far is that they’ve gone backwards in a lot of ways. No body awareness at all – it’s the return of Captain Floating McGunArm and his giant rifle filling up a quarter of the screen even when firing from the hip.
It’s being developed by a far larger team than ArmA2, and with a far higher budget, but they seem to have lost the plot somewhere along the way.
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Is the ARMAII trailer “official”? Because it’s funny how they end up showing at least one glaring bug (the tank passing below the bridge texture) :)
And what’s wrong with enjoying them both? ARMAII for extreme realism and OpFlashpoint2 for some classic FPS fun.
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Oh dear. Do either of the games have like, proper bunkers? Because I’m going to need to go hide in one ’til this discussion is over.
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Why would you put a video of your game with a horrible amazing z-fighting error? the bridge hidding the tank.
I suspect Arma2 is better than this video.
The OP2 video is sooooooo photoshoped. It looks like a legion of guys photoshoped every frame to add tiny effects and remove stuff. Or maybe the game looks like that?, woa.
Both teams did a awesome work in his games. Congrats!.
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I hope that’s not an official ArmA II trailer. The tank disappears into the bridge near the end.
Op Fap 2 does look good, and I will probably get it. Whether or not the community has already stuck with ArmA 2 might decide its fate, though.
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Does OFP2 allow you to play a mission as an 80′s rocker while Iron Maidens “Run to the Hills” plays over the intro as you and your people are chased into the wilderness, only to ambush a enemy convoy, steal their guns and seek vengeance on those who killed your family and destroyed your life?
Thought not.
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Great, as soon as I click on the trailer GT goes down. Lovely… lol
Also since when did we need to register with them to download their trailers?
As to the games: OFP2 will obviously be a much lesser game in terms of scope but there is a much better chance that it will actually function unlike ARMAII which is still slashing around in its public BETA.
Flip side of that is that while it may function it will most likely, as it is a Codies game, just plain suck arse. I guess we shall see…
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Ahah! FIanlyl got the vid to work. Looks okay, though a little COD4 for my tastes. No idea what on earth you are on about, Tei. That is blatantly current-gen stuff: it does not look even slightly tweaked.
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It seems my attempt to encourage no discussion over which is best has failed. Irony, you have no place on these internets.
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I played that mission last night (its right at the start of the SP campaign) and lol’d at the tank clip. surely they must have seen that!!!!1
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@John Walker
Your sentiment was understood but surely the issues arise when people are criticised for their opinion, not for expressing one?
While I do rip it out of ARMAII for being the bug-fest it is and for how badly it runs, I sure don’t have anything against those that play it and enjoy it. Quite the opposite in fact as the only emotion I have towards those people is jealously. I have been looking forward to an OFP sequel for a long time now and I would much rather Bohemia delivered it than Codies.
Back to the vids: just watched them again and I cannot help but think that the OFP2 vid looks…well a bit shit really. The graphics are very flat and dull and the action seems kind of sedentary.
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Jesus christ, Howard. Do you ever let something go? You’ve had your teeth sunk into ArmA2 for weeks/months now, and just keep thrashing around.
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@Domonic
What? I would have to ask “Do you read my posts?”. I am being perfectly reasonable towards ARMAII, I am just being honest. If you don’t like that then sorry but coming to a forum expecting people to utterly agree with your views on games in just daffy.
If the game is buggy then guess what? I’ll say it is. Why is that so hard to grasp?
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@Howard
I think Dominic is trying to be ironic, you’d have to be pretty crazy to object to your post! However folk need to learn that sarcasm / irony don’t work very well in written discussion. Also, there are so many forum trolls & idiots on the web means people (understandably) tend to assume the worst!
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ArmaII is CLEARLY the best, anyone who thinks OFP2 is going to be better is delusional at best!
fwiw, ArmaII really shines in the co-op multiplayer games, the single player campaign is very buggy and the co-op campaign is even worse
The player created co-op MP missions are very good though and a lot of fun on a half decent server because you dont have to deal with moronic AI flying your extraction chopper into trees and whatnot :)
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ArmA 2 is really buggy, especially the co-op campaign, but it’s so much fun :D
Also I love Capture the Island and Evolution for ArmA which OpFlash 2 will never have IMO, I think most of the OpFlash/ArmA community will stick with ArmA2.
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“The OP2 video is sooooooo photoshoped. It looks like a legion of guys photoshoped every frame to add tiny effects and remove stuff. ”
I’m pretty sure that’s what special effects are
I like the idea of ArmA, but truth be told it’s simply too hardcore for the likes of me, the difficulty is pushed up to the point where it’s simply impossible to enjoy.
That’s why I’m holding out hope for OpFlash 2 to provide a more accessible (or just at all accessible) version of the same.
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Howard – the thing is, for many people it is simply not that buggy.I have been playing it for a few days now and have yet to encounter any serious bug.
And the ambition and scope alone excuses bugs for me, especially since it is made by company with 1/5th of the employees that Codemasters have and with a fraction of their budget.
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@ Jim
I don’t think they’re going for the same community to be honest, I hope they aren’t anyway, because then they’ll go for the same hyper real/impossibly hard gameplay that made ArmA impossible for me.
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I think for ArmaII, they would’ve been better off not bothering with a single player campaign and focusing entirely on the co-op experience, leveraging that and the mission editor as much as possible. It’d certainly out do several of the Battlefield games with that approach.
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Was the audio completely out of sync in the OpFl trailer for anyone else? Downloaded 3 different versions and it was annoying.
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so far my only encounter with Arma II’s supposed bug fest is the tank clip which. while a bit daft, isnt really game breaking for me. Anyway the only reason i play these games if for the helicopters =D
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I’ll play the one where I can see the guys I’m supposed to be shooting at. Flashpoint 1 or Arma 1 wasn’t that game and Arma 2 probably won’t work on my laptop…
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Finally got my copy of Arma II last night. Loving it, but must admit, I think they need some more tutorials, and perhaps a little more explanation in the current ones. At one or two points I was flummoxed as to what I’m supposed to do next. One problem is that I’ve yet to figure out what all the icons on the HUD mean; it’s grand which nothing is happening, but once action goes into overdrive and orders are being barked, I have no idea what I’m meant to be doing. But I’m intrigued and will definitely perservere, as I feel it’s one of those games that you get as much out of it as you’re willing to put into it.
P.
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I think the one with the realistic depiction of modern warfare without having your limbs blown off and your mental well being shattered is the best.
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@Pavel
Well in that case, as I say, consider me jealous of you. Having sucked it up and bought the full version (see, I do trust BI a bit) I still cannot play it.
The performance is so bad at any detail setting that the game is reduced to a slide show half the time, the mouselag is worse than ever making it feel like I am aiming through butter and the SP missions are worthless thanks to the psycho AI that seems to do whatever the hell it likes as long as it is not what it is suppose to be doing.
Maybe one day…. =(
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Any chance someone in charge could switch the labels on the videos? Only a WAR/WOW opportunity has surely been missed here…
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dudes, these games look EXACTLY THE SAME
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I choose OpFlash2 because I can’t even run Arma 2.
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Maybe games journalists who get free copies of games can afford to get and like both, but most people will see that they are so similar in genre that they will end up getting one or the other. I assume Codies have a good reason for delaying OFP2 for so long after ArmA2 was released because they are in danger of losing the game battle simply because ArmA2 is available and their isn’t.
I played ArmA a fair bit and have the ArmA2 demo, but so far with a brief play, I’m finding ArmA2 just as frustrating as its predecessors.
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ArmA 2 can’t hold a candle to OpFlash 2. Why? Games are always better before they’re released. Then you get your hands on them, and find out about the bugs, the dodgy AI, the lack of content and the quicktime events.
And no, I haven’t played ArmA 2.
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Is it just me or is the sound on the Op Flash video out of synch?
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@Theory – Nope, it ain’t just you.
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If I can’t see my sniper bullet properly tear apart skull and brains and nerve endings then I AM NOT GOING TO BUY OP FLASH 2 :(
I demand organic body deformation. I want to see screaming helldeath on my battlefield. I want it to be so real I get PTSD just playing it. IF MY GAMES DONT HAVE IT I WILL BE ANGRY!
(i’ll be buying both, incase you didn’t detect my excellent sarcasm)
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I think everyone should just play H.A.V.E. instead.
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Oh shit, I meant TF2.
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ArmA:2 is turning out to be a great clan game. We have a server running and the guys in the clan are having a great time. Loads of custom missions that just need uploading to the server, real easy the files are so small. We were concerned about the time we would have to devote to the game. Each to his own, if you don’t have much time you can just jump in and get some. If you have many hours the rewards are there for you too. Bugs? who cares about bugs? None of them are show stoppers we could talk at length about the foul ups of other games all day long.
OP flashpoint dose look good, my fear is that it will be too “consolie” too much of the console game on the PC. This is fine if that’s the type of thing you like. Time will tell and in a few months we will see what is what.
All that I can tell you is that from the clan point of view ArmA:2 is great. Our fears of poor “approachability” have vanished. People are picking up the game and having some type of fun from the get go. Of course time will tell if it has the legs to go the long haul. Well shall see if we are still playing the game in a couple of years.
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The OF2 voice acting is such generic “american tough guy not afraid of nothin’ ” that it makes me sick. Why can’t a war game make people behave like they do for real. Take anyone you can think of from work/school and imagine how they would behave if put in combat.
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So the American Army is not supposed to sound American…? Wut?
The people depicted are trained soldiers: what the hell are you on about?!
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Howard: He means that people don’t sound like macho touch guys in movies. People are people.
KG
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@Kieron
I understand that, but he is wrong.
Number of guys I know through playing Eve, WoW and TF2 who are real life Marines: about 15. Number of them who sound like that: all of them.
that accent and style of speaking may be a cliché of sorts these days but it does not mean it ain’t real…
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Which is a fine thing to argue, but not what you said, man.
KG
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“The OF2 voice acting is such generic “american tough guy not afraid of nothin’ ” that it makes me sick. Why can’t a war game make people behave like they do for real.”
Actually if you check out modern real war videos at liveleak etc, you will hear the americans yeehaaaing and whoooping like cowboys.
I thank god, the game doesn’t “make people behave like they do for real”
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It will be interesting to see how the team translate Op Fap’s ultra-precision warfare to the consoles. Perhaps a heavy reliance on auto-aim, although part of the interesting thing about ArmA is dealing with the weapon & bullet physics, so compensating for gravity, etc. I guess it can still nail the feel of the thing in general.
What it seems like at the moment is that ArmA 2 is the hardcore simmer’s playset, and Op Fap 2 is the more accessible big-war-sim game (for example, its lesser reliance on map-reading skills – I think a video mentioned being able to use sound and smoke plumes to locate battles rather than GOING TO GRID 814 365)
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Ah! photorealism as a backdrop for men running like lizards on water.
What were we talking about? Oh yeah. I’m better than you because of [video game malarky].
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For the n’thtieth time, I’d just like to remind people that the original OFP got a fantastic Xbox port. Nothing downgraded, except for a slight paring back on the editor (which was still in there, just a bit simplified). In fact, it was an upgraded version of the engine, somewhere between OFP and ArmA1.
The only thing stopping people from porting more PC hits to consoles is the utterly wrongheaded belief that consoles can’t handle the games.
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@Dominic
I never got to play the XBOX OFP so I’ll take your word on its authenticity. My question would be: how did it control? Isn’t playing a more “hardcore” FPS hard work with a joypad? I can get on well enough playing some FPSs on consoles (Black being the obvious example of how it can be done well I guess) but I always thought a more “sim-like” game like OFF would be a right bugger to master.
(All idle curiosity I might add. No way I’d play OFP2 on a console)
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Haven’t played both games nor it’s predecessors but comparing the trailers I would say Arma2 is better.
Maybe I’ll buy Arma2 sometime soon but the talk about it’s difficulty and learning curve is withholding me doing so.
And probably because my comp might not be able to run it smoothly..
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@CakeAddict: It’s not that hard at all to learn. Give it a week of an hour a day and you’ll know the majority of how to play it.
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given arma 2 absolutely sucked i’m firmly in the OpFlash2 camp, why can’t the original devs repeat the success of the the original game?
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It seems that OF2 is going to be a more accessible version of ArmA, which is exactly what Im looking for.
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its weird- i was resistant to arm2 (having played ofp and arm1) and it has the same flaws but it has totally sucked me in…love it…hope it does really well…..so that other devs jump in this space—imagine arm2 with a rock solid engine – ofp2rd— we shall see not many journos seem to be hyping its corner…
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Ooh nice. Two excellent looking games which are in a genre I enjoy both out in 2009.
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Having played the ArmA II demo and been horribly disappointed (no, not with the bugs, i mean with the complete lack of polish), i’m looking forward to OpFlash2. It may be like comparing chalk with cheese, but I’d prefer a slightly different game which plays nicely, than a better game which plays worse.
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@Howard
I played the xbox version of OFP after having played the PC version of OFP. The xbox version was far easier to control, the graphics were more detailed and the missions less buggy (some of the missions were shortened a little though).
In general though I believe the biggest difference that we’ll see between ArmA II and OPF 2 is the polish OFP 2 will get.
ArmA II is very intense and with a metric tonne of vehicles, weapons etc… but the vehicles handle like crap, the sound is generic at best, and the physics engine feels at least 5-6 years old. BF2 has ragdolls, why not ArmA II? In my opinion BIS should have concentrated on multiplayer and stopped the single player game after the tutorials. Co-op and multiplayer is where the entire series has shined so why not concentrate there?
As for OFP2, I’ll reserve judgment until the game is actually released because for all we know it could turn out to be absolute crap. But if Codies can strike up a combination of Project Reality and the ArmA/OFP series, then transform it into OFP2 we might get a truly decent war simulator.
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@Sajmn:
People in the armed forces are not simply your workmates and classmates taken from their daily civilian life, and suddenly dropped into the middle of combat zones. It’s called “training.”
@panik:
As an American, your post made me facepalm.
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Sync issues with the video here, too. I assumed it was the crappy Linux Flash player.
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Where do all these details about Operation Flashpoint 2 come from? I mean “less realistic than [other game]“, “more accessible”, “more polished”, “better/worst than [other game]” etc).
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OFP2 has a larger PR and marketing operation behind it. They’ve got a big publisher, a big budget, and a big development team (3-4x what Bohemia Interactive employ, I recall). Funny how willing people are willing to rally under the title rather everything else, though.
I can’t really pass judgement on anything about OFP2, except for what we’ve seen in videos, and what I have seen is almost zero body awareness, and a huge rifle locked to filling almost a quarter of the screen, pointing straight forward and fireable accurately when running backwards.
It kinda reminds me of Battlefield: Bad Company, or maybe the Delta Force games.
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@Bookwormat:
I’ve been wondering the same thing. It’s odd that there are people that are throwing themselves into it’s camp so heavily, without having played it, and without the development team behind it having any apparent experience (and thus, no prior credibility to bank on) with this specific subgenre.
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I was certain I’d be backing ArmA II simply on the basis of how much I hate everything made by Codemasters, but the demo was quite the turn-off, from the bugs and lack of optimization to the needlessly complex controls and “Terrance and Phillip”-esque lip syncing.
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“The only thing stopping people from porting more PC hits to consoles is the utterly wrongheaded belief that consoles can’t handle the games.”
In-order processing, look it up. I’ve worked on every console from the PS2 til now, and I can tell you – consoles can’t handle what PC’s can. This isn’t a pissing contest, this is just something I know to be true because, at this very moment, I am running two PS3 devkits off my computer. A co-worker of mine is currently running seven.
Graphically, consoles are close. When it comes to AI, though, consoles simply don’t have the processing power.
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@Erlam
Really? Even the PS3 and its Cell CPU? Thought that was the bizz for AI?
@Isocheim
Well that has totally ruined it for me now. I already had the Benny Hill theme on loop in my head whenever the AI gets in a tiz and does a 3000 point turn to avoid a tree. Now I’ll be hearing Terrance and bloody Philip when they talk! ><
=)
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@Howard: The Cell is extremely powerful in certain specialized cases. But for a lot of general-purpose processing, even an elderly Athlon 64 could run circles around it.
And the thing about games AI is that it is typically very much general-purpose processing. Lots of branches, and very little actual computation. Which means it is pretty much the one thing PC CPU’s do best, and which the Cell is least suited for.
Like he said, in-order processing is a huge performance hit. The lack of branch prediction doesn’t help matters either.
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Gametrailers is a good source of videos, but MAN the stuff they create personaly is mediocre.
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Well maybe I’m sort of looking forward to OF:2 coming out. Then maybe the dicks that come on our server and bugger about will be pissing off people on OF:2 servers instead. Leaving the ArmA:2 players alone to get on with their gaming.
“Serous” is never a word that should be used when talking about gaming. Thing is some of these dicks just spawn and blow everything up, spawn killing their own team m8. The rest of us are trying to complete the mission.
The kids and the TK’ers can go off and play OF:2 the rest of us can play ArmA:2
OF:2 will die off quickly enough, because the kids will get bored and want to play the next shinny new game. The people that like it will become pissed off with the limited game play, the very thing that made the game easier to play in the first place, will result in it’s decline and death.
ArmA will continue, it has the continuity of the community from the original OF. I don’t think that the map makers, moders and the community as a whole will take OF:2 on board. Most see it as the upstart pretender it is.
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@PendragonUK I was considering having a go at ArmA2 having had absolutely no experience with the series but being a person who generally appreciates and enjoys depth in gaming while knowing he can’t necessarily handle said depth without help. Now I’m not so sure. You seem to have described a closed community vaguely hostile towards newcomers and more casual gamers that would eat a player like me alive.
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ArmA2 all the way!
OFP2 has to prove itself to me and it has yet to do that, no doubt the team are being interfered with constantly by management saying “it’s not enough like CoD4!!”
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“You seem to have described a closed community vaguely hostile towards newcomers ”
Um, to be fair, he was describing people who were being blatantly malicious rather than simply inexperienced.
I finished mission 1 – on Recruit level – last night. Great fun but I think I’ll get some more medals under my belt before I try multiplayer.
P.
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John: Q3 is clearly better.
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The chief (?) designer of OF2, Lee Brimmicombe-Wood, has some interesting credentials. He’s done some innovative and really excellent board wargame designs, among other things. I’d love to see an RPS interview with him. I think his views on the much-vaunted concept of “realism” would be especially interesting here. Make it so, team!
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Op. Flashpoint 2 reminds me of GRAW2, atleast from that trailer.
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