By Jim Rossignol on May 11th, 2010 at 11:12 am.
It’s always time for war in ArmA 2, and that’s never truer than on the arrival of expansion pack, Operation Arrowhead. Set three years after the original conflict, another flashpoint in the region causes Americans to administer tactical face-biff to local forces. It’s a big old single-player campaign that we really should do a hands-on preview of some time soon. MAYBE WE WILL. Anyway, videos…
I am super psyched for this. Unfortunately I gave away my gaming desktop and am now on a cheapo laptop that struggles playing Master of Magic so I have no hope of actually playing it.
ArmA 2 was amazing. So immense in scope and predictably completely broken. It was a unique experience though. Once you get out of the first couple of missions and the game opens up, I was blown away. You have a huge zone of operation and at the start your commander just tells you to do three main things, then gives you some support (like heli transport or artillery) and tells you to get on with it. It had a sense of freedom that no other game has really captured.
Of course this was marred by wonky scripting and a demanding engine. Hopefully this one has spent a decent time in QA before being unleashed. Either way, if it lives up to its predecessor, I am sure it will be worthwhile.
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I’m looking forward to seeing if the campaign is as good as Operation Flashpoint’s, or if it’s still a big military toybox that’s fun in multiplayer but has a broken single player mode (that said, Eagle Wing was good fun). Tim Stone’s preview on Eurogamer seemed to lean towards the latter a little.
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Damn I really need a new PC.
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robrob,
You “gave away” your gaming PC – are you mad?
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I had just crazy deadlines and didn’t need it tempting me with its fancy “graphics card” and “faster than a 486 processor”. Now there’s a warehouse in the west mids with all its invoices getting printed by a machine beefy enough to run Crysis on full settings. I might go and rescue it when I graduate.
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So rob rob,
you not only gave away your gaming pc. You gave it to someone to run an access database.
Does it sit in the corner slowly nodding and pacing around like a caged bear?
The poor thing! People like you should be reported to the RSPCPC …. (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to PC’s)
;D
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You could’ve given it to me.
I’d have even paid the postage.
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I like to think of it like Marvin: there it is, brain the size of a planet and they ask it to do some spreadsheets.
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The Second / First (please choose) coming of the Saviour is here! That and/or we have a mental patient among us to report :D
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Why do they keep using fictional locations FFS. No one would be bothered if the country is not recreated 1:1 in the game, but real names and locations add so much to the atmosphere.
(wait, since when are there Grads in Afghanistan?)
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saves from the trouble of researching I guess? or maybe they want to reserve those to the simulators they sell to military.
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No thanks, we don’t want another Six Days in Falluja type debacle.
Did they ever patch Arma2 up good ‘n’ and proper, or is it still classified as walking wounded?
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Chernarus is based on a real chunk of the Czech Republic, I think. The problem with real places is no doubt controversy over real events – re-enacting, intentionally or otherwise, real IED strikes and friendly-fire incidents is probably a bit too close to the bone.
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Did anything (patches or mods) ever fix the original? It looks so tempting, but I’m put off by the brokenness which I can only imagine making the complexity that the demo featured all the more exasperating for the uninitiated.
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Mostly.
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Wait.. there was no one in that copter!. Ghost Copter Drivers?
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@Tei – It’s an unmanned helicopter. I read it on their site somewhere I believe. Might even be in the FAQ Luomu linked to.
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Ha! Take that reality!
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It’s an AH6X UAV. Silly but real.
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Bohemia’s wiki has a very useful FAQ on Arrowhead:
http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Ask_Bohemia_%28about_Operation_Arrowhead…_or_anything_else_you_want_to_ask%29!
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Something broke the URL above, so maybe this one will work better
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Well, this certainly is rather excellent. I had a look at the wiki, and saw this:
“Desert: Empty desert map to be filled with randomly generated settlements using the town-generation module.”
Can’t wait!
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As a fan of Bohemia gamas, i am excited because, well.. more Arma goodness!, but also i wouldn’t expect anything original or innovative in this game, it’s more a “expandalone” release.
BTW, Bohemia is still doing beta patches for Arma 2, right now they are trying to optimize the engine, and i would say they are getting there, i have a better perfomance now. I think we will see the results of the beta releases in the Arma 2 1.06 update and Arma 2 OA release.
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Can anyone link me the direction of some good ARMA2 communities?
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http://www.tacticalgamer.com
http://www.simhq.com
Of course the main community in the official forums
I know a few more, but they aren’t english ones.
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There are some really lovely folks over at OFPEC but they are more about building stuff for the game than playing it. Check them out: http://www.ofpec.com/forum/
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Small and just starting out, but I’m loving the ArmACast. They’ve only got two episodes so far, but so far the quality is great.
http://www.armapodcast.com./
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The main one
http://forums.bistudio.com/forumdisplay.php?f=9
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Most of the files you’ll want are over at Armaholic http://www.armaholic.com/ the official forums are also quite good if a bit bland. http://forums.bistudio.com/forumdisplay.php?f=4
I really hate “expandalones”. Either make a sequal or make an expansion, don’t make an expansion 1.5 and expect us to pay full price. I WILL pay full price because BiS are a developer that needs and deserves support but still.
Having said that OFP:Resistance was probably the best expansion of any game of all time so hopefully this can live up to that. I’m liking the sounds coming out about an OFP style campaign of big infantry battles etc, not the SF BS we got with Arma2.
Hope they bother to include some of the features ACE2 gives us. That mod makes the game literally about twice as good.
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An awesome video, btw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPRusacTHg8
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Sounds so complicated gameplay system, but, that’s what’s meant to be a military simulator. Hope they can make it even more realistic. I wont feel regret to read a phonebook size manual. Asiding from gaming, I can really learn something some it, say, piloting a real chopper.
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If this were any other game that Chinook would have been hit with a rocket as it took off. It takes balls to make this sort of trailer. Bohemia Interactive have balls.
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What I want to know is: What kind of monster PC are they using to make the game look so good? Arma 2 is such a pig, it’s hard to imagine it being this pretty (in a mannish, desert war kind of way). Oh how I wish I had a dedicated gaming PC.
Arma 2 is the only game that’s ever made me want to buy additional hardware to play it — surround sound headphones with mic, TrackIR, a new computer… Damn you, Bohemia Interactive! (I’m sorry; I didn’t mean it. I love you.)
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I found installing more RAM helped quite a bit, if you’re looking to upgrade. I have 6GB, but 4 should be fine. 2 was probably not enough to allow it to run smoothly.
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I already have 4GB RAM, but I’m also playing on 32-bit XP. I’m also playing on a Mid 2007 iMac with an ATI Radeon 2600 HD (256MB), so I’ve never expected to get great graphics out of the game, but I’ve also never managed to get it running quite as nicely as other modern games. As it stands, though, Arma 2 does play and it’s brilliant, if still a little broken (and not as beautiful as the videos).
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OAAA..OA OA OAAAAAA…geddit? Sums it up for me anyway.
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There’s some crazy fans out there that record an ARMA PODCAST for godssake. http://www.armapodcast.com (Me.)
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Someone posted this little piece of magic over on bluesnews yesterday.
enjoy!
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Grabbed the arma collection (arma +exp and arma 2) from d2d.eu the other week for a fiver. So far i’ve not even bothered with the campaign but i’m in love with the armoury. Pick a vehicle and get challenged to random tasks. “Go fast, get on a road, fly low, survive, get here, this, that, the other”.
No build up time, no waiting, its lovely.
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People of the internet!
Watch this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LN0goAEzS4I
and then tell me this is not the greatest game ever made.
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Hahahaha, I love RPS. This line had me in stitches:
“Set three years after the original conflict, another flashpoint in the region causes Americans to administer tactical face-biff to local forces”
Tactical face-biff is the best turn of phrase I’ve heard in a loooong time.
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And with that, I think I’ve finally reached the point where I can no longer resist this game, no matter how concerned I may be about bugs and glitches. It just sounds too much like my kind of thing to ignore.
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And not forgetting
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4aJPeN5fzc&feature=player_embedded
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I wonder if they’re still using multiple voice samples for shit they don’t need to.
‘Good…
MORNING”
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The worst thing I found was where they’d clearly not used Americans to voice Americans. I mean, American game companies do it for foreigners all the time, but here it grates more for some reason.
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hmm i loved Flashpoint but i never really got into Arma 2, mostly because of the bugs and the machine i got not quite coping that well with the engine (i had a geforce 8600 GTS with 512 MB DDR3 ram- id say you need a new series nvidia card or ATI to get the best from this game).
Didnt like the singleplayer campaign that much… you have to restart the mission if one of your guys die- thats just lame. And the voice acting grates- the controls are far from perfect and could see a good overhaul.
I DID know this when i got it, and was planning to get into Multiplayer mainly, when i get a new gcard.
The scope of the game is just so great i can forgive a bit of bugginess and AI psychosis- but id rather see the team smoothening the experience, rather than making expansions.
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Arma 2 fully patched + ACE2 six updater = lovely tactical face biffery :)
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Personally, I think this video shows off the game the best. Shows the incredible scope and detail of the face-biffery marvelously. I think RPS posted it in a blog at some point, actually.
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Whoops, URL didn’t show up.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePrwLMi1fyQ&feature=related
I’ll just leave it without HTML tags.
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Am I the only person to notice that Littlebird DIDN’T HAVE A PILOT?
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Ah, ok, nm. Just read the rest of the comments thread :P
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Chernarus, huh?
Transliterated into Czech, that means “Black Russia,” that is, the imaginary opposite of White Russia… a.k.a. Belarus (still called Belorussia or such when I was a kid).
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