Rock, Paper, Shotgun

And it’s ArmA2. This is fascinating. The situation where a developer keeps the technology and the publisher gets the name is common enough. There’s always obvious competition between the keeper of the flame and the keeper of the name (e.g. Football Manager versus Championship Manager, Far Cry 2 versus Crysis, etc). But Bohemia, in a recent press-release, have made that incredibly explicit. To quote the opening: “Is the upcoming Codemasters game really ‘the much anticipated return of the genre-defining military conflict simulator’ Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis? Is it really ‘the official sequel to the multi-award winning Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis’? Bohemia Interactive says: ‘No! What matters is the game, not the name.’” Seeing Bohemia’s fury at Flashpoint 2 being described by Codemasters as the “return of” or “official sequel to” is without precedent in recent gaming history. Read the whole thing for more. Crikey.

We took the opportunity to chat to Bohemia CEO Marek Spanel about the whole situation…

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Some new OpFlash 2 images have turned up over on the Czech Tiscali Games’ gallery, which is odd, if you think about it, because OpFlash 2 isn’t being developed by Bohemia Interactive, who are Czech, and made the original game. Anyway, these look a bit more like concept mock ups than in-game images to me, but I’ve been wrong before. (But only once, whilst drunk, fifteen years ago, in the dark…)

In related news Codemasters have confirmed that the game will be out in PC and console this winter. Fans of the hardcore soldier experience of original game, however, should probably stick to ArmA, which is due an expansion pack a sequel soon.

RPS friend and Creative Assembly minion James Carey has spent the past few years being obsessed with PC soldier sims – first Operation Flashpoint and then its direct sequel (as opposed to indirect sequel, Operation Flashpoint 2. which was recently announced by Codemasters but won’t be developed by Bohemia) Armed Assault. Over the last few months Carey has been teased a bit by me and others as he creates war scenarios, mods parachutes and “goes on maneuvers” with his weekend war chums.

Carey was therefore pleased to be able to demonstrate that his own obsession with the super-accurate war games were as nothing compared to some of his militarist colleagues. Below is a picture of one Arma fan’s setup. Click the image for full size.

Insane? Or actually what most gamers want? I already own three PCs, two screens and a laptop. Something like this is the logical conclusion. Right? (I tell you, when I win the lottery there’s going to be a picture of my neon-and-Leopard skin penthouse games cinema plastered across the entire internet.)

Okay, so how about instead of that you have the capacity to be able to fire live rounds at the screen. I’m not kidding. (11mb .wmv). Hot jazz too…

And here’s the reason behind this entire post: a video of those four giant screens in action. Holy shit.

Screw decadent wastes of resources: that is a happy man.