Rock, Paper, Shotgun

What? What? It can’t really be just me who thinks of A-ha’s finest hour whenever Bohemia’s Take On Helicopters is mentioned, can it? Hmmph. Perhaps I can break the association by writing about the chopper sim’s new demo, which is out now. At 3.6GB it’s faintly monstrous, but the contents sound highly generous. You should take it on, take it on. It’ll be gone, in a day or twooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

(It won’t be gone in a day or two). Full contents and moving images below.
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Ah, Arma II. The game that reminds me we need to be doing more games night stuff. Yes. We shall. But also an email from Bohemia that reminds me that the combined expandalone – Reinforcements – is out, and has actually been so for a week, I think. This new pack includes the British Armed Forces and Private Military Company expansions as one, and does not require the original game to play. There’s also a bunch of tweaks and enhancements that Bohemia have been making as the games developed. Fancy simulatory men being shot below, in a healthily footage-heavy trailer.
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Excitement is literally in the air! Bohemia Interactive (Czech developers of Operation Flashpoint and Arma II fame/infamy) have announced Take On Helicopters, a new simulator focusing on the rewarding challenge of flying helicopters as well as “beautifully rich landscapes”. I will admit to some disappointment that Take On Helicopters is not a game about taking on helicopters mano-a-mano, nor is it a game about taking on helicopters like you might take on an adopted child, having to then tutor your fledgling helicopter in the ways of right and wrong. “Well done, baby helicopter! It was RIGHT to chew up that taxman in your small yet deadly rotor blades!” And you could stroke its grille and listen to its silky purr.

What can you do, eh? The announcement trailer follows…
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The latest Arma II expandalone – Private Military Company – is out, a little later than scheduled. There’s a splendid launch trailer to celebrate this, below, which details a bit more about the story missions from this new campaign. I’m going to take a look at the full game as soon as I can. Meanwhile, check out our interview with BIS for more.
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We revealed the new Arma 2 expansion a couple of weeks back: Private Military Company is BIS’ take on the murky world of the mercenary companies working in modern warzones. The latest trailer is one dressed up in the style of media coverage of the activities of these soldiers of fortune, which implicates someone or other in some kind of badness. Hmm!

Don’t forget we have some community-based Arma 2 action this weekend, with Operation Arrowhead games going on. Check out this post for details.
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[Flashpoint has the dual appeal of being simultaneously one of the most realistic takes on the Soldier game the medium has ever seen and the only one where you can engage in the sport of Tractor hunting in an attack chopper. I've interviewed Marek and his brother a few times over the years, and they're one of the more gloriously eccentric and constantly enthusiastic developers I've met. Last time I was over there, talking about Armed Assault we had a lengthy discussion about how they were programming Butterflies. They develop incredibly militaristic games and they obsess over butterflies. It's hard not to love them.]

Before Bohemia released their classic Soldier-Sim, I had a chance to chat to director Marek Spanel about his life growing up as a games devotee in the Czech Republic. He described sneaking their first computer into the country after a trip to Switzerland. And then, realising there was no way to load or save data, jury-rigging cables to perform the task with their tape recorders. And then learning to program games so, finally, they could achieve their objective of playing a game.

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You may be aware that as well as releasing splendid (if a little – er – twitchy) Soldier Sims, Bohemia interactive turn their Armed Assault (i.e. Flashpoint minus the intellectual property rights) into military simulators. VBS2 is actually developed by Bohemia Australia. Among their clients are the Dutch army, who recently arranged a game between five professionally trained soldiers and five gamers. Jerry Hopper was there.

The gamers would do whatever gamers would do. The Army would work according to official doctrine. Since the soldiers in question weren’t actually familiar with VBS2, the results were perhaps a trifle predictable, but that’s hardly the point.

RPS would challenge the SAS to a game of TF2 to decide who’s the hardest three-letter-acronym group on the surface of the planet, but we’re far too scared they’ll slide a blade across our throats in our sleep or something.