All facts and pictures for the OFP-rival

Operation Flashpoint was great, Armed Assault rather so-so. Does ArmA 2 reclaim old virtues? We have tested it.

When you hear "Czech Republic" you just have Becherovka in mind and you think that "Prague spring" is a local weather phenomenon? Disappointing! There is so much from the Czech republic (it indeed is a republic) you should have heard of: Mafia, Operation Flashpoint or Bus Driver (a popular present for your enemies)! Or maybe „Armed Assault“. It is excuseable if you did not know the latter title, this one has been missed by many gamers. It was not able to meet all expectations due to Operation Flashpoint, the awesome debut work of Bohemia Interactive – after all, Armed Assault was referred to as an unofficial sucessor (However, ex-publisher Codemasters owns all name copyrights). Nowadays new hope is raised by ArmA2, the abbreviation of the new title. All-time archenemy Operation Flashpoint 2 is supposed to be released in early 2009 just alike, but here the ifs and the whens have not been resolved yet. Additionally the Codemasters-team has never developed a similiar game before.

Welcome to the real world!

One who is not aware of the series must know: ArmA 2 is a military simulation with tactical, non-linear battles. You could even say, the Bohemian work is the holy grail of tactical shooters! „Many people ask what ‚Arma’ means, they complain it is no english word. ‚Arma’ is Latin for ‚war’ and also means ‚weapon’ in many languages. This is no joke, we create a serious game!“, Marek Spanel, the Bohemia Interactive executive says. By the way, it is serious enough for the United States Marine Corps and the Canadian Armed Forces to use a more professional spin-off to train their soldiers. ArmA 2 simulates 81 versions of weapons and 136 of vehicles. Despite of many shortcomings and boring lengths, the realistic game world is more fascinating than anything else offered by average shooters. In ArmA 2 comrades will come to your rescue if you have been hit so occasional players do not become totally frustrated – you’ll have your stuffing knocked out faster than Samuel Peter in a fight against Vitali Klitschko.

I’m so free

In the crosshairs: Our boss
Instead of playing many characters like in Operation Flashpoint, you will permanently be a part of „Team Razor“. In the campaign playing in 2009, this five men team is deployed to the Russian-style state of Chernarus which is politically falling apart and features virtual 225 square kilometres of accessible territory with 50 towns and villages. As before you play an infantry man and control war machinery like helicopters, tanks, boats and now even VTOL-planes. So much to the storyline: Your team leader dies, so you assume command. Video sequences make the story more interesting and your decisions and mission results affect the conflict as well as the end of the game. If you occupy a town for example, you can gather more ressources to buy weapons and you can interact with the local population.

It’s shining in blue

Of course we wanted to know from the developers what is new in the game in comparison to Armed Assault – and at first it was all Greek to us. For example they have created a „Micro AI“ now. Oh well! The background is: Up to now all commanders had their problems with the inept computer comrades. Now the AI does not navigate in scales of metres (Macro) anymore but centimetre-exactly (wohoo!). Good! Other mysterious additions are for example things called „Mega SEF“ and „Halo insertion“. „Mega SEF“ provides improved, 3D-sound that resembles your position in your environment and HALO insertion is a certain paratrooper technique, meaning to jump from high altitudes and to open the parachute only little above the ground. Regular soldiers have simple parachutes whilst special forces troopers have controllable glider parachutes. Other improvements which were more easy to understand are the new gestures system, the ability of the game character to jump over small obstacles, or that frightened enemies now do give up or run away. And whose shot at is affected by a shrinking accuracy. However, probably the most phenomenal improvement we have saved for the end of our report is the cooperative game mode for the campaign. This could actually become a real blast – especially in the view of the possibility that now AI soldiers maybe won’t drive their jeeps into mountains anymore, but still into rocks.