Arma II

aka: ArmA 2, ArmA II (Black Edition), ArmA II: Die Ultimative Militärsimulation
Moby ID: 40923

Description

ArmA II is, as its predecessor ArmA: Combat Operations a military shooter with a high focus on realism. The game focuses on the events in the small country Chernarus which was overrun by rebels who declared a state of war. Premier Alexander Baranov then asked NATO for help to re-establish peace and order in the country. NATO responded with alerting the fast response unit as well as sending US Marines into the country to minimize civilian casualties. The first ones to arrive is Force Recon Team Razor lead by 1st Sgt Patrick Miles. Part of his team: MSgt Matt Cooper - the player.

Depending on the difficulty level the player either moves Matt as well as all vehicles around in a typical first person shooter fashion or can choose a 3rd person view to explore the 225 square miles big island. Most of the time he is not alone and follows his squad mates to fulfil the various main and secondary objectives like blowing up a radio station or rescuing civilians. To defend against the many enemies, he has a vast array of real world tech at his disposal like the trusted M16 in its various forms or several different kinds of rocket launchers for every possible range. Each weapon has its own pros and cons as well as different distances their sights are calibrated to. In addition the ammunition in ArmA II follows a hard-coded flight path. But the player won't explore the land just on foot. Also at his disposal are many different kinds of tanks, helicopters and even airplanes that all handle very differently and realistically. Depending on the vehicle, there are even different positions available like gunner or tank commander.

Besides the main single player campaign, the player has access to seven scenarios, a weapons chamber he can play around in to unlock additional weaponry and a powerful but complex editor that allows him to create his own missions. In the most sophisticated scenarios both in single player and multiplayer (for up to 50 players), the commander even has the ability to build up a base of operations to unlock access to additional weaponry and such. The destruction of this HQ is then the goal of the enemy team in one of the available game modes.

Spellings

  • ArmA II: Тактика современной войны - Russian spelling

Groups +

Screenshots

Promos

Credits (Windows version)

218 People (205 developers, 13 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 78% (based on 31 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.1 out of 5 (based on 17 ratings with 1 reviews)

ArmA 1.5 plus too many bugs

The Good
The graphics are often very good. ArmA 2 has a very pronounced simulation of dynamic range that often renders gorgeous scenes. Props to BIS for again and again making the most realistic and natural graphics and worlds of any game ever.

Performance seems to be a bit smoother than ArmA 1 (which I could never get to run well), probably because it's now programmed to (sorta, kinda) use all four cores instead of just one.

The Bad
You might think that since it's so similar to ArmA 1 the game would at least be polished and streamlined. For some reason though (which might be explained but not excused by pressure from publishers), this is a very unfinished, untested game that's just teeming with all kinds of obvious bugs.

It's as if BIS contracted a bunch of people, gave them API documentation and told them to made certain parts of the game, then combined whatever they came up with into a whole without any sort of testing. BIS has a "bug tracker" (something you'd expect from a free open source development, not a commercial game) where customers are expected to spend hours diagnosing, tracking down and reproducing each of the thousands of bugs BIS' shoddy programming and testing let through and then hoping a developer takes pity and gives it some attention. But how are they going to mail me the check when they didn't even ask for my address...?

The Bottom Line
I've spent over three weeks playing the game and I never had one game session that didn't have serious glitches and didn't end because of some fatal bug. I must've done everything in the campaign at least five times because the game broke so often, and this was after a 120mb patch. Let me tell you an anecdote: I complained that you can't run over infantry in 1.00, so they fixed it, then I got repeatedly run over in the campaign by my own allies. Some battles you just can't win.

As it stands, ArmA 2 patch version 1.02 is an unplayable mess and BIS and their publishers should be ashamed of themselves.

Windows · by dorian grey (243) · 2009

Discussion

Subject By Date
Different Pegi Ratings? Serrated-banner9 (2347) Feb 3, 2024

Trivia

ITV documentation

Footage from the game was mistakenly used by the UK's ITV television network in a documentary about Colonel Gadaffi's links to the IRA and the Irish republican movement. The documentary asserted that it was an example of the IRA shooting down a plane using weapons supplied by Gadaffi's forces. ITV later explained that the footage described did exist, however an incorrect segment of video was used due to 'human error'.

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  • MobyGames ID: 40923
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Sicarius.

Additional contributors: Sciere, Martin Smith, Alexandr Kolpakof, Patrick Bregger, Plok.

Game added June 2, 2009. Last modified February 1, 2024.