ArmA 2 review — complex for its own sake
If you’re an FPS fan, you’ve probably heard of ArmA 2, a game who’s title is often confused with “Armed Assault 2″ — it’s not, ArmA is actually the spiritual successor to Operation Flashpoint. In ArmA 2, the game takes place in a fictional Soviet country called Chernarus, where a battle rages between communists (backed by Russia) and a Western backed democratic government. We won’t go into details because it would spoil the rather Tom Clancy-like storyline.
The gameplay of ArmA 2 does not resemble your average FPS, on the contrary, ArmA 2 is highly realistic and focuses on simulation aspects of the genre. Players can command AI squads into battle and get an overview of the battlefield with a “high command system”, kinda like the “Commander” feature in Battlefield 2. Both features work good and add a layer of strategy elements on top of a game that is already highly realistic and complex.
Speaking of complexity, the game is not for everyone. If you’re used to playing Counter-Strike and Battlefield, thinking you can just jump into ArmA 2 and start “owning”, think again. It’s gonna take a while to get used to, to learn all the features of the game — but that’s the way it was intended to be, it’s a real simulator for the hard core fans. But since only a fraction of FPS players have the time and patience, many will find it very slow and far less intense than most other multiplayer shooters.
Another issue with complexity is the controls of the game. There are numerous actions a player can do, and each action has its own key assigned, meaning you’ll be looking down on your keyboard for a long time, at least in the beginning. It’s inevitable that the more features you add, the more complex it becomes for the players. We would have wished the developer simplified some of the things, even if it meant removing some of the unused features — and there are plenty of those in ArmA 2, it seems. Overall, the game could use some streamlining.
The graphics render a realistic setting, and the audio and especially the art design are also top notch. The setting somewhere in the Soviet Union might not appeal to everyone, but it’s rendered realistically and suits as a great backdrop for the game (combined with the story and campaign). 
However, the graphics are by no means up to “Crysis” standards, nor are the physics. I fact, our high end system had a difficulty keeping up on the high settings, and even on high settings, the game still isn’t a looker.
Despite all the features, it’s the complexity and the buggy state that pull the game in a bad directions . No matter how patient you are, the first few hours will be a frustrating experience, and unless you’ve given up on the game by then, you might find it as an interesting war simulator.
Note: this game was reviewed with the 1.02 patch, which fixed some issues from the initial release, most notably, AI bugs. However, we still experienced that the game was somewhat buggy overall, although nothing that made it downright unplayable.
The Good:
Lots of features, lots of details
True military simulator
Great storyline and campaign
Stunning sense of realism
The Bad:
Too complex, even for die hard fans
Still buggy, after three patches
Very slow pace
Requires a lot of patience
Overall score: 5/10
July 11th, 2009 at 2:49 am
You say it’s Too complex, even for die hard fans. Just FYI, it’s system has pretty much remained the same since OFP so the die hard fans are by all means not having the trouble that you do.
The very slow pace should actually be an upside and a relief to all the bunny hopping shooters out there.
Requires a lot of patience? I think you just don’t much patience lol
Still buggy, after three patches. Now this is a given of a bad side, but you also don’t know the whole story as to why it was, and i’m guessing you never played ArmA 1 so you don’t know how much better this game was released.
In the end, personally a Fair score for this game would be more like 7.5/10 but with patches has potential to be 8.5 or higher. You should do more research about a game before you play’n'rate, especially this genre (probably the only military sim out there, no OFPDR is not a true m.sim).
Of course, this is your personal opinion, but i’ve been playing these since OFP and tho ArmA1 flopped and would deserve 5.0 no way would this game deserve such a score lool
July 11th, 2009 at 10:11 am
You can’t give a higher score to a game because of the potential of upcoming patches, or DLC or whatever. It needs to be judged as it is now. Nor can you judge a game based on how good or bad it’s predecessor was.
Actually, we waited until patch 1.02 to review the game, we gave the developers the benefit of the doubt. But it’s still buggy.
July 13th, 2009 at 10:10 pm
[...] worth it. Mind you, it’s no Counter-Strike, nor Battlefield nor ArmA (read our ArmA 2 review here). As a First Person Shooter, America’s Army 3 is in a whole other ballpark, the realism [...]
July 13th, 2009 at 10:28 pm
Congrats, this is the most retarded review of Arma 2 I’ve been able to find on the net. I thought IGN’s review was flawed because they just kept on hammering how hard it is but this one topples it. What the reviewer is basically saying is that he is to stupid to learn a game so that’s why it isn’t fun.
That’s like saying chess is a shitty game because there are to many possibilities. Saying that die hard fans will gave trouble playing this is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard a “reviewer” say. How would you know what a die hard fan experiences since you are obviously a noob to the genre and to the series.
Reviewer, stick to COD and have a more mature and experienced reviewer do reviews on games that are harder then crisis of cod. You’re obviously to simple for that.
Shame on you for wasting online space like this.
October 17th, 2009 at 9:00 am
wow really reviewer? “However, the graphics are by no means up to “Crysis” standards, nor are the physics. I fact, our high end system had a difficulty keeping up on the high settings, and even on high settings, the game still isn’t a looker.” That is the biggest load of b.s. I have ever heard. Im running a quad core with a radeon 5800 and the game looks beautiful. And while the graphics may not be quite up to crysis level, there is no doubt in my mind that the physics, especially the ballistics, are much better. Sure there are some vehicle GLITCHES, but the overall PHYSICS aren’t the same. next time u should pull your head out of your ass while reviewing a game long enough to actually form a fair opinion of it.
October 23rd, 2009 at 1:53 pm
[...] get ArmA 2 with a 50% discount, only $25. If you wanna know if it’s worth it, check out our ArmA 2 review. This entry was posted on Friday, October 23rd, 2009 at 1:53 pm and is filed under Action, DLC, [...]