ARMA II

Long time no post, I could blame my computer having broken down a bit and I just recently got it fixed, but I do have a laptop as well, so it's no valid excuse.

Anyhow, I'm back in business again, with my gaming rig all patched up with some new and hopefully more reliable hardware.

After having installed all drivers and such for my new mainboard, I decided to scavenge the news on Steam to see if there were any interesting discount offers or upcoming, fresh titles. While peeking around, I took notice of an action FPS called ARMA II, whose page on the store had been decorated with the line "...one of the most ambitious videogames ever made.", appearently borrowed directly off of an article on Eurogamer. It seemed promising at first sight, as would any game with that braggy review tagline, lest it would've been a game out of EA's many sports series, then I'd just take it as being the very peak of sarcasm mountain.

I decided I'd give the demo a try, since treading the sands in Far Cry 2 was getting a bit boring (I'm at no more than 65%, and I've been playing it for a total of nearly 22 hours!)
The first thing that struck me about the game (prior to playing it) was the double roman numerals at the end of its title. Where the hell is the first game? How come I've heard nothing of it?
Obviously, the sequel's getting a bit more publicity since it's distributed through Steam and all.

So, after waiting for the two gigabytes or so to get ready, I fired the game up.
First impression was a bit awkward. Usual corporate logo's, ESRB/PEGI-rating flashes by. Then there's a bunch of screenshots out of nowhere, or rather collage of shots that you usually see at the end of a demo. Their appearance didn't seem to serve any concrete purpose, thankfully one could skip over them.
So, finally at the menu and having adjusted graphics settings and resolution to my liking (which was painless and quick, so a plus there), I decided to go for the boot camp first and see if there were any unusual controls that needed to be mastered before going into war.
It seemed a bit more complex than your average FPS, not just complex as in having leaning sideways and prone position available, there were several courses used for training, amongst those were an obstacle course (looked more kindergarten than military to me), a shooting range, medical training area and so on, so forth.
It didn't end there, though. There were several levels for the whole training segment of the game as well, of which I only tried another one (after having fired a bullet into my fellow soldier in lack of proper instructions on how to lift him as I was told to do in the boot camp level.)
I tried parachuting as well, which didn't go very well at first. I landed a fair 300 metres from my designated landing zone. So, deciding it wasn't good enough, I had another go. This time though, I could actually control myself while I was drifting down with the chute out, and I made a perfect landing right on the spot. During my first try, I just fell straight down from where I had first released my big white blanket. I don't know if it was the mouse's signal not reaching to the receiver properly or if it was a bug in the game, though.
While checking the controls for the game, I was startled to see what was probably enough lines to fill at least four sheets of paper. It seemed that though the controls for operating vehicles and such were similar to the ordinary controls, they had all been listed seperately.

After the parachute episode, I decided to just get to the real deal. So far, the game hadn't really impressed me much. Aside from somewhat neat visuals, my experience thus far had not been living up to the review tagline. Movement is a bit jerky, and the controls seem somewhat unresponsive. While I ducked to get some ammo for my rifle, I went through the ammo box instead of sitting beside it like I did with the other interactive boxes before it. Another concern of mine is the terrible voice acting. Though not all of them were terrible, the general quality was poor, in particular a pre-pubertal comrade sitting with me in the helicopter. It kind of kills the feel to hear an assumed macho gunman sounding like a twelve year old.

One of the game's major flaws; the motion blur. Saying that the effect is overused is an understatement, it's more than that, it's horrible. It's a nice effect if used properly, much like another part of the shader family, bloom. If used too much, it kills the effect's ability to enhance the feel of added realism in the game.

Still, I had decided to go with my fellow boys/men into the heat of battle, with added hard rock ambience music to further kill the mood. Don't get me wrong, I love hard rock, but when it's used in a commercial title in a similar manner that it's used by WoW-nerds for their horrible shit videos, it doesn't impress me. Anyhow, this mission was the games last chance to catch my interest, and it failed.

Why so quickly, you might ask? Well, after getting out of the helicopter, shooting a few rounds, then and running up to some wooden fence to take cover, I received one bullet in the gut and was already down for the count, panting and moaning for a medic to help. This was on regular difficulty, with two higher difficulties available than the one I played on. One shot, down, regular difficulty. No thanks, mr. Game, I won't put up with this if it's just the start of the very first mission. ARMA II had been given enough chances already, so I removed the demo from my hard drive again. Bless the demo's, it spared me the possible angst of having paid for this shit.

Ah well, what do I know, perhaps I'm just too dumb for it. Perhaps I'm too dumb to adjust myself to jerky movement and 'realistic' damage limits. Hopefully, the final release is a bit more polished. All negative comments aside, it does show a bit of promise and, as mentioned, a lot of ambition. It could very well have become one of the better games this summer, but I'm disappointed to say that it probably isn't.

That's all for ARMA II and this blogpost, I'm afraid. Next post shouldn't take as long, as there's a lot of gaming for me to catch up with, having been unable to use my precious gaming rig for the past five weeks or so.

Until next time!
/Marcus out.