Friday

Binary Review – ArmA2

Filed under Binary Reviews

I’m getting into this review thing lately, and I can’t let ArmA2 slip past even though it’s been out awhile so let’s do this thing.

ArmA2 promises a lot. A vast map, a complex and involving campaign, realistic combat and outstanding visuals to name a few. Let’s look at what it delivers. Vast map? Sure, I’ll give it that… the map is in fact rather big ass. Complex and involving campaign? Sadly I can’t comment on this as the campaign still crashes on me after a random amount of play. Sometimes minutes, sometimes many minutes but it always crashes. What little I have played of it though has proven rather buggy, and the frame rate has usually been lousier than I’d prefer. Realistic combat? Well, I can’t vouch for realism as I’ve only been shot at once and that was an odd circumstance. I do know that there is a lot of debate about whether the AI can see through grass, how well it can hear the player and how quickly it can spot and kill at long distances. I’ve also been seeing complaints about the “lousy hit point system” on tanks, as opposed to a proper damage model and various other things. I’m not sure I’d call the combat “realistic”, but I’m not sure I’d dump all over it either so there we are. Combat in ArmA2 has issues, but it can be good if all the stars and planets align properly and if you just pretend you don’t notice certain issues. How’s that? Outstanding visuals? Well, they’re pretty nice if you have the rig to run it. I have a Q6600 overclocked to 3.7ghz, running Win7 64bit with 8GBs ram (4-4-4-12-2T) and dual 8800GT’s in SLI (yes, flexing the ol’ nerd muscles in public there) and my frame rate in the campaign is in the mid 20’s and in single missions with lots of action I see mid 30’s. This is between crashes and blue screens of death mind you. So yes, the visuals are pretty spiffy but it’s hard to appreciate them unless your machine is a) beefy enough to push all those pixels and b) you’re lucky enough to be able to play without crashing.

What does all this mean? It means that I’ve written more than enough about this game over the past several months (the site is becoming known as an ArmA2 blog) so let’s wrap this up. For lousy frame rates, crashing, freezing, buggy campaigns and lack of communication from the developer (sorry BIS) I’m afraid I can’t recommend ArmA2. Sure it’s got the one of the best community development efforts I’ve ever come across behind it (just like the other games in the series) but unless you’re a die hard fan with more optimism than common sense, that won’t be enough to pull you through the grief. Hell, I was a die hard fan and even I can’t take it anymore. Sad times, but maybe things will brighten up in the near future.

Cave of Distraction Binary Review Rating : Don’t play it :(

EDIT: I should add, that if BIS can sort out the lingering issues that plague the game, I will personally post here singing it’s praises. I tend to forget it recently, but I really do like the direction ArmA2 is trying to go because it falls on it’s face so hard in trying to get there.  I’m moderately certain BIS can make it happen, so we’ll see what the future brings.