ArmA: Combat Operations, a tactical military simulator that follows-up Operation: Flashpoint, puts players into the heat of the action with near-realistic combat. Although it features many strong points as a simulator, it falls a little short as a player-friendly game, despite some very nice features. The game plays like a first-person shooter, but the camera can be changed to a third-person view for more detail.

ArmA (Armed Assault) looks good when played with normal graphics settings and fantastic on systems powerful enough to turn up all the options. Players immediately gain a sense of realism with the huge landscapes and sun glare. The game nicely simulates rifle drift while aiming, which can be decreased (but not eliminated) by crouching down or lying in a prone position. All weapons look authentic and feature seemingly appropriate recoil. Those who don't have strong familiarity with military grade weapons can run through a sandbox mode, where players can test out their toys on a firing range. However, one major glitch GameDaily encountered involves the graphics spontaneously degrading. One second, everything looks great, and then everything falls apart. All textures lose detail and text (tutorial and mission updates) becomes unreadable.

The game was installed on different systems (with approved video cards), using different graphics settings and the issue remained. Things gradually returned to normal, bringing an almost surreal effect to the game, where soldiers have detailed faces with bland and blurry uniforms. Things get even weirder when sitting in a transport across from six different soldiers, all with varying degrees of graphical detail.

Graphics glitches aside, ArmA works very well as a military simulator, but not quite so well as a user-friendly game. Even though with a lengthy tutorial, teaching players the basics of movement, shooting and commanding a squad, some of the controls seem needlessly complex. For example, commanding a squad requires an in-depth menu system. Getting a squad to jump into a vehicle requires at least three keystrokes, if the player knows exactly what to do. In order to command a squad well, players memorize the entire menu system or start writing some macros to streamline the commands. In addition, players should brush up on the official names for military hardware, since there's a gap between the spoken dialogue and the written text. For example, characters will give orders using generic terms like "Board the Blackhawk," but the menu commands don't list a "Blackhawk." Instead, it uses the vehicle's official designation, UH-60. This causes people to occasionally send troops to the wrong vehicle. Furthermore, pressing the space bar brings up the command menu, meaning that ArmA, despite its strive for realism, has no jump function.

If that wasn't enough, players used to less realistic action shooters need to throw out much of what they know. Simple actions like changing weapons turn into drawn out scenarios because the number keys are mapped to communications commands, not weapon selection. The game lets players switch weapons using the mouse wheel, which (surprise) brings up a small menu; scroll and click with the middle mouse button again to select. Similar actions take place when interacting with objects or when inside a vehicle, and the menu changes according to the situation. Overall, there's an awful lot of menus for fast-paced action game, and not enough useful tools. For instance, players don't get an indicator to let them know when a satchel charge has been placed, nor can they hold detonators in their hands instead of scrolling through a mini-menu to set off a charge. Similar to the rest of the menus, weapons come listed in their official names, with no brackets provided for laymen.

ArmA's issues present some major hurdles, but it's difficult to dismiss the realism the game achieves. With a built-in scenario and map editor, along with multiplayer that supports up to 100 simultaneous players, ArmA has a great deal going for it. Unfortunately, it should be left to dedicated players who will not only suffer through the bugs and extensive menus, but can appreciate realistic simulations without much handholding.

Related Links:

ArmA: Combat Operations Game Guide

Official Website

Atari

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