Arma II

Preview from Yug - Tuesday, 26 May 2009 @ 1:32pm

This is not a game.

This is a simulation. Sure, it might look like any other military FPS game, but it’s so hardcore I’m going to have to say that with a capital K.

HardKore.

You’re part of an elite squad of American soldiers sent behind enemy lines to restore peace to Chernarus, a Soviet country ripped apart by civil war as warring rival factions fight to take control of the troubled state. That’s the official pitch for the game, although the level I played felt alot more personal than that.

Someday this war's gonna end …

The first thing I noticed was the movement was different. The middle section of the screen with the crosshair features a dead movement area, where you can move the crosshair and not move yourself. When you’re outside of that range, your character turns quite dramatically, taking quite a bit to get used to.

Apparently this engine has been in development for over 10 years, and is based on technologies used in military training and real-world data – ballistics, deflection, material penetration, glowing tracer rounds, etc. And you feel it too, from the way you move, to the time it takes for your bullet to reach its destination, to the way you die.

This is not a game. You get shot once, you go down, and won’t even know where it came from half the time. This is the kind of game that rewards a player for smart, stealthy movements, for using cover and relaying orders to your team. Your weapon load (which looks like an RPG item storage system) makes a huge difference to the way you play the game, and you need to take the terrain and weather into account.

"You get shot once, you go down, and won’t even know where it came from half the time"


One setup had you thrown into the middle of some eastern European town and simply gave you the goal of trying to survive as long as possible. Don’t get killed. That’s your objective.

Graphically it’s hard to pick this early on – for something that features maps over 225 square KM in size, 80 different weapons, 120 playable vehicles and multiplayer with up to 50 players - I’m not expecting a linear Call of Duty level of detail. It looks serviceable enough for a game where the appeal lies in the challenge.

This is not a game.

Any man brave enough to fight with his guts strapped on him can drink from my canteen anyday.