Arma2: Operation Arrowhead

[Stark]

Well I'd say that being a 'spiritual successor' is totally irrelevant if someone is asking what is the better game, but that's just me. He's otherwise right; OFP2 is a slightly tactical shooter, ARMA2 is a bland soldier simulator. There's no real reason to play OFP2 over any of the tactical shooters, but if you want a game like ARMA2 you have to play shit.

[Steel]

Arma2 has a larger scale than BC2 and is a successor to OFP.

What does this even mean?

Yes, slightly unclear.

I meant that it has a larger physical scale eg tank battles and sniping can happen at 2000m instead of 200m and you'll have more units on the field. Also while it might not deliver what 8 years of development could have delivered in terms of improvements over OFP, they have made some improvements and kept the core of what the flashpoint series was trying to do, unlike OFP2 which took out all the features.

I wasn't meaning 'spiritual' successor as in where the devs went or anything like that, I meant successor as in it actually does what the original game did, just more.

[Stark]

By comparison OFP2 was Rainbow Six :Farm.

[Steel]

By comparison OFP2 was Rainbow Six :Farm.

That said, I am disappointed that OFP2 wasn't better. Surely they could manage to do a better job seeing as they have more resources and weren't trying to pander to the most rabid fans and could make the needed changes and ditch backwards compatibility to fix things...

[Zixinus]

The thing is that choosing between OP2 and Arma2 is like triyng to choose between a turd and a boal of piss.

Pick whichever sounds more appropriate to the game.

Meanwhile, I am tempted to say, and I think I might end up saying something more useful, just get Crysis: Gold edition (or Far Cry 2 or some other milwaking title that doesn't suck) or something like that. There is no reason to limit yourself to two games with what the real question is: which one is less fun?

Seriously, Crysis and Far Cry are less realistic but they are much more fun.

OP2 is is nothing but a cash-in but might actually work somewhat. Arma 2 tries to be greatly realistically and probably ends up playing worse than what a real soldier is: after all, in the real world, you can usually communicate with your comrades. In Arma 2, you are just a moving target between various faceless, interchangable soldiers yelling jargon and doing all the work you should be doing in the better case, doing nothing really productive in a normal case and doing everything they can to make you die in a worse case.

What's sad that I recall that there were some subtle attempts at improving the GUI: for example, there were supposed to be white and red dots on the edge of your screen, simulating peripheral vision. However, in Arma 2 it was buggy, sometimes didn't even work and was barely noticeable.
So, in the studio, someone actually realised and managed to pull trough the realization that the interface sucks and needs improvements. Yet that guy is probably only allowed limited reign for the sake of a horrible "perfect" interface from previous games.

[Stark]

Steel touched on that earlier; ARMA2 is a balls-out soldier simulator for nerds that is clunky and messy. OFP2 is... a typical modern tactical shooter ... but for nerds and clunky and messy.

Warhead or Farcry2 are good, but they're not going to work for the tiny fat nerd REEL SOULJA GAMZ audience these games have, where any statistical inaccuracy 'ruins' the 'game' but a mess of bugs is fine.

EDIT - Call me crazy, but I find the confusion and atmosphere you get from 'regular' games like Gears or BC2 or even Far Cry 2 have a great sense of 'battle ness' going on now that I sit next to a 300W subwoofer. I think that adds more atmosphere and immersion than any amount of DDOFFer and forward assist buttons and commanders cupolas.

[Edward Yee]

DDOFFer?? Haven't played the Crysis games, though I could be for console... on desktop, though, fuhgeddaboudit. Far Cry 2 is interesting in concept, but never really caught my eye as a must-have.

[Zixinus]

DDOFFer?? Haven't played the Crysis games, though I could be for console... on desktop, though, fuhgeddaboudit.

Wait, you can play Arma 2 fine but you think that you won't be able to play Crysis?

[Edward Yee]

The main reason I'd play Crysis would be to have my mind BLOWN by what it looks like on max graphics...

[Stark]

Do you have expectations about crysis? It really doesn't look that good. Warhead is a fine game regardless

[CaptHawkeye]

Crysis looks good until you see the recycled Far Cry textures and -20 FPS drop from the shitty volumetric effects.