So I played the ArmA 2 demo

[Vympel]

It felt a lot more like Operation Flashpoint than the ass-tastic ArmA.

However, it was still damn hard. I often found myself getting shot by assholes I can't see. There's also an annoying motion blur effect - with nothing in the options to turn it off (I despise motion blur).

I didn't find any bugs and it seemed to run well in the first mission I played, with no noticeable slowdown even though I was running it pretty high (1920x1200 on my 22' monitor, very high textures and object detail).

How many times has ArmA 2 been patched since? I might push up my planned purchase of it.

[JointStrikeFighter]

Just wAit for flashpoint 2 you git.

[Vympel]

Just wAit for flashpoint 2 you git.

I can have both.

Also, I forgot to mention how incredibly AWFUL the voice-acting is for ArmA2. I mean wow. The cadence and the inflection of the player character's speech in the helicopter in the first demo mission is unbelievably off, and when injured the noises/ grunts/ comments you make sound so incredibly Eastern European as to produce LOLs.

[JointStrikeFighter]

Just wAit for flashpoint 2 you git.

I can have both.

Also, I forgot to mention how incredibly AWFUL the voice-acting is for ArmA2. I mean wow. The cadence and the inflection of the player character's speech in the helicopter in the first demo mission is unbelievably off, and when injured the noises/ grunts/ comments you make sound so incredibly Eastern European as to produce LOLs.

Awful VA in a Flashpoint game? Colour me shocked vymp

[weemadando]

The first mission in the game has you clearing a village where war crimes are going on:

"There's a woman. She has. Been attacked."
"TWO! RETURN TO. FORMATION!"

"I've found a mass grave. This is. Horrible."
"TWO! WHERE ARE YOU?"
"Command, I've got a mass grave here, looks like civilians."
"TWO! RETURN TO. FORMATION!"
"OK soldier, that's the evidence we were looking for."
"UNKNOWN! MAN! IN! OBLRIAINXHZ!"
"I'm heading on to the next objective now."
"TWO! RETURN TO. FORMATION!"

That voice acting totally kills the mood. Here I am in what should be moments of stoicism and horror as I rescue hostages, rape victims and uncover horrific evidence and any break in the "story" dialogue is filled with my commander yelling pointless shit at me.

Also awesome - if you fly the Pchela-1 UAV and look "down" you can see that all they've done is shoved a soldier model in there with his head where the camera would be. You look down out of hte drone's camera port and there's just a soldier sitting there. It doesn't appear in the external view, but it's damn sure there on the first person.

The pilot AI is fucking awful. I've seen more planes and choppers taken down by that hill that crept up on them than by AAA. And when your fucking evac chopper resolutely refuses to land and you can't finish a mission? Fuck that.

That said, messing about in the editor is as fun as always and the combatant AI seems the best I've played since some of the serious AI mods from the OFP days.

AND WHERE THE FUCK ARE MY FUCKING DISPLAY OPTIONS? At least I'm one of the fortunate ones who hasn't encountered the glitch of "motion blur=1" ALWAYS. Even standing still everything is blurred.

I'm still hanging out for OFP2 though. If they can get the balance of a good tactical shooter while still being fun and open then they're onto a fucking winner.

[Vympel]

Here's hoping Codemasters delivers the polish and presentation that completely eludes Bohemia Interactive, then. I mean really, this is basic stuff, and it's just ghastly. How are you supposed to get engrossed in what's going on if the presentation is so shite?

[Zixinus]

Voice acting is a always a last minute thing for most developers, and with some reason. I recall that audio studios (the room) charge by the minute, so if the developers are renting, they want it done as quickly as possible. Good voice actors are expensive as well, so they'll probably get their friends and relatives, if not the cheapest voice actors they can find.

As for why they ignored such a graling problem: I have a theory that all eastern-European and Russian studios are philosophically opposed to the notion of quality control or even throughout playtesting. I recall the same problem with STALKER: great ideas, but poor testing and bugs up the ass make all the effort worthless.

[Laughing Mechanicus]

It's funny that Bohemia Studios avoided these problems in the past by simply having campaigns that were mostly "Go here kill this, now go here kill this" encounters with little dialogue. I dimly recall that in OFP the only times I thought they even approached interesting dialogue were when the player had no AI partners.

The funny part is, of course, that they obviously didn't even realise it themselves - which means the uninspiring campaigns in previous games have not been some attempt to cover engine flaws, it is just the best they could do.

I also am hopeful Codemasters does a good job on Operation Flashpoint 2 as Bohemia Studios so completely missed the point of what made OFP fun and instead chose grognard madness.

Voice acting is a always a last minute thing for most developers, and with some reason.

They can hardly hide behind that excuse because of the nature of the voice commands in ArmA - all spoken sentences are dynamically generated by stitching together single recorded words/phrases. It is not as if they were un-aware they would need the phrases "enemy", "man" and "200m" until late into the project.

[Singular Intellect]

I was seriously considering buying this game to tie me over until OFP2 got out, but I'm getting the impression I shouldn't bother.

[Stark]

It's funny that Bohemia Studios avoided these problems in the past by simply having campaigns that were mostly "Go here kill this, now go here kill this" encounters with little dialogue. I dimly recall that in OFP the only times I thought they even approached interesting dialogue were when the player had no AI partners.

What's funny about what Ando is saying is that they are just too stupid to suppress the normal squad chatter during missions. It may not even be POSSIBLE to do so!

What a pack of idiots.

OFP2 looks sufficiently different (ie, going for the CoD style instead of the simulationist OBVIOUS COMMANDERS CUPOLA market) that I'm not sure they're particularly comparable. I'm going to replay Far Cry 2 on 360.

[Laughing Mechanicus]

What's funny about what Ando is saying is that they are just too stupid to suppress the normal squad chatter during missions. It may not even be POSSIBLE to do so!

Well, 3 games into the series you would think they might have taken the time to add a "SUPRESS NON-SCRIPTED DIALOGUE FOR X SECONDS" trigger in the editor. Then again, they can't waste time on irrelevant rubbish like that or they might not have had enough time to research the M4 SOCKMOD MK. XII mod.0 rifle on wikipedia.

[PeZook]

Hell, you can easily work around it. OFP 1 had scripting commands that allowed you to temporarily detach the PC from his squad, and attach him back later.

Though I do not recall ever having problems with scripted audio comning up in cutscenes. It's entirely possible they saw the problem and made the game automatically cut it off.

...and then failed to do so in Arma2?

Hell, it's not like you need thorough playtesting to recognize such a huge, glaring problem...

[chitoryu12]

So, I've got the weirdest glitch. All the gameplay (including the background of the main menu) has smoke or clouds over it, like someone dropped a smoke grenade at my feet. Lowering the brightness and increasing the view distance barely helped, and it makes the game so laggy it's completely unplayable. The troubleshooting section on the main forum was useless as well.

[Commander 598]

I don't recall encountering any problem with the dialogue in that mission.

[weemadando]

Hell, you can easily work around it. OFP 1 had scripting commands that allowed you to temporarily detach the PC from his squad, and attach him back later.

Though I do not recall ever having problems with scripted audio comning up in cutscenes. It's entirely possible they saw the problem and made the game automatically cut it off.

...and then failed to do so in Arma2?

Hell, it's not like you need thorough playtesting to recognize such a huge, glaring problem...

It's not in cutscenes, it's in gameplay that this is happening. And it's fucking annoying.

[PeZook]

Ah, I see. Still, I don't recall such incidents in OFP.

[weemadando]

Ah, I see. Still, I don't recall such incidents in OFP.

That's because in OFP they didn't have as much radio chatter and the conversations with HQ etc were generally big uninterruptable audio blocks if I recall, rather than short transmissions which are interspersed with the general radio chatter which is much, much more prevalent.

[Steel]

Ah, I see. Still, I don't recall such incidents in OFP.

That's because in OFP they didn't have as much radio chatter and the conversations with HQ etc were generally big uninterruptable audio blocks if I recall, rather than short transmissions which are interspersed with the general radio chatter which is much, much more prevalent.

OFP had this problem too as I recall. The radio could interrupt the scripted stuff in some missions, and in OFP that meant the scripted transmission restarted. Massively annoying.

HQ: Ok now-
SQUAD: 4! Whereareyou!
HQ: Ok now we're-
SQUAD: 3! Returnto! formation!
HQ: Ok-
SQUAD: Ohno! 4!!! Isdown!
...

[weemadando]

Well at least they've fixed that part of the problem...

[Sea Skimmer]

http://www.gogamer.com/viewproduct.htm? ... d=73295699

Figured I’d throw this here, Arma 2 for only 38 US dollars. This is the largest discount I have seen for it.

[Steel]

http://www.gogamer.com/viewproduct.htm? ... d=73295699

Figured I’d throw this here, Arma 2 for only 38 US dollars. This is the largest discount I have seen for it.

Arma 2 is currently £22.50 on amazon.co.uk which translates to... 38$US. I havent bought it yet, but I'm thinking if I'm actually going to get it I'll wait a bit longer as with the other games theres been lots of patches/fixes/mods that are much better than the first release and the price should drop quite a bit more in the near(ish) future.

[Edward Yee]

Here's hoping that such patches/fixes are included in (later) release versions of ArmA II, now that I won't be getting it through GameStop or Newegg (apparently both pulled the game from retail).

[Artemas]

Hey vympel,

is it possible to power-slide a BMP-2 in real life?

Because drifting around corners in an afv is hilarious.

[Sea Skimmer]

Any decently fast tracked vehicle can do power slides, including 70 ton main battle tanks. You can find videos of tanks doing it on youtube. The physics in Arma however rather exaggerates the distance you could realistically expect to cover.

[Artemas]

Yeah, it really stands out when the wheeled vehicles can't do it though.

Also, yay for dying in cutscenes again!