Title ArmA: Armed Assault Date 02.28.2006 Genre FPS, Strategy Platform PC Developer Bohemia Interactive Publisher 505 Games

I'm all for spiritual successors. I love when a brilliant yet relatively unappreciated game spawns sequels made by the original developers. I admire and respect the desire to not only make a great game but to give the dedicated fans what they want. The problem is that most of these efforts are done with a minimal budget and/or timeline; the result is a collection of good ideas marred by poor presentation.

Take Armed Assault, or ArmA. Developed by Bohemia Interactive, the same guys behind Operation Flashpoint, it promotes unmatched realism, fair and impressive AI, and customizable content comparable to PC RPGs. It's fairly likely that the game was designed for multiplayer and for add-ons, and that the single player campaign is more of a training exercise.

Let's talk about that AI. I don't expect much out of bots in general, but I do expect more than this. Sometimes they aim well, but the infantry (and the vehicles, aside from the helicopters) move like idiots. Watch a rifleman go prone, rotate around like a moron instead of letting his partner cover his six, stand up, then immediately go prone again to rotate some more. Occasionally you see some smart design. If you ambush a squad of bots, one or two will try to flank you while the rest offer suppressing fire. However, if a bot has to follow a script, you basically flip a coin to determine if the script will execute correctly or not.

The graphics aren't necessarily bad, but they are very dated. Sure, the grass looks nice, and as long as the textures are loaded up, the environments as a whole look fine. Character models show that higher polygon count is not everything. I have a rather good system, and I was running the game somewhere between 40-50 FPS in combat situations. I feel sorry for the gamers who try to run this game at the recommended settings, where I predict frame-rates in the 20s during intense fights, even on low graphical settings. The characters don't breathe, they don't shuffle or adjust themselves, and they don't even track movement in a moderately realistic fashion. During training, the drill sergeant divided his focus between me and the ground. There has never been in the history of the world an effective sergeant who couldn't look his men in the eyes while barking orders. Now, I don't expect squad-mates to look or act like ones in, say, Rainbow Six Vegas - I understand you must free up some processor cycles when dealing with lots of models - but even simple breathing is something we saw in games like Deus Ex, which was released 8 years ago.

You should also expect little realism when it comes to physics. I don't think I'm demanding too much when I want Havok Physics (or something comparable) in every modern FPS, considering that it's been around for several years. Again, this is like playing a game from the last decade. In one early mission, you can shoot down a patrolling helicopter with an RPG. It's not the easiest shot - the chopper has a shifting flight path, and your rocket has no guidance (obviously). So when you do shoot the chopper down, you'll be stoked until you realize the chopper went down in a straight diagonal line and stopped the instant it touched the dirt. There was no physical reaction from the impact - there was no swaying, no compensation, no spinning, and certainly no skidding once the chopper hit the ground. You just saw a great flash and a descent out of Duck Hunt. It can be argued that the skidding - and especially a furrow of ground - would need to be a scripted event, but this was one of those moments that killed immersion in a game description that screams realism.

I should point out that the variety and selection of weaponry and vehicles is impressive. There's an attention to detail here that not only stands out because other aspects are sub-par, but because it is simply a proper effort. Also, the tools to design your own missions are rather good, and the game can be fun when played with others. I don't necessarily mean to gloss over the positives here - it's just that this game caters to a very specific kind of consumer.

Also, this is before any patches. It's very possible many of these issues will be sorted out, but even so, the need for a patch so early is not good. Right now, this one is for the diehards. If you're a big-time OFP fan, you may find a lot to like in ArmA. For the rest, this is not a game you should buy blind. Definitely try the demo first, and make sure your rig is above even the recommended specs.

Game Score

C

Reviewed By: Contributed