It was incredibly buggy, in fact, and I gather that
ArmA was too. I'm reading some very interesting things about
ArmA II, though, and it looks like they're doing quite a lot of good patching now, and continued support is still happening (including at least one free mini-campaign that's releasing with the next patch). Apparently the engine they're using is one that's been developed for some US military training stuff? I'm not too clear on it, but one guy has a big write-up about it on Amazon:
I've been involved with COMPUTER combat simulations since 1988 at Lawrence Livermore National Lab for the US Army (LLNL has produced two simulations of their own, JANUS and JCATS-these are non-commercial; for use by the armed services and other government agencies) and have added 12 years on since military retirement as a contract employee on Battalion and Brigade simulation exercises; toiling as a database manager to create these large scale exercises. Earlier this year, Bohemia Interactive won an Army contract to roll out "Game After Ambush" based on the newer Virtual Battlespace2 (VBS2) engine to train soldiers in Squad/Platoon leadership actions before taking these soldiers to the field at 53 locations worldwide (including mine). ARMAII uses this same engine and shares a host of similarities that I'm commenting on. (I own ArmAII and work/play on both VBS2 games many hours weekly).
As a SIMULATION - the ArmAII game (which I own and play at home)is very similar to what I deal with at work. Weapons,rendering of people, terrain and structures is as good as anything the Army has right now. To be clear, I'm a systems Admin and training instructor - not a 'player', and can comment only on what Bohemia has taught us so far as system administrators - plus the home discovery learning recently taking place. The editing capability is indeed world class, as we construct training scenarios, using maps that correlate to our larger "Federation of Simulations" to create as accurate and realistic a training environment as possible. Buildings and terrain deform realistically and blood flows as personnel become casualties. Doppler sound effects are all too realistic - radio traffic is indeed 'lame'.
We also create scripts and waypoints in the 'instruction sets' for demonstration purposes to show our junior leaders what 'right' might look like in interpreting an operations order. Many of our 'trainees' are just back from combat and we are compiling a list of suggestions to improve obvious and not so obvious faults or shortcomings in the VBS2 engine/simulation. Patches will be available as quickly as they can be programmed into code and tested. I have no idea how quickly this will pass to the ARMAII game world.
The Army community has already established a forum and repository to add new equipment, maps, etc and I hope major parts of this will also find its way into the commercial version to add to the simulations enjoyment.
As a GAME - many here in this discussion can compare their first person shooter experience where I honestly cannot with other products. With certainty - there were/are soldiers already playing the original ARMA (as well as other games)and the opportunity for our uniformed young men and women to officially participate in this type training is looked forward to by the US Army/Army Reserve and National Guard. (run around in the field with 100 lbs being carried on your back, hot/humid/cold/freezing, terrible food, etc - or slap on the earphones in an airconditioned environment and 'get it going') which would you prefer? We still send them to the field - but now they know what right looks like before they go.
Hardware demands for VBS2 are moderately steep. We were fielded HP 17" laptops, INTEL quadcore 2.5gh speed chipsets, 4 gb on the motherboard, 1 gb on a discreet video card and 2 - 500gb hard drives powered by Vista. We never stressed the the hardware too much in class - but a shared video memory on your low end home machine won't cut it. There WAS lag as we approached the entity limit - as well as combat that rendered multiple exposions and heavy smoke. What you can accept as gamer performance may have more to do with your purse or wallet than the VBS2 software.
For home use, I recently purchased an ASUS CG series - INTEL 2.5 gh quadcore, 8 gb on the motherboard, 1 gb on the discreet videocard and a 750 gb (7200rpm) harddrive. The laptop handles almost all situations - occasional bogging as we approach the entity limit (in a local network environment). My home computer is better in that the increased memory seems better utilized. I make no hardware recommendations for VBS2 - other than don't fall too far below recommeded hardware standards.
As noted by other reviews - we also got a couple scripting/software errors - experienced by field engineers in class. Patches - hopefully will find their way to the commercial VBS2 environment soonest.
The VBS1/VBS2 environment has been utilized for a longer time by the Australian, British Amries, the US Marine Corps and now the US Army. The US Army's effort is currently in a building stage - with only about 60% of sites recieving New Equipment Training as of this date.
This is a departure for the Army training environment - our troops - unofficially have been doing it for years and now should get an official great training experience.
The views expressed are my own - and do not represent those of the US Army, DOD or Bohemia Interactive or any participant companies...
Gamers have told us to wait for the patches or a follow on commercial game using VBS2.
I personally enjoy the creative construction and editing - and indeed - as an old soldier - find the action realistc, compelling and totally immersive. As one who can't wait - I'm glad I made the purchase.
There's a very positive review at GSpot, stating that the game itself is quite good, has a good story, adds in some moral choices, and really works hard to give you a big, unscripted world, but the bugs and difficulty were problematic. Looks like the patches have fixed a ton of stuff, so hopefully by now it would be a lot more playable.
This would be great, because I've been hoping a great military sim would come along for a while now. I don't generally get into military games on a regular basis, but that's mostly because few of them are even close to sims. Some find that sort of thing boring, but I find it really interesting.
OpFlash was a terrible game in a lot of ways, but it was also something pretty special. After all this
MW, I'm really craving something with more realism.
