Archief - [ARMA1] Armed Assault : The ultimate combat simulation

A pilot can control the cannon without a gunner. He views a target and just simply pull the trigger on it because the cannon always turns toward as same way as he sees. A pilot can choose and lock on a primary target among many enemies. He just simply see it and lock it on.

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rechtervoet zei:

dus die preview is 0,0000000000000 intresse waard

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Aan de manier waarop ze schrijven, lijkt het mij sowieso niet bepaald een objectieve bron.

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I've been watching her for a few months so far. She was surprising me sometimes, but sometimes she got me bored due to the lack of news. She is not so different from the others, she doesn't put on her 40 tons of make-up pretending to be spectacular and fashionable. She in not a girl next door but the Bohemia Interactive's website. It's been weeks of waiting, reading threw the news, admiring screenshots - the ammount of the news is never sufficient. I've been waiting to put my hands on Armed Assault for a long time. The continuation of my favorite Operation Flashpoint couldn't avoid getting to my hard drive. The version I had opportunity to play in is not final but only a beta promo demo for press. But who cares? I've been waiting for it for so long... The installation of 2GB of files lasted forever. The installation process was using some copy protection tools like StarForce and 3 activation keys. I had to be a bit patient before I could run the aplication.

The Main menu was redesigned. Buttons for particular functions were placed in the bottom, so you can see engine based animations showing soldiers in the middle of the screen. Windows with menus are very simple and clear. Instedad of a green laptop popping here and there we get light grey squares with black and red font. There is a campaign made expecially for the promo version beta test. It contains two single player missions and a tactical screen. The tactical screen shows the current situation on the battlefield for example areas of enemy activity or allied bases. Every place marked on the map can be viewed in a small window with a remote cammera. Thanks to it you can see the terrain and buildings layout you will enocounter during the mission. After familiarising with the tactical screen it is time to read the orders on the mission screen. It was redesigned as well. Again the main point is the clearness of the objectives. The old notebook was abadoned. (something similar to old notebook can be seen on some of the screens - translator's note) Now we have a topographic map with markers and a brown bar with the mission plan on the right. Now it was time to start the game.

The first impression is very positive. It's like someone took Flashpoint and took it to a beautician. The graphics is far supperior to Resistance expansion. But I'll be back to impressions on graphics later. Let's look into the changes in the gameplay. There is really a lot of them. Or even more. The first of all the movement of soldiers in open spaces and in buildings have been improved. Movements are more fluid and natural but when compared to some multiplayer FPS games it is still torpid. Climbing ladders is still a bit difficult but it is due to the lack of some animations. Improvements can be seen in the shooting. The weapon recoil is bigger and when shooting Russians (North Sahrani's soldiers? - translator's note) with M4 you have to have not only a good eye but also a good hand to control the mouse.

The nature of the continuatior of the series was changed a bit. So far the game forced players to fight from the distance. In the first mission of the beta verison I and my squad had to clear a location from the enemy infantry. It reminded me times of Rainbow Six in which in order to eliminate an enemy you had to surprise him from his left or right flank. In Armed Assault it is done in a similar way. The enemy surprised by our attack starts to panic so we can often see him as he's trying to hide in the bushes or seek for his friends support, all happening 25 meters in front of our iron sights. Next to just a general tactics for the mission the tactics used in particular situation by a few men squad becomes important. So we are very likely to see a mix of open spaces battles as well as urban ones. The recreation of lifelike cities, which are slowly begining to shape up in ArmA, is the essence here.

One another change is the way of taking the weapon from the dead enemy. As you all probably remember the player in OFP had to kneel to take it. The whole process of picking it up was taking at least a few seconds. There is no such a thing in Armed Assault. We just approach the body and chose the given option. Then the enemy's weapon instantly appears in our hands. In my opinion the big disadvantage is that you can't crawl fast. This very useful option which was present in the prevous games now dissapeard completely. When you use the run key you're just getting up and become an easy target for enemy. The old habit almost got me killed in some hotter moments.

But the thing I was expecting the most was changes in the way of issuing orders. The previous system was unfriendly and you had to make your way threw more and more of 'trees' of commands. Although the system of commanding in ArmA was much simplified it is still far from being ideal. The first of all the mentioned 'trees' are still there but BIS get rid of some of unused commands and the remaining ones were reordered. This way a new group of commands was created. It is named "Watch" and is useful when patroling and reconing. I have no doubts - controlling is now more comfortable but I was hoping for more intuitive solutions. One another new feature is widely advertised by BIS possibility to change your 'profesion' during the mission. I was a bit sceptical about it at first. The beta version didn't allow for changing your character in any time of the mission but only in the moment predefined by the authors (in mission 2). I could choose sniper or tank gunner. I played both of them and I must admit that I'm begging to like the idea. Fighting in the different areas of warfare is not borring, as a matter of fact it's the opposite. When playing sniper's role we're wipping out Russians (Russians again? - translator's note) from the distance of 400 meters. Noone knows who's shooting and where's he hidding. It is known only by us and our scoped M24. When playing the role of a tank's crewman we are thrown into the heat of the battle on the city's streets. The interesting thing is that playable characters that are not controled by player are controled by AI.

From the other side for not to sound too optimistic it is time to mention the bugs that, I hope, will be eliminated in the final version. The first thing is horrible optimisation. I'm affraid that Bohemia didn't look into cleannig the code so far. The readme file clearly says that the game should run on 256MB of ram. I don't want to even know how it works on such a memory size. The recommended 1GB can also be treated only as a joke. I have 1,5 GB of RAM and I was disgusted when I had to wait for several seconds for all models (including trees and buildings) to be loaded during the playing. I wasn't impressed by simple models that were 'gaining' textures after some time. During the intense action the game was sometimes jaggy on Geforce 6600 GT. I should point here that the level of detail was set on medium. It was also obvious that some of the animations were missing. It is particulary related to climbing obstacles (despite the fact that the option was shown you couldn't use it) and crouching (moving in crouch position looks like iceskating). Some points of the phisics engine weren't finished too. A soldier hit with a gun (high caliber one - translator's note) flew for 200 straight in the air. Bouncing tanks are already known from OFP. BIS assures that those things will be improved.

More bugs could be seen in multiplayer mode which is represented by 3 missions. It allows playing only with bots whose inteligence isn't very good. When I ordered two of my men to get in humvee they simply got on its roof and didn't want to move further. The multiplayer mode allowed me to test the model of driving vehicles. It is better than in Resistance. Driving vehicles is as easy but even more enjoyable. The resaon of this is smoothnes of the terrain which is less 'edgy'. Nice and smooth surface doesn't cause jumps or accidents. It is better in the air too. Flying Littlebird is dynamic and allows a lot of fast maneuvers. The visual side meets my expectactions quite well but there is no revolution there. When set on the lowest details the game looks a bit better than Resistance. By increasing the level of detail I got very good graphics with well done vehicles and characters models. The variety of trees and presence of insects and birds is also noticable. Unfortunately I couldn't enjoy the maximal details for too long because of low FPS rate. Armed Assault is highly customisable (but 320x240 resolution is like a joke) and every player will be able to adjust the level of detail to his PC's speed. The audio side wasn't changed drasticly. We can hear new speeches and environmental sounds but it is nothing more than we already heard in predecessors.

The beta test of Armed Assault didn't knock me onto my knees. The game didn't show its advantages so far but I'm sure that the final version will knock us down. The potential that this title has is enormous. I trust that Bohemia won't fail. The fans have been waiting for a long time but if they want to get a really good product they have to live in the celibacy from virtual war for a bit more. I think that with the help of the community and modmakers Armed Assault will share the reputation of Operation Flashpoint. Only because of that I'm begginig to collect my money for my own copy. It will be a game not for a week nor for a month but for years.

Adam „eJay” Kaczmarek

translated by lendrom aka lecholas

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