Have you ever wondered how would it be like to be that single unit in an epic Real Time Strategy game battle? Do you often wondered how cool it would be to be a single unit in a large battle that rages on? Well ArmA 2 answers that questions and delivers more. With the demo available now, I gave it a spin and wrote down my thoughts.
The ArmA 2 demo which you can get here or here, is quite a content heavy demo that gives you a lot. It’s a beefy 3GB download but well worth it if you are interested in a serious shooter. For the uninitiated, ArmA 2 is a realistic military simulation that unlike shooter like Call of Duty, is a much slower paced game.
Instead of running and gunning, ArmA 2 forces a methodical tactical approach to fire fights. A single shot can wound you and put you out of the action or even kill you. What the series has been known is the amazing atmosphere it creates as realistic battles are recreated. The whir of tanks, the shouts of your squads, or the annoying sound of that helicopter gunship over you. It’s all very surreal and like those clips of warzones on TV.
Playing through the tutorials in the demo(which there are 5 different tutorials to give you a good low down) will give you a good idea of what ArmA 2 is aiming for. The tutorials are useful in getting you acclimatised to the controls. In case you didn’t know ArmA 2 also includes controls for helicopters and land vehicles(yes you can jump in them ala Battlefield).
The levels in ArmA 2 takes place in open world maps that are pretty dynamic. I was surprised during a tutorial level where I was actually ambushed by insurgents(in a tutorial mission!). This happens a lot in ArmA 2 and it is situations like this that truly differentiates this title from other first person shooters.
Once you’ve got used to the controls and all the different mechanics of the game(which you probably will take a while to get used to) you can hop on two scenarios included in the demo. The first one a Marines operation and the second one see a land force taking over a small town.
The scenarios are relatively short but offer a lot of replayability since things don’t always pan out the same way twice in ArmA II. Once you’re done with them, there is an editor in the demo that allows you to build your own small scenarios. Yes, in what looks like a first, Bohemia Interactive included an editor in a demo.
The editor is pretty basic and a little rough in the demo but demonstrates a lot of potential and I’m sure many in the community will recreate real world military scenarios using this. Looking at past records, it looks like ArmA II will have a dedicated community that will create custom content for the game.
If that isn’t enough, ArmA II demo comes with a multiplayer portion. The multiplayer of the game utilises Gamespy multiplayer service and the demo has 2 maps that you can try out. Frankly I have never seen a demo pack so much stuff. But its really apt since ArmA II really is that huge and the fact that the devs have seen it to fit all these into the demo is commendable.
Make no mistake that ArmA II it still pretty hard to get into and will require quite some effort and determination to learn all the components in it and the long list of keyboard shortcuts. Many functions are only available from the keyboard, there is no fancy User Interface to wrap everything in the game.
ArmA II depends on your willingness to put up with its unintuitive UI to commands squads or even entire platoons(that’s the level of control you have, if you learn the hotkeys that is). If you do, you will discover a game that manages to convincingly build an amazing gameplay environment that in my humble opinion is unsurpassed as the most realistic depiction of modern warfare in a video game.
PS: The demo doesn’t include any missions from the single player campaign which I hear is quite good.
Do check out the demo
