Hi Guys,
I'll add my $.02 about ArmA2.
Yes, it's a first person shooter, but if you try treating it like your usual XBox game, you won't last long. The whole ArmA series are more simulator than anything else.
The whole series started with Operation Flashpoint back around 2001, if I recall correctly. Yes, it's pretty open ended. You can lose yourself in a 10 by 10 mile map and simply explore, if so inclined.
Usually, I play on Saturday nights with my two brothers, setting up my own server and we play co-op missions. The main thing with us is to keep the user made mods and addons in synch. There's lots of user made stuff out there, including some full-blown WWII mods.
Lots of our funnest times were some of the Flashpoint missions we used to play. Users have been making the old maps for ArmA2, so I have spent lots of time re-making these for the current game. There's a pretty powerful mission builder along with a whole scripting language, so pretty much anything's possible. I've gotten reasonably good over the years with the language.
The last patch has made the AI very ugly. The computer was already much smarter than Flashpoint, and missions which were easy for us then are almost impossible at times now.
This is probably the only sim where you can, from a first person standpoint, operate on foot while at the same time others are in air, land and water vehicles. (maybe except for the old WWII online, if it still exists).
On one of the maps, you can roam around on the USS Peleliu, named Khe Sanh in this game.
The airplane part of the game really can't compare to a more dedicated sim, but it is good enough. Helicoptors are actually pretty good, in my opinion, though the collective/throttle is combined.
ArmA2, in its first instance, had an Eastern European setting, like Flashpoint did before it. It is fun using a T-34/85, complete with bow gun.
The first ArmA had more of a Latin America feel to it.
I created a town defense mission with US Army troops holding a town along a river against a determined assault by Russian forces. I also added Russian helicoptors + troops to add that third dimension. It's funny how that one mission never plays the same twice. One time they'll roll right over us, and the next we'll stop them easily and their survivors will flee the area.
This can be as real as you want it.
Sorry if this got a bit rambling. I had lots of thoughs after I read this thread.
Ed-
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