ARMED ASSAULT - GR.NET PLAYERS PERSPECTIVE.

[Lightspeed]

I value the opinions of ArmA by GR.Net members over the opinions of Game Promoters like GameSpot or IGN etc., and from players who were never GR fans. The GR fans know what we like from a game, and so I thought a thread where GR.Net members who own the game and have played it, should post there opinions for the rest of us.

I'll start by pasting Waika's thread here, a GR.Net member who d/loaded the game and played it:

Waika Today, 09:42 PM Post #12

Recruit - 1st Class

Group: Members

Posts: 187

Joined: 20-January 06

Member No.: 9,545

There are bugs, sure, but none of them are deal breakers like we've seen in the last two so called "AAA" PC Clancy games (Lockdown & GRAW) that make the game completely unplayable, or so dull to play you wish it would crash again for a little excitement...

The Fan made English patch (Thank You SickBoy!) is a very high caliber Mod and localizes the game to English to a professional/commercial standard using the same game features Publishers will use to localize the game; SickBoy and friends really did a bang-up job!

The only potential sore spot (for some) is the download server is in Europe and is under heavy load; so for those off the European continent downloads can be slow, and a bit flaky. The good news is the download site will work with most any download manager which can speed things along greatly.

At forty-two Euro; Armed Assault is not cheap; but it has more features, bells & whistles, and game-play of the kind I feature most people patronizing this forum have been looking for in a 'next-gen' squad tactical shooter then anything before it, and anything on the visible event horizon.

Armed Assault may not be as aesthetically polished in the regards Clancy Fans may be expecting from a 'next-gen' game; but if you have to look at what it offers with regard to LSS scale, vehicles, physics, destructible code, terrain, game modes, armament... Summarily Armed Assault is a game-design tour de force any way you look at it, that couldn't look much better then it does given what it has to render -- if you're looking at it in any full-context manner.

I'll be the first to admit the game's not perfect, but even if the bugs it rolls with are never fixed (the first patch was already released and some of them have been) the game is great fun, and I'll have logged many, many hours of funzo before it formally hits the English speaking market...

In my humble opinion, Armed Assault is as close as it has come to being all things to all Fans of this genre, and the best part is: anything you don't like you can mod. Out of the box Armed Assault is more mod capable then any Clancy game was or likely ever will be -- even after the months and/or years of waiting for Ubsoft's deliberately broken and crippled MDKs. And Armed Assault's planed tools, not to mention community tools that have already appeared just raise the bar even higher!

I suppose if you're the impatient, irritable sort that screams in frustration at aesthetic or game-play warts that ruins your illusion of 'realism' -- you might be frustrated with Armed Assault and regard it as 'unfinished'. But Armed Assault is by design a Tactical Realism Sandbox, a mod platform, and a great commercial game that already has new content available every day, and will be a work in progress until no one is playing it -- likely more then a decade hence.

Highly recommended and worth every penny!

thanx Waika.

Edited December 4, 2006 by PoW_LigHtsPeEd

[pz3]

Bugs... yes

Glitches... yes

slow fps on max.... yes

FUBAR version of flashpoint .... no

This game has its bugs it has its errors and some down right stupid flaws but when it all comes to an end this game is a perfect balance of new version of an old game.

Why cant RSE/GRIN/UBI figure this out????? Because they are money machines targeting 14 year old kids.

Nuff said.

I will be purchasing a German version soon. My full version "demo" wont hold me over for long. Must kill real people.

Edited December 5, 2006 by Prozac360

[ROCO*AFZ*]

Bugs... yes

Glitches... yes

slow fps on max.... yes

FUBAR version of flashpoint .... no

This game has its bugs it has its errors and some down right stupid flaws but when it all comes to an end this game is a perfect balance of new version of an old game.

Why cant RSE/GRIN/UBI figure this out????? Because they are money machines targeting 14 year old kids.

Nuff said.

I will be purchasing a German version soon. My full version "demo" wont hold me over for long. Must kill real people.

Question... will the localized english (non company released) version effect you patching it...?

I'll probably pick it up for some fun games when it hit the US if not, but i doubt it will become our clans focus.

[pz3]

uhm.... not sure.

unisntall reinstall probly required.

Edited December 5, 2006 by Prozac360

[Waika]

Thanks PoW_LigHtsPeEd, my windy post wasn't intended to be a comprehensive review, but more as a response to knee-jerk reaction... Armed Assault is a truly massive game, with more toys, features and open-ended game-play opportunity (with even more on the way as you read this) then most will get their heads (or skills) around for months, or even years to come.

Many strong and negative first reactions are just like what we saw when Ghost Recon was first released; based on misunderstanding, people struggling with a new learning curve, frustration that their PC can't render the game on maximum settings like some can, or doesn't look the way they want it to based on their pet game aesthetic.

One thing that Armed Assault has made me very aware of is how much; marketing, advertising, packaging, and slick production have transcended substance in realism gaming, and how much that has influenced me. We have new Clancy titles that advertise themselves as 'next gen tactical realism' that have less play sophistication then some of the earliest FPS arcade shooters.

Slick marketing advertising, packaging, hype and brain numbing eye candy do lend a superficial sense of quality, sense of something solid, and that you got a lot of bang for your buck -- but did you? I'm not so sure... Lockdown and GRAW were nicely produced games, but I didn't play the two combined as much nor enjoy them as much as any Clancy game that came before them...

Armed Assault by comparison has been very modestly promoted, has a slew of features any one of which were it to appear in an Ubisoft game we'd be hearing about it like it was Nobel Prize candidate game design innovation; the BI Developers don't represent themselves as self-congratulatory rock stars and the final authorities of 'how to do game-design the right way'... In fact the BI Developers are rather modest and even aloof of attention, and it's amazing that a commercial Development Team that interacts with it's Fans so little has so obviously listened to them so much, and clearly worked so hard to give Fans what they ask for.

I'm not a Armed Assault 'Fan Boy', and will never be an apologist for the flaws the game does actually have; it's just a game that's sound and a lot of fun from a Developer that clearly has a very honest and results oriented approach to building games the way I think most Tactical Realism Fans will appreciate. But by every and all means make your own decision before you buy; measure everyone's criticism and laud by what you personally value in a game.

I'd be very surprised to learn that anyone here that likes Ghost Recon, the R6 games, Red Orchestra, and even more arcady games like Battlefield 2 didn't like Armed Assault. Most certainly there are games that do specific things better then Armed Assault -- how could it be otherwise? But Armed Assault is so completely open-ended, from game-play, to server configuration, to it's bottomless mod-ability; it's hard to imagine a specific want or perceived need Armed Assault can't satisfy given time and a little effort -- everything we need is there, now, and not just some marketing promise...

Question... will the localized english (non company released) version effect you patching it...?

I'll probably pick it up for some fun games when it hit the US if not, but i doubt it will become our clans focus.

If you mean will SickBoy's English localization patch/mod break future official patches? The answer is unknown... But SickBoy & Company are ahead of the curve; their patch makes a back-up of everything it changes, so if there's any problem applying official patcyes -- it's just an extra step to make everything work, and the word is that there will eventually be an official English patch...

Edited December 5, 2006 by Waika

[Sup]

.

Why cant RSE/GRIN/UBI figure this out????? *Are making fun videogames instead of trying to appeal to minuscule niche markets

Seriously though, if I had a computer that could run games AA would be my first priority. I'm really hoping there will be a US release, and maybe some financial success to encourage more developers to work in the PC tactical shooter market.

[pz3]

if that was ment as a joke it sucked.

Just because it might be a niche market does not make it a non profitable one.

When you have guys talking about buying german copies just to play it I think they did somthing right dont you?

Hell theres almost more people playing this "niche" market game online now then GRAW pc ????? this still is only released in 2 countries so far?

and get back to me where the fun is on graw pc.... or R6:LD.

Edited December 5, 2006 by Prozac360

[Foxtrot360]

Well Prozac, although I agree with you, it appears we are all wrong with the exception of the almighty God of Knowledge himself, who has made his presence known in this thread.

I will try to get ArmA one of these days, as soon as I see the requirements.

Edited December 5, 2006 by Foxtrot360

[Sup]

When you have guys talking about buying german copies just to play it I think they did somthing right dont you?

All six of us? Ubsioft must be terrified.

[Lightspeed]

lol Sup - you're always fun to have on board -

[Sup]

lol Sup - you're always fun to have on board -

I wish I was on board. If I had a better computer I'd be saying you all had very narrow definitions of what made a good game while playing your narrow definition of a very good game with you.

[Poita]

'full game demo' ha ha. Nice euphemism.

BI don't need to worry though. We will treat that as a demo only and buy the game for sure as soon as we are able.

I'm still gonna buy the game and i dont even know at what level if at all my specs can run it on.

AMD XP2.4ghz, 1 gig ram, Geforce 7600GT.

I was tempted to go for the downloadable version but i only trust steam.

I think BI must have got screwed by *edited* as they bailed sans the opflash name. So they must be gunshy about getting into bed with other sharks.

Weird that publishers arn't breaking their doors down considering the rabid support for Opflash by the community.

I heard all the missions from OpFlash can be ported to AA so there will be no end of content for the game.

My guess and great hope is that the AA code will be optimised to hell by the time it gets released in other countries.

I really like using this site. Any chance we can get Rocky and co to drop GRAW and change the site name to AA.net and just continue as if AA is GR2.

Please respect the word and the intent of the rules regarding inappropriate language. Thanks!

Edited December 8, 2006 by Dannik

[Whisper_44]

I downloaded from the German option, patched it to English with that "mod". No issues, and if you can handle the German News broadcast, it's a quality game.

I'm running a P4 2.4Ghz 1024MBRAM, RADEON 9700PRO 128MB (Soon to have an X800) - the game is quite playable on my rig now at 1024x768, Normal Details. I expect to do better when the X800 comes through.

[Lightspeed]

great to hear that whiper re: specs.

i thought my rig might not handle ArmA, but my system is substantially more powerful then yours at present.

btw, who are you playing with...just you or are there others?

[Zebb]

I did the same thing and its been running just fine, there are quite a few people now who have gone down the same route so there always a server up somewhere, there are a few screenies over here of our latest games if you want to see what it looks like...

http://red-sector.com/forums/index.php?sho...amp;#entry47385

[Foxtrot360]

Thats good to hear, I have a Nvidia GeForce 6600 GT, 1024 MB RAM and a 2.4 GHz Pentium 4 so I am pretty close to Whisper's specs other than my video card which is somewhere between a ATI 9800 and a Nvidia 6800 GT.

Should run fine =).

[Lightspeed]

off topic but I had a sparkle 6600 at the start of this year - beautiful card it was - if Whispers doing ok with his card, you should be great.

[arrowsmile]

Bugs that are in the game .

http://www.armedassault.eu/forum/viewthrea...id=698&pid=

http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Armed_Assault:_Bugs_List#

The game is not playable on many systems.

I would waite before buying.-

I have German version patched, too many problems to list see above.

[Lightspeed]

although its a big list of bugs - most of those seem minor to me.

easily fixed and not game wreckers - did u try GRAw...lol?

now that was a wreck of a game.

[Wille]

Why cant RSE/GRIN/UBI figure this out????? Because they are money machines targeting 14 year old kids.

I resent that!Im well on my way to 24

[CrowmanUK]

And i'm so far past 14 its not funny anymore

[Whisper_44]

btw, who are you playing with...just you or are there others?

Currently nobody, but mostly due to my schedule, there are a couple of us over at |RE| that went the German route (Warden Mac, being relatively local to me, Zebb, as he pointed out the RSi crew) when Mac gets it sorted, we'll likely be running some games, this title was to be our (|RE|) new team title (We run mostly VBS1 now), but with the limited distribution that's dampened that plan a bit.

Reading the list of bugs, some of these I never would consider a bug, maybe it's just me, but it seems that folks are expecting the world from developers these days (BIS/Grin), while some bugs on that list may be troublesome/inconvenient, none in my opinion are deal breakers. I can play this game to my standards, admittedly with less eye candy than some, but it's still enjoyable. I can't say the same for GRAW (Not bashing GRAW at all, I like the game, it won't however play well on my hampster driven machine, that's my problem, not theirs). I also think that coming from the VBS1 perspective, and playing that title to death for the last 16-18 months, I like what I got in ArmA, to me it's more VBS1-like than OFP. So to a degree, I am used to it already.

Your Mileage may Vary!!

I'm way past 14 as well!!

[Lightspeed]

no offense Wille...i luve you man.

[Rubleman]

Hey Whisper and Crowman, which game types do you play in Armed Assault and which servers? Looks like I will be buying the German version this weekend as this game is awesome (after trying out some of the game play) and runs well on my machine - really as expected, as I remember trying to run OFP when it came out on my P3 800, with a Voodoo5 pci card. Took a couple of years and a few upgrades to run OFP in its full glory, but the game had life, and still does. I expect nothing less of Armed Assault also.

Edited December 8, 2006 by Rubleman

[Poita]

My system is

AMD 2.4 XP.

1 gig ram.

GeForce 7600GT.

How do you think AA will run for me?

Also, is it safe to download it. I mean, if the provider goes under will we still be able to run the game and update it?