Arma 2 is the most realistic shooter on the market, but after so many time wasted on playing it...
And now you ask me, why do I give it an 6.5, well... let's find out.
Gameplay:
Arma 2 somehow deliver's on this aspect. Arma 2 is hard to master, after all, this tittle tries to be the most realistic tactical shooter on the market. I've played Operation Flash Point, Arma, and Arma 2, and by far, Arma 2 is the most complete experience in therms of Gameplay. It's solid but not that much responsive. While the weapons have some weight on them and the shooting have some great punch of realism and feeling, the animations are sluggish and some times even broken. The character's animation suffer's from the same problem's, the character's have some poor animation's and sometimes the control's are not that responsive. But what really makes the gameplay shine is the realism. Bohemia interactive knows very well on how to make the player get lost in the game with such high realism, your character reacts in different ways to injuries, the player must know how to advance and defend tactically and how to shoot with precision. This helps to put the player immersed in the experience, every movement feel's real and very intense because the player knows that one single shoot can make the difference. Arma 2 is on my top 10 most intense games that I've ever played. The menus are simple and the inventory system works perfectly good. The multiplayer is great on this game, everything I said before is inserted in both Multiplayer and SinglePlayer, But all this gameplay aspects only shine in the Multiplayer, simply because the A.I in the Single Player is very weak. But the Multiplayer can get frustrating, there are a lot of Bugs, Glitches and Crashes (This also applies to the game overall) and the anti hacker system is horrible.
Pros:
. Realistic and very Immersive Gameplay;
. Very intense and realistic battles;
. Great and Fun Multiplayer;
. Simple and useful Menus and Inventory System;
Neg:
. Sluggish and Broken animation's;
. Game filled with Bugs, Glitches and Crashes;
. Weak A.I;
. Control's not that much responsive;
Graphics:
Arma 2 has some sweet looking graphics and some great and natural alive settings, but nothing more. The views and sights are beautiful and breath taking on this game, but like the gameplay aspect, there are some heavy weight issues that break the game entirely. The first, and the most game breaker, is the graphics engine itself, it's bad... really bad... it's not well optimized, there are frequent frame drop's here and there and lot of times the players glitches on the map. The engine also does not seem to react that well on impact.
Pros:
. Beautiful and Breath taking visuals;
. The world feel's alive with a lot of wild life;
Neg:
. Poorly Optimized Game Engine;
. Poor Physics;
. Bad Frame Rates;
. A lot of Graphical Glitches;
Audio and Soundtrack:
Well... what can I say, the soundtrack is not that great but the sound design is Amazing. The player can really feel and distinct every weapon sound. The weapons or explosion sounds pumps up, even more, the immersion of the player into the game. The Sound Design has an deep impact on the player ears. Only a few games can deliver this, simple example is Bad Company 2 (Review Coming Soon).
Story:
Well, the story is another negative point, and if you read my Red Orchestra 2 Review you will know what I am going to say next. This game Single Player is just an simple excuse to make the player waste some time with scripted sequences on an large scale map, with an weak A.I and an simple and we all know what is going to happen next, War story. But I must say on thing, the player does not need to play the Campaign to get in the multiplayer because there are some great tutorial's in here.
Pros:
. Good Tutorial;
. The Settings are Huge;
Neg:
. Weak and Simple Story;
. The settings might be Huge, but the player feels somehow restricted on how to engage;
. Weak A.I;
. Gameplay: 7.5
. Graphics: 6.0
. Audio and Soundtrack: 8.5
. Story: 5.5
Final Score: 7.0 out of 10
Arma 2 could had been an Masterpiece, but it isn't. And there is one more thing that I need to address in this review, don't waste your time or money on buying this game for DayZ or simply for Arma 2 Multiplayer, just don't do it. Just simply wait for the DayZ Stand-Alone, Download Arma 2 Free for Arma 3, the last option will "hopefully" have new feature's and will give the costumer more support and options. The big problem of Arma 2 (and probably Arma 3) is Battleye. This Anti-Hack Software is useless, the real Hacker's go over the Game, both Arma 2 and DayZ, blowing up well constructed servers while legitimate players that play the game for fun get banned and if their password gets stolen from any virus (like an Trojan Horse or an Spy bot) you get banned anyway, this guys seem to forget that internet is filled with viruses and that there isn't an perfect anti-virus that can deal with every virus out there being created day after day. The most funny thing is that you cannot complain, because the player has no support. So basically you pay 20 dollar's for an awful anti-hack software ban you... this is not an joke.
Before you judge this review by this ending note, please let me inform you of something, the Battleye problem did not influenced on my review or the final score. Thanks for reading the Review.