Review Aleosha 4/5 · Feb 23, 2023
I remember ArmA games since the times they were still called Operation Flashpont. The original game was so realistic, you could finish one of the missions by just sitting at the back of a truck. And of course everyone remembers the mission when you needed to get back to your squad through occupied territory (the After Montignac mission).
ArmA 3 …
I remember ArmA games since the times they were still called Operation Flashpont. The original game was so realistic, you could finish one of the missions by just sitting at the back of a truck. And of course everyone remembers the mission when you needed to get back to your squad through occupied territory (the After Montignac mission).
ArmA 3 is not that far away from its roots. You’re more of a witness than an actor, really. Your teammates are more than capable to handle most of the situations themselves. It’s almost impossible to hit anyone farther than 100m. One hit, and you’re dead. I had to limp 100m once to grab a medkit from a body of a soldier I killed in a duel.
One thing that this game gets right is weapon stability. You rarely can hit anything standing. But if you go prone and deploy a bipod (there’s a special command for that), you’re golden.
One major beef I have with the engine, is that it doesn’t handle eye contact at all. Which is not rare, but would help so much with the immersion.
Speaking of immersion, I was completely blown away by Staff Sergeant Adams getting blown on a random mine in the forest. I thought it will be a “Captain Price” kind of character. But I guess this is war.
The game uses a very unique control scheme. So unique, in fact, that at first I thought I had issues with my controls. It differentiates between a short press and a long press, for example. So a short RMB press brings up the iron sights, as you’d expect. But a long RMB press zooms in without the sights, apparently simulating a soldier looking into the distance. There are also a lot of combinations using key modifiers: to switch between two types of optics you need Ctrl+RMB. That’s a short RMB, long RMB will do the weird zoom. Another issue is how realistic drones are. First, you need to assemble your drone. Then you connect to it from your tablet. Then once you finally connected to it, it controls like a helicopter. Meaning that to fly forward, you need to pitch, not able to see much in front of you. And I was wrong about weapon accuracy. You can be extremely accurate if you stabilize your rifle against cover.
There are a few missions that let ArmA mechanics really shine, I think. First, you get beached with just a pistol, even without a map, and need to cross a warzone. I ended up finding a machine gun, eliminating a landing helicopter crew, and even finding a map along the way.
In another mission, you’re tasked with setting an ambush, but you’re not told how or where exactly, just the route of the convoy. I ended up blocking a road with my jeep, then setting a couple of charges in the bushes. Front APC tries to pass, gets blown, blocks the convoy, I shoot the truck driver, others hammer the closing APC. All that without any scripts. Speaking of scripts and blowing things up. In another mission, you’re tasked with stealing a fuel truck. Once you do, Miller the SAS operative contacts you, and asks you instead of delivering it to the rebels, to let one of his men use it to blow an enemy general. If you agree, you can see the entire plan unfold. They could just end the mission there, but they actually decide to script everything, just in case someone like me decide to see the thing go boom.
At one point, you need to choose whether you want to sabotage a repair depot or a helicopter, but you can’t do both. I decided to go for the helicopter, because they are much more annoying. You are expected to lure it with a smoke grenade, then blow it once it lands. But I threw the smoke into the woods by mistake, it tried to land there, and blew itself.
At one point you’re just let loose on an island and asked to wreak havok, picking your insertion point and striking enemy bases. NATO forces finally appear. They don’t know anything about any captain Miller, it seems. I don’t know why “Air Superiority” mission gave me more grief, that all the other missions combined. The support APCs got stuck. My AT soldier wouldn’t attack enemy APC, so I had to literally shoot him to get the rocket launcher and blow it myself. Another soldier got stuck in a building, so I couldn’t “evacuate the team”. Had to go back and shoot the bastard. And on top of that, enemies were sniping me like never before. “Preventive Diplomacy” is designed to be that cool mission, when you’re finally given a powerful antipersonel rifle, you can call in a chopper, you have an armed UAV and artillery support, and your task is to stop enemy counteroffencive. But nobody explains you how to use the antipersonel rifle: it doesn’t shoot where you want it to shoot at 300m, as marksman rifles do. Your chopper doesn’t do much and gets downed by a random jeep. Artillery is pretty random as well, and UAV shoots in the wrong direction half of the time, and is too hard to control. Luckily, not only your APC gets stuck. Most of the enemy APCs got stuck in buildings as well. A major disappointment: explosion that downs a building (yes, the engine supports that) does nothing to a jeep behind it.
Last mission, “Game Over”, could be good: you are again let loose on an island trying to evacuate. You roam gathering weapons, finding vehicles with some gas left, and there are a bunch of optional missions to help soldiers in trouble.
What could go wrong? There’s no “save” option. If you die, you die. In a mission where you literally have to travel kilometers alone, and in a game where you die from a single shot, that’s not a good idea. But that’s not all! At one point, you get a truck, and try to rescue a squad stuck in a swamp. What could go wrong? Mines. The swamp is mined.
In that mission, you need to know exactly what you’re doing. Went to the helipad. There’s no helicopter. Went to nearby port. There were no boats there. Found a gunboat along the coast. Loaded in. There was no fuel.
Finally, found a Zodiac near the next port.
The only way I can summarize the story is “nothing goes according to plan”. NATO forces are cut off on an “definitely not Greek” island. We try to capture a communication station – but the equipment is fried. We try to get ammunition from local guerillas – but the dump is blown. We stage a naval assault in order to assassinate enemy general – we do assassinate an officer, but not the right one. We try to establish a beachhead – and get pushed back by enemy helicopters. Enemy soldiers are parachuting from hellos around us. And if all that wasn’t enough: as we try to retreat on a speedboat, it gets blown up.
