Finally got it on Wednesday. Jesus, why did I pay full price for this piece of sh*t (hope I get an answer, only ~50m from a real church).
Got it up and running, supports widescreen:thumbsup:, runs ok at medium, but it get sluggish very often. Setting graphics lower seems to help, not much though, and you won't notice the detail anyways. Not that far in yet, think I'm up to the 6th mission.
So, lets get started. Graphics are very average. HDR is used poorly and unnoticable except for staring at the sun. Textures, items and models are fairly low detail and a tad blocky. Animations are terrible, unrealistic and cumbersome. The animation system itself is just like in OpFlash where you can get shot 50 times and still move until the animation ends. I can't count the number of times I got shot while reloading, and wondering if I would come out of it shooting or slumping over. Which brings us to Reloadfest 2007 or more commonly known as gameplay.
Gameplay is somewhat fun due to the 'realism' and variety of weapons. Oh screw it, the game basically involves reloading 50 times until you don't die. There is no immersion. I usually feel enough for my AI teamates to reload if they get killed in tactical games. Ghost Recon, Swat, Rainbow 6 had teammates that felt real. GR was probably the WORST of the bunch because aside from names, they had no background. However, they still made snide and retarded comments that made it feel real. Here, I actually want them dead. I made the effort in ArmA to get my AT soldiers killed cause they wouldn't attack the BRDMs that were killing us (mainly me); all they'd say was 'negative'. Well, turns out they only had 1 round left each, but it couldn't be picked up or fired. Squad mates are useless aside from their 'elite' sniping skills. The command system is exactly as it was in OpFlash, yet I just can't get into it anymore. Way back when, I could stage pretty good defenses and assaults with AI. Maybe after 6 years, I've seen too much of what is possible in terms of usability and simplicity. Vehicles also handle pretty poorly. Driving and flying feel the same: extremely difficult and sluggish as in OpFlash.
On to controls. This alone could kill the game. I'm not quite sure what they're tryong to simulate here, but it isn't the human body. Apparently, people are incapable of walking/running straight. Cream of the crop soldiers have the spines of 80 year olds, and can barely rotate precisely. Aiming is a nightmare as it's unresponsive and sluggish with delays when moving with the mouse. I had to turn the sensitivity down to about 1/16 so it wouldn't overshoot too much everytime. The guns themselves are terrible too. Using singleshot is pointless because the "recoil" will throw you off enough that it will take another 5 seconds to readjust the sight. By that time, the laser skills of the AI would have capped you already.
Oh, and if you've read this much of bit*hing so far, I'll summarize the rest. Sandbags/entrenchments are useless. You go prone, can't shoot. Crouch, too exposed. Maybe they should teach soldiers to stack them higher... Vehicles on fire look like ass. I'm sorry, but games from 3 years back can do better fire. Missions are also average so far: defend, defend, attack a base head on while outnumbered, etc...
ArmA is essentially Operation Flashpoint with a mild graphics update. I spent hundreds of hours in OpFlash, mastered most controls and commands and loved it. Maybe I'm just tired and need to spend more time at it (I will, going to make it earn the $50 I payed). However, I just wonder what the hell they did for 6 years (bla bla, of course they didn't start right away). It's essentialy the same game with little to no improvement yet worse, most likely due to advances made by everyone else in the industry. You can play the 'realism' card all you want, but the fact is, this isn't much more realistic than anything else out there from what I've seen...