Recent reviews by Whale

♥♥♥♥ sony

straight

A forever game, for me, must have a few of these:
1. a unique base experience that challenges me in ways other games can't
2. the depth and breadth of gameplay necessary to keep me learning forever
3. a social aspect to bring me back every weekend
4. a variety of fresh content from a healthy modding community
5. opportunities to grow yourself creatively and contribute back to the community in turn
6. a scale massive enough to make me feel like I'm a bigger part of a whole experience

Arma isn't my only forever game. Space Station 13, Mount & Blade, Planetside, Skullgirls. These are a few games I know I'll be playing on and off until the day I die. They hit just right.

Arma is a game that hits just right.
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To divide it into a simpler list of pros and cons, in no particular order:
+ mission creation means every single scenario can be new, fresh, and crafted by the people who'll be playing it
+ facing a new challenge every week with the same groups of friends makes for moments I'll never forget.
+ a scale that can vary from team-level to massive kilometers-wide battlefields.
+ unique take on warfare that stirs the right mix of "simulation" and "game" for me.
+ strong modding scene with powerful tools that anyone can contribute to.
+ many 'units' (Arma communities) that play in a wide variety of ways.
+ devs are still actively working with the community to improve and bugfix the game engine.
+ breadth of gameplay that includes everything from ground recon to air support.
+ depth of gameplay that'll keep you learning new things every week.
+ a decent single-player campaign, if you're into that. DLCs add more campaigns that have generally gotten better and better.
+ popular public gamemodes like KOTH and Liberation that can teach newer players the ropes in a lower-stakes environment.
+ flexible AI that can be used to replace players as adversaries in most scenarios.
+ wide variety of weapons, vehicles, and maps that are made infinitely more varied by a plentitude of mods.
- old game engine has buggy moments, most noticeably in physics.
- social nature of the game means a bad player can ruin an entire match.
- sheer breadth/depth of gameplay can be imposing to a newcomer.
- game's tutorials are decent, but not great, and needing to learn how to use mods (like ACE3) makes them even more insufficient.
- social nature of the game can lead to painful levels of drama and clique-ness.
- modding tools are lovely compared to most games but are still by no means the best in the business.
- the sheer complexity and scale of the game can make some failures seem like meaningful learning experiences, and some failures seem like random chance.
- hosting a server for more than just a few of your friends will take some real hardware and a little bit of know-how.
- the AI can often have more 'bad' moments than good ones, particularly if the server you're connected to is under load.
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I asked a few friends from six different units what they thought about the game, good or bad. Here are a few raw reactions:
"It's the #1 example of a 'game made great with friends'"
"Pro: people. con: people."
"When you've been traversing featureless hillsides for 90 minutes and a black speck 1500m away snipes you"
"PRO: Playing with people who know what they are doing."
"being sent to space because you got into a truck and a dead body got moved under the truck"
"Making single-player narratives is my favourite part, and then having people play those."
"arma is one of the only games that can induce fear, ie: getting show at by a big gun and hiding"
"It was the mission editor that really sold me the first OFP"
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Will edit more as more months of me playing, streaming, and loving this game go by. My perspective is one of a player that mostly plays with a few units on the weekends, but once in a while I can still go back to a completely vanilla, completely public Bohemia Interactive Zeus server and have a very fun time.

2023 Update: Hey, guy who commented 'people won't play this game forever.' I'm still playing.

One of my 'forever games.' Excellent in single-player, but with a robust combat system that more than holds up in multiplayer, too -- and that's (WITHOUT) the extensive modding capabilities.

"Should I still get it if Bannerlord is coming out soon?"
Even if it was a week until Bannerlord I'd recommend you get this (CHEAP!) game because of how awesome it is.

best fighting game of the last decade and it's regularly on sale for less than the price of a bag of actual dirt

I only recommend the "Classic" gamemode. Realism isn't very realistic, even if it is leaps and bounds better than BF or CoD.