The stand-alone expansion pack of ARMA II is THE BEST war sim ever created
When it was released, June 29, I was a bit attracted to it. Didn't know if the game was for me or not; I read many reviews about it, watch videos, pictures and so on.
So one Monday morning I decided. Since that morning I never stopped playing.
First of all let's take a look of the multiplayer; ok I have to admit that it doesn't stand at the same level as the Bad Company 2 multiplayer but I really enjoyed it. While playing online you can find some bugs and lags here and there but overall it isn't that bad. The thing that's really bothering me of the online play is that players don't play with the mentality of being in a team and studying the situation and make decisions like flanking ecc...So to the multiplayer mode I have to give it a 6.5/10.
In the singleplayer you have various modes to play in. The usual Campaign, the scenarios, the boot camp, Armory and last but not least the Editor.
Starting with the campaign. This campaign doesn't have any bugs on it. Improved in every bit from ARMA II. The story telling isn't great, and the cut-scenes are just terrible. There's no voice acting during the gameplay, actually there is but it's like the Google Translator voice reapitng praticly the same thing over and over: "The man is history"-"Enemy, Men, Front, 200 meters" and so on. But you now what? I love it. It's particular and it gives you like a real war situation. The graphics are good. They are not as detailed as assains creed 2 or modern warfare 2 but they are proficient. You play in the 1st person view but you can select even the 3rd view. The soldiers are just perfect, with all their proper equipment. You can't carry four different kinds of machinguns with 400 clips of ammo. It's very realistic. You have many many gun types, vehicle and an open world. The story isn't fixed, every time you play a mission it can be completely different. And if you die, for example, in a mission the story modifies for the lost man, and in the next mission you have to save the captured soldier ec... The AI isn't bad, it could be better especially your team mates AI. What else...oh yes...take your time with this game. You can't run in a village and start shooting at people, becouse you will get killed. In this game you use every single button of your keyboard, and there are like 100 buttons on a keyboard so, TAKE YOUR TIME.
The scenarios are really cool, they are some nice mission in this mode. But they aren't missions from the campaign just poor fun playing in this one.
The boot camp is the training area, before you even start playing go there and play every training, even more then once. (this is what I did)
The armory is nice way to try out all the vehicles, guns on the game of every faction.
And finally there's the Editor. Here you can create missions, complicated ones but even really simple stuff. When I usually can't complete a mission on the campaign I go here and relax a bit :)
Conclusions:
Maybe this game isn't for everyone, but I really suggest this game. At least try it out.
Be patient with it; this is a real masterpiece and you will find new stuff even after 60 hours of play.
My votes:
Gameplay: 10
Graphics: 9.5
Sounds: 8.5
How real is the game: 10
Overall: 9.5