Thoughts of Arma II?

[watercooled]

So, what does everyone think of Arma II? I'm thinking about buying it but a few people have said it's poor although that could be because of the realistic playing style those people don't like? Also, as always with games, I'd rather not have DRM on my computer so I was wondering does this game come with any/how bad is it? If it has DRM on the boxed copy, I could buy it through Steam but I've heard that it still comes with its own DRM (I don't mean Steam's DRM)?
Thanks

[Zak33]

copied this post to Wargames where we are ARMA 2 mad

[Flibb]

When its bad it bad, when its good its one of the best things I've played. If your on a serever and the admin isnt about or is off doing teh side missions its can be extremely annoying with tks, base getting destroyed, vehicles being hogged, etc. But on a well admined server its great.

DRM wise, it needs teh dvd to be in the drive, might be other stuff.

[Lowe]

OK lets start at the beginning.

Being realistic doesn't always make for a poor game. But, that said if it's a CoD4 style game you're after, ArmA2 is not your scene. CoD4 is to ArmA2 like HAWX is to IL2. Whilst it shares the same kind of viewpoint and guns, that's about it. CoD is all quick fire run and gun in limited play areas. ArmA's got 225km for you to wander through (it's absolutely *huge*) and trying to shoot whilst running is about as effective as urinating in the wind.

The single player experience in ArmA is also somewhat 'poor' in the grand scheme of things, though to be honest it's the multiplayer that will get you hooked. It's best played with an organised group of people who understand the game and who are willing to take you under their wing. If you're lucky enough to be in that position (and that's something which the clan I'm part of do for the Hexus crowd) then you're in for a gaming treat.

There's something very special about ArmA in that when it's played properly it creates a sense of immersion and camradary which few games can rival. However there are glitches (ArmA1 had in the region of 15 patches and it still wasnt perfect!) which need addressing. The Dev team is very active in patching though, and the modding scene is huge with the community often sorting out issues too!

As for DRM, I don't know. There's a DVD check on bootup, and it does have what's known as FADE which is a copy protection system. FADE will slowly remove parts of the game and make it more difficult to play (will ruin your accuracy or stop the gun firing etc). Beyond that though, I don't know.

[watercooled]

Thanks everyone! Also just to clear something up - I didn't mean realistic games are poor (1st post edited), in fact I more often prefer them - I prefer Forza 2 over NFS for example, I just meant a lot of people moan about realistic games because they 'die too easily' or 'guns have too much recoil' - but I prefer both to be realistic. Anyway, from what you've said it looks like my type of game but I think I'll get it on Steam - I hate having to have the disc in the tray.