Arma 2 Mp Free To Play

[idiot-monarch]

Bohemia Interactive released a free version of their sleeper hit military sim ARMA2 today. The free version has multiplayer and the mission editor, but lacks single player, mods and 'HD graphics' (not sure what this means: low resolutions, no fancy postprocessing effects? idk). I'd say this is a good time to download it for anyone who's mildly interested in more realistic shooters, as is the case with me. I think I've been Youtubing ARMA 2 multiplayer gameplay for like a year now, because it really is quite something, but never mustered up the courage of actually buying the game, afraid that I would completely suck and give up.

You can downlaod it here.

[phrozonfire]

This computer can't run it, but I'll save it for when I get access to my other one.

Cheers for the heads up, been wanting to try this.

[MiroDK]

Hey this game does look interesting, but I think it'll run choppy as hell on my PC..

I've heard about ARMA before, I just never got it and never knew they made a second one.

[vraadoo]

I was play but it's not interesting.

[idiot-monarch]

At 6/24/11 05:23 AM, vraadoo wrote: I was play but it's not interesting.

Keep in mind that it's a military simulator. Expect a slow pace, methodical gameplay and a heavy use of teamwork. It's not Battlefield.

Anyway, only played the (highly informative and well made) tutorials yesterday and enjoyed it immensely. Parachuting from planes and learning to fly choppers and jets was already interesting.

[soulblud]

i play combat arms, Galactic War, and Operation 7... are those irrelevant to this? is it any better or worse?

[idiot-monarch]

At 6/24/11 06:13 AM, soulblud wrote: i play combat arms, Galactic War, and Operation 7... are those irrelevant to this? is it any better or worse?

Out of those I've only heard of Combat Arms, but that's a CS/CoD type deatmatch game, isn't it? If so, this is NOTHING like this. ARMA2 is about as 'hardcore' and realistic as video games get.

By the way, the editor is fucking awesome. Just placing a bunch of dudes on a field and taking part in the battle is super fun. This is what I got after 5 minutes of playing around with it.

[Luke]

Arma's online experience is one of the most tactical multiplayer experiences I've had - Although you usually need a good PC to run it - You can always dumb down the settings.

It is NOTHING like your typical online shooter game, somebody expecting something like Counter Strike, CoD, and any free online FPS should not bother. Arma takes a long time to get used to, and apparently real soldiers used to or still do train with it. The single player is really great as well - But multiplayer is something else.

Seems most of the time is spent communicating with your team planning your attack, while the rest of the match is simply shooting the enemy. Strategy is everything.

[idiot-monarch]

At 6/24/11 09:13 AM, EpicFail wrote: Seems most of the time is spent communicating with your team planning your attack, while the rest of the match is simply shooting the enemy. Strategy is everything.

Yeah, I've been fascinated with what I've seen on Youtube and would really love to get in on the action. Problem is, so far, of the only servers I've been been able to joing, 1 was a heavily modded roleplay one, and the other was just a free-for-all (this meant a lot of team-killing). So, can you play ARMA as it was intended on a public server, or do you need to get some friends together or join a clan or something?

Oh, and do you spawn where you died by default in the game? That's how it was in a server I played in, and it seemed like a preposterously bad idea which lead to spawn-killing.

Still, despite the negative tone of this post, I've had a lot of fun with the editor (I bet putting some time in creating a proper mission would lead to a great gameplay experience) and I hope to get in on some proper MP action soon. Seeing as this is free, I'd urge anyone interested in proper tactical shooters to try it.

[SloppyMoe606]

So wait, does this actually have people playing it, or am I going to download this only to find the online dead?

[idiot-monarch]

At 6/24/11 10:59 AM, SloppyMoe606 wrote: So wait, does this actually have people playing it, or am I going to download this only to find the online dead?

No, there are a quite a lot of servers. Not as much as you'd find in a game like Battlefield, obviously, but it's pretty easy to find a game.

[idiot-monarch]

Ok, spent the last couple of hours playing in a decent server I found, and it was great. Crawling through the grass alongside a road with night vision goggles on, getting picked up by a chopper and dropped at your objective (chopper pilots NEVER actually transport troops in other games), trying to take a town from the AI, sweeping street after street.

I can't imagine how fun this will be when I get a headset and get on some good servers. Co-op with a friend of mine will be awesome too, I imagine.