There’s not a lot one can say about ArmA III that doesn’t involve rattling off a long feature list – there was no opportunities for hands-on play but from mere observation, we doubt much is going to change on that front. There’s a new setting, obviously, which involves 320 square kilometres of Aegen Island landscape, off the coast of Greece, the two main islands being Stratis and Limnos. We could vividly try to describe to the landscape of these islands, but to be honest, you see one island you see them all – expect a diverse range of superbly rendered landscapes, with plenty of semi-unique geographical features to keep you on your toes.
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| Bring the rain |
If you get the impression we’re not all that impressed with ArmA III, you’d be dead wrong – it’s just not the easiest game to report on. Don’t get us wrong, it looks amazing – the new engine technology they’re using is fantastic, but in terms of gameplay and features, it’s more or the less the same. There is some new stuff – better HDR lighting, an inventory system that doesn’t look half bad for once, weapon customization, custom reload animations, underwater combat... but it’s still ArmA, and, really, it IS a bit clunky to use when you first start out. Fans of the franchise will obviously be chuffed at houses, but anyone hoping they’d present an easier barrier for entry are probably going to be disappointed.
Saying that, the inventory improvements we mentioned above looks like it could make life just that much easier. A lot of drag and drop instead of clicking, and a more intuitive separation between active and stored inventory, as well as more obvious slots. This drag-and-drop ethos is also applied to weapon and uniform customisation, where you can customise certain parts of a weapon like under rails or weapon sights. Again, we’re just reeling of info here, and there’s plenty of it – improved flight models from their Take On Helicopters game, PhysX 3 technology, support of the 6 degrees of freedom videogame motion, the list goes on.
If ArmA III was going to have a ‘killer’ feature that really justifies the existence of the game, it would probably be the underwater combat. You can now properly swim and fight underwater (provided you have the right gear), opening up some new tactical possibilities. There’s seven two-man mini-subs you can commandeer, if we’re honest though, we’d be surprised if the community really takes to this feature. Do any of you actually care about being able to fight in wet suits underwater? Maybe, maybe not. The technology improvements that come with it will certainly be welcome, but we’re not that fussed right now. Perhaps seeing what people end up doing with it will change everyone’s mind.
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| Night fighting is supposed to have been improved a lot |
ArmA III is going to come with the full works – a dynamic, gameplay driven single-player experience, the classic ArmA online experience with all the new toys, competitive and co-operative and a fully 3D mission editor that allows you to design everything from individual missions to entire campaigns. Make no mistake though, if you want to make the most of the game you’re going to need a pretty hefty machine – at least an Intel i5 (or equivalent), with a powerful graphics card and a lot of RAM, but then you probably already know that.
ArmA III will always exist at the extreme opposite end of the realism-fun spectrum than the likes of Battlefield and COD, and we’re glad for it… but with the internet and online gaming continuing to improve, Bohemia need to make sure they can continue to service larger and larger groups of people wanting to get in on the action. We wonder if 64 player servers are enough anymore, especially with games like Planetside 2 starting to try and really capture the persistent all-out war feel. But it’s good to see ArmA sticking to its gun, and many of the new improvements are going to be very welcome indeed. ArmA III is due out on PC sometime in September 2012.
Most Anticipated Feature: I’ve always been an artillery man myself, hoping to get my hands on some decent kit.
