Mateo

By: Chuck “Magnum” Ankenbauer

Introduction

At E3, Bohemia Interactive gave members of the press, and some reviewers Alpha versions of their upcoming title, Armed Assault. After a few weeks of playing this Alpha code, I will begin with a series of mission after action reviews highlighting some of the things I’ve noticed in the press release demo.

Please understand and fully realize that this is still work in progress and only 75% complete. Armed Assault plays pretty much the exact same way as Operation Flashpoint, mainly because it’s made by the same developer, Bohemia Interactive. But due to right ownerships to the Operation Flashpoint name, this is not OFP 1.5, or OFP2, it is Armed Assault.



Mission Briefing:

The first multiplayer mission included with the press demo is “Seize the City”, a simple co-op mission where two squads move out and attempt to take a well forticated city. (Be advised the only multiplayer is LAN with the demo, so I play it alone with the AI.)

Squad Alpha moves out towards the city, there completely AI controlled so they don’t do much but help me by being a decoy for my squad. I choose to be the squad leader of Bravo squad. I take the default layout of weapons and have a full squad of twelve under my command.



I review the map, zoom in and decide to let Alpha run strait in, as AI like to do, and I will have my squad mount an M113 transport, we will move to the left of the town, on the downside of a hill, then dismount and move up to the cities flank. Easy victory, right?



The Mission:

Alpha squad went marching off on there on towards the city. I mount the M113 as the driver, since I do better then any AI driver. I then order my squad to load up, they comply like good soldiers and we are on our way.



I take a turn to set up the flank, I move far to the left of the objective, I then move up towards the city, using the down sloop of the hill to conceal my approach. Once within a good, comfortable position, I order my squad to dismount, I then dismount my self and give the order to form up on me, the default being a wedge formation.

We then begin moving up to the crest of the hill, since were in a wedge formation, I will be the first to crest the hill and will use my binoculars to survey the situation.I then begin to hear the sounds of a firefight in the distance, this tells me that Alpha squad has begun there assault on the city.

I spot the first of many enemies, an anti-tank soldier, set to take out my M113, if I was stupid enough to just drive straight up there. I bring up my scope, and squeeze the trigger, BANG, target down. I then decide to thin the pack a little and toss up a couple of fragmentation grenades; I must score a couple of hits because I see bodies flying, along with the 50 cal machine gun set up overlooking the approach.

I then order my squad to advance; they move up and engage at will, per my latest order.



Bravo squad successfully takes the over watch hill, God only knows what’s happening to Alpha squad, I still hear the fire fight in the distance.

My squad has moved into a good position to take the town on the flank. I take a look at the map, zoom in a little and formulate my plan of attack.

Up to this point I haven’t lost a man yet, but that’s about to change as we move from a simple flank assault to some building to building fighting. The squad becomes hard to control and harder to issue specific orders, especially when working with the AI.



I split my squad into two teams, and attempt a low level bounding over watch maneuver, but I’m slowly losing men. There are more enemies down then friendly, but with each report of a soldier down, the success of the mission becomes questionable.



I’m down to just a team size squad, and attempt to take the final machine gun nest, by using building to building cover and movement.

The distant firefight has ended; I question if Alpha has successed or failed. I lose the last of my men, and as I spot two enemies in the distance I attempt to bring up my rifle for the kill, but the enemy is faster and I take a three round burst to the chest.



As I lay in the street, blood spilling into the drainage system, I wonder… “What went wrong, what should I have done different?”

Lucky for me I can, it’s just a game.

loyalguard

Excellent AAR Magnum. I'm really looking forward to this game for it's tactical potential. I drool at the thought of a real "full" size squad. I can't wait to see your other AAR's. Thanks!

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|TG| LoyalGuard

Obi

Keep 'em rollin' Magnum!

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Turbo

Very nice Magnum. Is that a large city that you are entering because that looks huge compared to OFP's cities?

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Magnum50

pretty large and I've seen bigger... it's more of a town... and while doing the SP AAR yesterday (30 minutes long) I accidentally had fraps capturing the whole campaign on video... 12 gigs total, and never even notcied... that shows you how my system ca handle ArmA as is w/o a problem.

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Magnum
www.gettacticaldammit.com

asch

Magnum.... I know many players here are used to BF2. Can you do a comparison of Armed Assault vs. BF2?

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Gaming Videos by Tactical Gamers

Fear the Frog! | Kill the Frog! | An Inconvenient Truth

"Support game play in a near-simulation environment. Where the focus of play would not be solely on doing what it takes to win, but doing so utilizing real-world combat strategy and tactics rather than leveraging exploits provided to players by the design of the game engine, regardless of the level of advantage, if any, it gives over the opposing team." -- Tactical Gamer Primer

UnDeaD77

Game looks pretty fun as far as gameplay. I may be interested enough in getting it. As far as graphics, the hand model is really nasty to look at.

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Trooper

Please dont start comparing this game to bf2, that last game that that happened to never even made it off the ground and was all hyped up as the next tactical shooter for TG. Yes bf2 has some great qualitites and such, but to compare and arcade shooter to a simulation shooter just isnt fair to either game.

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that sounds like a good idea trooper.
-Vulcan

asch

There should be nothing wrong with comparing features so players can get a feel for what the game is like. Doing a comparison with a game like bf2 can point out the differences that make it a simulation shooter. And the problem with the last game wasn't the comparison with bf2.

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| My Maps

Gaming Videos by Tactical Gamers

Fear the Frog! | Kill the Frog! | An Inconvenient Truth

"Support game play in a near-simulation environment. Where the focus of play would not be solely on doing what it takes to win, but doing so utilizing real-world combat strategy and tactics rather than leveraging exploits provided to players by the design of the game engine, regardless of the level of advantage, if any, it gives over the opposing team." -- Tactical Gamer Primer

Turbo

I haven't been one of the lucky one's to try Armed Assault but from what Magnum and Apophis have said so far I get the impression that it is basically like the original OFP in terms of game play and setup. I wouldn't worry about the graphics yet, remember the screenshots are from an unfinished version. Armed Assualt being like OFP is more of a realistic military sim so I think it would be really hard to compare to BF2 but Magnum and Apophis might be able to point out some things that might interest BF2 players. One feature that could really catch on at TG is Capture the Island where you fight over cities and you have to take all cities and elminate the enemy presence to win. When we play like that in OFP the game last's hours and with the new join in progress with Armed Assault the game could go on for a lot longer then that. Hopefully that is included when it is released.

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Magnum50

Actually rumor, and only rumor, has it that a new and improved CTI mode will be included with ArmA due to the overwhelming request of the OFP gamers to have it added.

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Magnum
www.gettacticaldammit.com