Arma II

ArmA II is the premier realistic military shooter when it comes down to commercial video games. It has an extremely large world that people can roam around in. It also has an amazing amount of customizability, which allows for total reconstructions of the game, which is amazing since people have made maps based off of actual cities or regions in different countries. The game also includes an editor which allows you to make different scenarios and missions encompassing the entire map.  You can have TDM’s, seize the city, and eliminate HVT’s objectives, all at the same time.

The realism involved is extremely accurate, as tanks are extremely deadly, as well as AT weapons that counter them, and there are many variants of popular weapons used in the armed forces across the world. The ammunition clips also are kept on a person so when you run out of clips that are full, you move on to the clips that have unused ammunition before being completely out of ammo. This means if you reloaded while there was still ammo left in the clip, you can still use it if you run out of full clips.

The multiplayer war is also waged on a massive scale, as more than one hundred people can play on some servers at a time. I’m pretty sure that you can have as many players as you want, as long as the server can run it though. The variety of things people put onto those servers is amazing, for instance, one that I was on had a scenario that started players in an airport turned operations base, and makes them capture a city that is filled with numerous vehicles and enemy troopers ready to make quick work of anyone trying to invade. You also get a reward for completing the objectives in the form of vehicles. I can’t remember how many times I’ve been saved by an airstrike taking out a tank or other vehicle that’s about to pump me full of lead.

It’s unlike any other game due to the fact that one stray bullet or a tank shell exploding about twenty meters away can easily kill you and/or your entire squad. The AI used in the game wouldn’t be considered dumb in the least, especially if they know you’re there, as they are expert shots and won’t think twice about shooting you. This can sometimes be troublesome as you can find yourself dying many times before you even get to the fight. I remember when my helicopter got shot down and I was stranded on one side of the map while the entire battle was raging over in a small city. There really was nothing else to do but force a respawn because no one was willing to give one guy a ride to the battle and risk getting shot down themselves.

There is another great part about ArmA II that has recently been made available, it’s free, and this free version is available for people online through the ArmA II website. Although the graphics aren’t as good, and you can’t play the campaign, you can still play the extremely fun multiplayer.

The only bad things I can say about this game is that some of the people are not very good at determining friend or foe, so expect to be killed by your own team a lot. Also there really isn’t an ability to sneak in the game, because as soon as you shoot someone, you’re spotted and you will get fired upon by his AI buddies, who no doubt have the skills to shoot you as easily as you shot them.

All in all, it’s a great game and I think you should try it out. Besides, it’s free.

http://www.arma2.com/free