And really, that's what I both love and hate about this game. Despite all the years of development, the hype, improvements, and little modifications, it's ultimately just the same thing as its predecessors. I vividly recall taking the same stance of ”singleplayer needs fixing, multiplayer is awesome" with the previous games, which is why it pains me to still see all of same problems present in ArmA II.

The AI is still all over the place as far as behavior goes and generally can't be relied upon. Enemy soldiers can still spot and accurately hit you through dense miles of trees, something which causes the game's difficulty curve to become incredibly erratic. Furthemore, not much has been done about the awkwardness of the game's speech system (which dynamically pieces together bits of dialogue from different sound files to report enemy positions, commands, and so on), a problem which at this point I've just learned to live with, but I know for some will be a deal-breaker.

At the very least the game's graphics engine has been completely overhauled and looks more gorgeous than ever (seriously, the countryside vistas look amazing in this game), although the over-use of motion blur and bloom effects has had a lot of picky people scrambling for hacks to tone them down or toggle them off.

Bohemia is taking the exact same "release now, make awesome later" approach they have with their previous games. The initial releases are meant to serve as a glimpse - a preview - of what lies ahead. For those really on the fence, I'd say give this game a bit of time and come back in about a month or two as the developers try to work their post release magic.

Questions or comments? We'd love to hear from you .