Game: Armed Assault II - Operation Arrowhead
Platform: PC
Publisher: Got Game Entertainment
Developer: Bohemia Interactive
ESRB: M
Genre: Multi-role tactical warfare sim
Players: 1-A Lot (limited by host configuration)
What's Hot: New campaign puts you in much more interesting positions, and doesn't rely as much on half-broken scripting. Co-op allows players to participate in a much more exciting range of roles. Other new content will be a blast for mission and mod designers.
What's Not: The campaign ends all too quickly, and while there are a few other new side missions introduced, most people won't really see any use out of the new content unless they get into custom-designed missions and online multiplayer.
Review by: Dave VanDyk
As much as the micro-managing tactician within me got a blast out of the original Armed Assault II, the sheer number of problems with it was pretty hard to ignore. There was the game's primary campaign for example, which remained somewhat broken even after several patches and delivered an inconsistent, awkwardly-scripted experience. The graphics engine ran notoriously slow and portrayed a very 'muddy' visual style if it wasn't configured correctly, and in multiplayer you'd usually end up spending more time staring at a loading screen or getting dropped from servers than you would actually shooting people.
The game's imperfections marred what should otherwise have been an alluring and utterly immersive tactical experience, but with the release of the Operation: Arrowhead expansion, it seems evident the developers are aware of what went wrong and are firmly committed towards making things better.
Arrowhead is generously offered in the form of a standalone expansion pack, meaning the original game is not required to get in on the action (but you can 'integrate' the old content into the expansion's installation if you have it handy to get the best of both worlds). Taking place three years after the original game, you're fired off to a different fictional locale in the Green Sea region where a new conflict is brewing, and as usual America has to step in to save the day.
Thankfully, the plot of the expansion's main campaign is a lot more interesting and filled with more spontaneous events; there's now a tighter focus on preventing civilian casualties, carrying out your objectives by the numbers, and coordinating tightly with multiple groups of other units working towards the same general goal. Simplified, this means you'll end up participating in missions where a lot of stuff is going on at once - more than anything the original game offered. Each mission in the campaign involves multiple battlegroup elements (i.e. tank groups, chopper groups, infantry groups, etc), all engaged in some crucial, sometimes overlapping role in the grand scheme of things. You'll receive constant updates throughout the missions as each group accomplishes their given objectives, adding a livelier feel to the experience.
