Games: Bohemia Interactive - Armed Assault

Bohmeia Interactive
Armed Assault
[Military Simulation]









When Codemasters opted not to publish Armed Assault - the follow-up to one of the best, most popular and most enduring PC games of all time - I should have known something was up. However, Operation Flashpoint was just so complete, so immersive and so perfect that I couldn't imagine what could possibly go wrong. After all, all they had to do was keep the finely-crafted battle dynamics and make it a bit shinier, right? Well, after a five and a half year wait, it genuinely saddens me to report that Marek Spanel and his team haven't even managed that.

When it wants to be, or more importantly, when it can be, Armed Assault is the best-looking game of all time. However, what is immediately striking on first playing this unofficial sequel is that the visual side of the game is not all there: it's less an engine, more a big pile of shiny nuts and bolts held together with string and paperclips. And, despite having been delayed for more than two years, the extent of the mess is disgraceful.

Every time the vast island map loads, for example, the objects form in front of your eyes, starting off as crude, colourless blocks before layers of texture are added. Five seconds later, just as you think the level is stable, changing your viewpoint results in exactly the same thing is happening all over again, Sahrani building itself piece by piece, as and when those pieces are needed. Not only does this lead to a fifteen second delay at the start of some missions, it completely destroys any potential sense of immersion during cutscenes when the camera pans gracefully over a sea of grey cubes.

As mentioned previously, however, this can be a stunning game when it works. It may be an unplayable slide show when the settings are above 'normal', but some of the visual effects are terrific. That said, on a 3Ghz computer with 1Gb of RAM and a GeForce 6800 GT, all three of which satisfy the recommended specifications, the only way I could experience a playable frame rate was with the quality setting somewhere between 'low' and 'very low', at times making the game look as bad as the 2001 original (and boy was that ugly). Scanning through the official forums it is clear that this is a common problem and, though I'm sure the code is being optimized as I speak, if playing a good-looking version of Armed Assault is out of the question then you have to question the point of such a radical upgrade.

Nevertheless, I still had every right to be reassured by the fact that Operation Flashpoint features, hands down, the best gameplay of anything I had played before or since. The freedom to do whatever the hell you wanted in the original game offered such a stunningly original sense of autonomy that is often promised but rarely delivered in video games. Despite relying heavily on scripted triggers, I can only recall a handful of occasions where a mission became impossible and had to be reloaded. With Armed Assault, on the other hand, almost everything is broken.

The vehicle AI is so bad, for instance, that expecting the computer to drive a hundred yards down a straight road is hopelessly optimistic. In one early mission, 'Dolores', the player is expected to plant explosive charges on a bridge, hide, and then blow the bridge in conjunction with two others in order to trap an enemy armoured convoy. However, not only does one truck get stuck behind a wall ninety percent of the time, forcing a restart, on occasion your commander will forget to blow his bridge, leaving you to wait helplessly as a full complement of T-72s proceeds to massacre the handful of American soldiers expected to fight them off.

Not only that, but the AI controlled ambush squad that is supposed to head off the remaining tanks contains no armoured units or anti-tank soldiers whatsoever, leaving the player to fight them off unassisted. As if that wasn't enough, the only artillery in the area - a large, unmanned AT cannon that none of the poorly-armed soldiers have decided to use, despite them facing a tank rush - is positioned too close to a sandbag such that any shots fired from it hit the barricade and immediately kill the gunner. And, even if you manage to hold off the six or seven tanks single-handedly and keep your squad alive, you are still given the order to retreat, receiving a radio message telling of the massacre that hasn't happened right in front of your eyes. I could go on but, in honour of the Bohemia Interactive mentality, why bother?

The story, described briefly above, is also an absolute catastrophe, not only featuring a completely preposterous premise but also having very little coherence, a frankly ridiculous twist and the distinct lack of any character background. You play as a nameless, faceless soldier, expertly trained as an infantryman, pilot, tank commander, saboteur and sniper, who never features in any cutscenes or back story. This contrasts markedly with the hugely memorable storyline in Operation Flashpoint, so memorable in fact that I even remember the nicknames of my former squad mates. There is no Armstrong, Fowley, Kozlowski, Gastovski or Berghof in sight, just a newsreader relaying events with cringe-inducing voice acting and the odd 'sergeant' offering his thought on proceedings.

The events, in case you were wondering, are equally ridiculous. Judging from its size and the number of houses, the combined population of Sahrani is roughly 1,000 people, yet the southern half manages to have its own monarchy, two airports and an oilfield, while the north, possessing its own airport, invades its neighbour with countless troops, hundreds of tanks and aircraft, under the command of someone who is never named, seen or heard. Why the US decides to intervene is a mystery, as is the fact that the player spends the first half of the game retreating from the apparent military might of North Sahrani. As if this wasn't bad enough, there's a side plot involving slave camps being set up around the island by an unknown enemy. Oh dear. At times it's almost impossible to believe these are the same people who bought us the epic, emotional and exciting journey all those years ago. Armed Assault's campaign, incidentally half the length of the one in Operation Flashpoint, is simply excruciating.

It's not that Armed Assault is so bad that makes reviewing it such a depressing experience. It's that, after nearly six years, this doesn't look, feel, play or act like a finished game. I guess we'll never know what Bohemia Interactive have been doing all this time, though judging by the sales figures of the original, it doesn't take a genius to figure it out; among all the champagne, schmoozing and celebration, they've actually forgotten to make a game. N/A