ArmA Demo

Tactical shooters are all about coordination, strategy and infiltration, since the classic all-guns-out approach does not really function a real-life scenario. Hence, you must plan your route and stay alert with every step you take, in order to avoid being spotted by scouts or snipers. Moreover, your team mates are more than critical in assuring the success of the mission, since they all have valuable skills you cannot do without.

ArmA is one of these military tactical shooters that stresses the importance of stealth and coordination, by making it extremely difficult to succeed otherwise. The missions are designed in such a way that you must plan your route and give out the right orders to your comrades, as well as avoid being detected for as long as possible.

There are also a lot of vehicles that can be used throughout the scenarios, ranging from jeeps, to planes and tanks, depending on the mission and your objectives. To make them more effective, almost every vehicle has multiple gunner positions, which allow your team mates to man the artillery while you drive. This feature also comes in handy in the multiplayer mode, where more than one player can use the same vehicle and avoid splitting up.

If the developers are to be believed, the map on which the action takes place is over 400 square kilometers in size, which should be more than plenty for everyone to explore as they see fit. This also gives you the opportunity to choose almost any kind of route you desire, since there are no invisible walls to stop you from going anywhere on the map and coming up with all sorts of crazy tactics.

As far as the visual quality is concerned, the game takes advantage of a very powerful graphics engine in order to render the characters, vehicles and the environment. The objects themselves are very detailed and realistic, as are the landscapes you get to explore at various hours of the day. Naturally, a large array of post-processing effects is available as well, in order to deal with motion-blur, depth-of-field and many other enhancements.

Although the difficulty level might prove to be frustrating on occasion, ArmA is definitely a masterpiece of the genre, especially when it comes to complexity and the liberty you have over the course of the missions.