HANDS ON GUIDE

Number 02 - Armed Assault

War proves to be a lot tougher than many people believe itis

Bohemia Interactive, 2007

One of the main trends among the best difficult games is not so much the overblown nature of the opponents you face; instead it’s more a case of your character being on a level playing field with your enemies. In no game is this ethos better exemplified than Armed Assault. In Armed Assault you are, for all intents and purposes, just a pawn in potentially huge battles, and the result is that your life can be nasty, brutish, and short.

Armed Assault isn’t a typical first person shooter with added vehicular elements: it’s the gamer-friendly variant of a military spec battle-space simulator. Realism is key to the game and this gives you, as a player, a whole new set of problems when compared to orthodox first person shooters.

Firstly, in Armed Assault, your character is literally as vulnerable as the next guy. A single rifle bullet through your head or torso is going to put you out of action, and as if that wasn’t enough, it’s very easy to be killed by nearby explosions or even ricocheting bullets. The dangers of these factors are amplified by the fact that the engagement range and view distances of the game are vast. On a clear day you can make a kill shot a few hundred metres away and the enemy can do this too. Factor in that there could be over a hundred soldiers, tanks, planes or gunships on each side and suddenly you get a real sense of just how lethal the battlefield can be. And if you don’t, then you’ll be dead.

Life as an infantryman is tough but that doesn’t mean that life as a pilot or vehicle crewman is a bowl of cherries. Light vehicles such as Humvees, jeeps, trucks or cars can be penetrated by rifle bullets or disabled by having their tyres shot to ribbons. Tanks and other heavier vehicles offer more firepower and better protection, but the trade off is that you are a much bigger target. One well placed rocket and you’re dead meat. Even if the rocket doesn’t kill, not running clear of a badly damaged vehicle might do if it explodes. In the air, Armed Assault boasts an effective flight engine that’s made all the more impressive by the addition of nasty little bits of location-based damage, so the loss of tail rotors on your helicopter will rapidly cause you to spin like a sycamore seed.

The single player campaign for Armed Assault is not such a major selling point as the mission editor, but it does highlight how much is expected of the player. Missions routinely have you carrying out ludicrously difficult objectives, capturing whole towns while your forces are outnumbered two or three to one. To complete the single player campaign you not only to get to grips with the unique skill set required by Armed Assault, but you also need to master it.

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