I have to admit, I just don't understand the whole Arma2 thing. I bought the German download when it came out, with the English patch, but I really just couldn't get into it. The audio was terrible, those robotic voices. And the graphics. I thought they were terrible. Pretty sure I had them maxed out, but they didn't remotely compare with OFPDR on the PC, which I also have maxed out (quad core 2.4Ghz a/ATI 4850 w/1gig of RAM on the card).

Everybody is going on about how much better than this Arma2 is, maybe I should give it another go this weekend - just really can't see it though.

And to me, that REALLY shows that it's all subjective and about what you want for a game. OFPDR is my game of the year, definitely.

aren't you working for/with the OFP DR development team? lol Come on now... lol

I do love this game, but no way in hell is it as good as ArmA2 (total package wise)... I could make a list but it would take all day, lol... and it definitely ain't even near a game of the year award. They got 25% of this game GREAT, and then 75% of it half assed.

IMO.

And that's why I said it's all about what you want. for me, it's better, for you it's not. What's so hard to udnerstand about that?

No problems their bud... your game of the year is fine with me, lol... but I'd like to know why you think it's game of the year material, just curious, not trying to be controversial.

and are you working with Codemasters on this game, or the upcoming DLC are you not? Just asking... I think it's important for readers to know if your working for a company when you say, before the edit, this is game of the year. I would feel obligated to inform the readers in my review if I received the game for free... which by the way, I did NOT! lol

Hope your not taking this wrong or as some attack... it's a great game, I love it... but would be interested in knowing why you or anyone here at SimHQ thinks it would deserve game of the year, especially with the end of the year round up on my mind.

Erm, I've already said multiple times I work with Codemasters, and you know for a fact I do because I was the one who put you in touch with them. I'm not going to repeat it every time I post about the game.

For me, I just can't get into Arma2 for various reasons, which I think I already posted. The audio is awful, the robotic voices (man, 300 metres, north) just get me - I don't like thinking I'm in a firefight with Stephen Hawkign beside me. For some reason my campaign never lets me get past about mission three before crashing, and I've long since given up deleting my saved campaign and starting again. The clipping in some of the missions really destroys the immersion for me. And no, I can't remember which ones - I've not booted it for a while, due to being totally frustrated with it.

OFPDR is my game of the year partly because, believe it or not, I don't play very many games, so there's not a lot to choose from. I do try to play tactical shooters though. I like the open world and freedom of movement in the campaign missions, even if the time sensitive element takes some of this away. Sure, the AI isn't great - but it's also not terrible. It's average, IMO. But modern weapons, a huge campaign world, what's not to like? I don't really see the point of the complaints about how you can't fly helos etc in the campaign - you wouldn't be doing that anyway in the infantry. It'd be nice if you could choose your loadout, but I don't mind too much. And a random mission generator would be good, but again with the mission editor I can do some missions myself if I fancy - been getting my head around the ME, and I'm going to try to do some based in engagements from the Korean War. And yeah, for me this looks stunning - far better than Arma2, again on my PC. Maybe if BI had put Arma2 on the 360 as well, maybe then I'd have played it more if I could have done co-op very easily. As it is, it's pretty much just passed me by.

Each to their own though. Kudos to Codies for finishing this at all - 99% of other publishers would have canned it long ago. And yeah, there's more to come - WAY more to come. Again, Kudos to them for supporting it. One of the good things about working with studios is you hear a lot of the stuff that's not public knowledge. One of the bad things is you can't share it Codies are in this one for the long term though - it's going to get the kind of support other titles could only dream of.

So for me, there's no first person tactical shooter to touch it right now, in spite of its flaws.

cool... and I had no clue you were SimHQ's contact for Codemasters, I thought you worked as a job locator for game designers/artist etc etc... I got all my info to me from Guod... so was asking/verifying.

The campaign IMO is better in OFP DR then ArmA2's co-op campaign... (BTW that was patched and fixed, so the SP/co-op campaign should work for you, with 5 different endings based on performance.) but the MP fell flat on it's face...as of right now... compared to ArmA2's MP... which in all fairness has had 4 patches to get there.

Were cool, wasn't trying to "call you out", just verifying.

But that's the thing. Arma had 4 patches. Plus a previous game. This is Codies' first internal attempt at this. For a first attempt, for a studio with no history of this internally, it's excellent. And their plans for future support are truly outstanding - I've seen nothing like it with any other games. I doubt you'll be disappointed;)

I might look at Arma2 again. But I may simply buy the regular CD & English copy tomorrow. Bit sick of the whole translation thing after patching etc:)

OFPDR definitely could learn things from Arma, that's for sure. but then most games could learn from most others.

just bought it but my video card fragged itself so waiting for replacement to give it a go.

What impresses me from the comments above is a civilised discussion with no flames, what a pleasure.

I must admit I struggle to find the "groundbreaker" fo a tactical simulation of ground combat in the modern world.

We haven't yet had a true "homeworld" or "company of heroes" or "total war - rome" that trully shakes up the category. I use these ( and elite and TAW) as examples that made me go wow!!

Is this it, dont know , but suspect not from all the comments.

ARMA2 definitely looks better than OFPDR on maxed settings, better textures, better foliage, better shadows and more.

I acquired operation flashpoint dragon rising last week and I think it might be a really fun game for a console but was really disappointed that it was just a console game. I thought I was buying a Pc game. The lack of TrackIr support in the game along with no joystick support and no dedicated servers really turned me off. I did not really see the point in advertising the game with TrackIr support when it is used to a limited sense only in vehicles. Maybe after a couple of patches it might be worth looking into, personally I think Americans Army will do about the same thing without vehicles or the cost.