I loved Arma II. Mostly for the fact that I could sit there for hours and setup my own battlefield scenarios. Unfortunately, it was so buggy, they never really fixed the entire game. There were also animation issues, but it was never a real issue. It seemed like they were focused more on making Arma II as realistic as possible, and they succeeded in my book.

If you're sick of Battlefield selling out like I am, this one may be for you. This makes Battlefield 3 look like Call of Duty, it is a much more authentic battlefield experience. Unlike Battlefield, the Arma games make you feel like you're actually in a battlefield. A completely open world of 250 kilometers and a full, realistic day-night cycle, giving you freedom to go about missions the way you see fit, and in the way of adapting to changing situations. Take to the air with an array of fighters and bombers, or helicopters. Use armored, both light and heavy and support the front lines. Travel in four-wheeled fast-movers, or go on foot and engage in light-arms fire; Arma II, and soon-to-be Arma III provides all of this. Arma III offers more customization. So much that you are allowed to customize the gear of your soldier, giving him a unique look on the battlefield. All the gear has its perks, as well, and the more gear you have, the easier it is for your character to become fatigued. In addition, Arma III allows you to modify your firearm while in-game, provided you have the tools. For long range engagements, you can literally equip a scope right on the spot. If you are entering an area that recommends a stealthy approach, you can equip a silencer to your firearm. All of this is to help you adapt to your changing situations.

The realism of the Arma games goes so far as to allow you to use the stars at night to navigate, and even moon cycles. Now in Arma III is the addition of volumetric clouds, an incredibly realistic weather/sky system, and even under-water gameplay.

The graphical improvement is stunning, and the gameplay, from what I've heard from Alpha testers, is much more fluent. Best of all, Arma has always been dedicated to PC players over any other. They are allowing people to test the alpha stage of the game right now. The only bad thing is you have to pre-purchase the game to do it.

This is some footage of the alpha game play. This appears to be a part of the campaign (which I don't know much about right now). Just a small firefight, and but a tiny piece of what Arma III has to offer. The AI squad commander is not acting on a script for the actual gunfight. All the orders he is giving is the AI engaging and reacting to the ever-changing combat situation. The AI throughout the entire game, friend or foe is unscripted. Each and every one of them react to the current situation, providing incredible re-playability.

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"Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy or art; it has no survival value. Rather, it is one of those things that gives value to survival." -C.S. Lewis.

Arma III has just shot up to the top of the Steam sales list. I think I have a few real good explanations for this. First off, the game is a freaking steal! $32 bucks to pre-order the game. In addition, with your pre-order you get access to the alpha, which includes the entire island of Statis, one of the game's levels, which I believe is something like 20 kilometers in size, and plenty of things to do. This is a steal, folks. Just throwing that out there.

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"Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy or art; it has no survival value. Rather, it is one of those things that gives value to survival." -C.S. Lewis.

The Beta has been announced for Tuesday! I'm ready for it! For anyone who is interested, people who have played this game have constantly praised Arma for it's realistic reflection on real-world combat. I've been talking to my dad about this game, and I'm hoping at least he'll get it with me so we can play endless co-op together when Battlefield, Borderlands or Black Ops: Zombies gets boring.

I'd like to try and see if I can convince some folks who may be on the fence with a few features Arma 3 offers. I think rather than directing you to their website, where they may have a biased opinion towards it, you should hear it from a third-party opinion:

It's dedicated to PC players: You don't hear much about Arma 3, but that's because the developers, Bohemia, don't care about commercial profit. This game is 100% dedicated to PC players. This means third-party modding will be allowed, and communities have created fantastic mods, addons and missions for Arma 2, including my personal favorite, the JSRS sound mod, which made Arma 2 absolutely brilliant in immersion (the m4 sound was EXACTLY like it's real-world counter-part). Continuous mission creating means endless missions being released onto the Steam Community for easy synchronization to your game via the Steam Workshop.

Mission Editor, and two GIANT worlds to make missions in: Bohemia also includes the mission editor, which they said is the exact same editor they use to build the game. You get the two game worlds, the island of Stratis (20km in size) and Altis (300km in size), two giant, completely open worlds to build mission after mission and share with your friends, and develop REAL and epic-scale battlefields. The amount of content included allows you to literally build your own campaign and become various types of soldiers.

From just another grunt, to a team leader, a sniper on special missions, a special forces soldier on lone wolf, or classified/special task operations, a pilot providing close air support via helicopter; including firepower and even just assisting in transporting troops to and from the battlefield. Or you could make a campaign to which you are a fighter pilot providing air support, or bombing runs, or a tank commander in charge of your own platoon, pushing your offensive across the battlefield, to even just being a medical officer on the battlefield. Tons of roles to play.

Realistic Combat: Bohemia's goal is not to create another game with semi-realistic perks, but retaining unrealistic ones in order to attract people and gain sales. Arma shows no mercy, and it's goal is to be as realistic as possible. One shot could end your entire mission, and you may never know where it will come from. Engagements will often occur from up to 300 to 500 meters in distance, and your accuracy is dependent on the distance and weather, as well as your stance and ability to maintain your fatigue.

It's cheap right now: The original price for Arma 3 will be $49.99 on Steam. But if you buy it right now, it's just $32.00. This will include the final version of the game when it is released, and you get access to the Alpha and Beta; the Beta is coming Tuesday as well. What this means is we will finally get to play on the game's main battlefield, Altis, a whopping 300km of open land to have endless fun in combat together, carrying out objectives and dominating the battlefield. That's a good deal, if you ask me.

Completely unparalleled game play: Arma 3's goal in combat is to create as much realism as possible. This also includes mission outcome possibilities. The AI is completely unscripted. Every AI reacts to varying situations based on their current status and their enemies status. Just going into a mission does not mean that you fail the mission when you die. You can still fail objectives, but the mission continue. Objectives that you've succeeded in attaining could be lost by enemy counter-attacks, forcing you to retreat. Command reacts and gives orders based off the situation. All of this collaborates to create a completely unscripted combat scenario that is different every time you play. The sandbox environment is meant to put you in the game and allow you to go about a mission the best way you see fit.

Team work and Co-Op Game Play: Arma 3's game play punishes the heroic Rambo player, and rewards the cautious, thinking team player. Every single player has a role to play, from the assault teams, to the reconnaissance, scouts, sharp-shooters, vehicles, to support teams like medics. Communication is very important in completing missions. The teamwork mechanics are so specific, which include the ability to drag injured teammates to safety, patching them up, to providing suppression support for advancing squads, to even opening a teammates backpack to attain extra ammunition.

For people who enjoyed Planetside 2, but did not like the bugs and it's poor support for their systems, this might be a game worth trying out. Arma 3 offers essentially the same kind of playing system: Strategic, tactical and coordinated teamwork play to achieve missions, but in a more modern world, including tons of vehicles based off their real-world counterparts, and plenty of weapons to choose from (Arma II had over one-hundred different weapons). Arma 3 is more realistic, however, offering bullet ballistics, sound waves, and the ability to modify weapons on the go, rather than before deploying.

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"Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy or art; it has no survival value. Rather, it is one of those things that gives value to survival." -C.S. Lewis.

Here is a co-op mission a group of guys put together and played on the Alpha of Arma 3. Remember, all of this was unscripted. Everything you see in the world is explorable, and the enemy all reacts based on the group's actions. There are no boundaries, no linear game play at all.

While I don't think we would need to create organized groups as specific as these guys did, I think we could have lots of fun playing co-op missions together that the modding communities continuously release.

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"Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy or art; it has no survival value. Rather, it is one of those things that gives value to survival." -C.S. Lewis.

Arma 3 is set to be released September 12th. I've talked to my Dad and a few others about this game, and I hope some others may at least look into it. The only downer I see with this game is going to really demand a lot from your rig. Still, I think it would be worth the experience.

Here is a youtube introduction that I think really articulates the game well.

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"Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy or art; it has no survival value. Rather, it is one of those things that gives value to survival." -C.S. Lewis.