ArmA II [PC]

Playing ArmA II is a lot like the pre-credits sequence to the 'Crime' episode of Chris Morris' excellent docu-satire series, Brass Eye. All is calm as Morris explains his position direct to camera. Then suddenly all is noise. Flashing lights. Chaos. Morris running around haphazardly, shouting "crime is confusing! crime is confusing!"

Substitute 'crime' for 'war' and you've got ArmA II. By most accounts actual wartime operations are indeed complete chaos, which suggests a point in favour for this latest military sim from Bohemia Interactive. They're the developers behind the original Operation Flashpoint, Armed Assault and, now, ArmA II - so they've had a lot of practise recreating convincing warzones. But when the confusion of a firefight blends with confusion over user interfaces and function, then there is more of a problem.

Perhaps because they know a lot of players coming to ArmA II will be OpFlash or Armed Assault veterans, the makers have no desire to spell anything out. It might seem odd to say this when the game offers a multi-part Boot Camp tutorial involving everything from helicopter lessons to firing ranges, but the scope of the title is so deep that this can only really brush the surface of what's possible. The squad training, for example, teaches the basics of command; how to move, regroup, get everybody inside a humvee and so on. But it also merrily waltzes through ten different command menus (which open up even more menus) accessible from 0-9 on the keyboard. These include formations, specialised movements and all the other high-level tactical approaches that seem necessary for a pretty hardcore military simulation. What the tutorial doesn't (or perhaps simply can't) do is offer any combat situations where you might be advised to select any of these options. When the time comes to actually command a squad, or indeed multiple squads, first-time players are flying almost completely blind.

That's the bad confusion. The good confusion is altogether different, though slightly influenced by the former. Laying face down in the grass as bullets crack off nearby twigs and you team-mates call out enemy positions and cry for help from god knows where is good confusion. Dragging your wounded body underneath an APC and wondering whether anybody can reach you before you bleed out is good confusion. Being given on-the-fly tasks as you go about a main objective and not knowing whether they're worth it, how dangerous they are, and if you can even help in time is good confusion. You will be shot and killed. A lot. By people you never even saw. It's the chaos of the battlefield and it's replicated superbly.

A lot of this can be enjoyed in the "Red Harvest" single player campaign, which begins in linear-ish fashion but rapidly goes extremely open-ended. Around about the fourth mission, the whole of Chernarus (the fictional post-Soviet state in which ArmA II sets itself) becomes accessible. From this point onwards it's almost entirely up to the player which lines of action and investigation to pursue. This is outrageously ambitious on the part of the developers and it's almost dizzying to realise that you have the the ability to trundle around the country in armoured vehicles, gaze down into villages from wooded hilltops and think 'I can literally go anywhere now and try to find some action.'

But this mighty ambition also leads to problems. The open-ended nature of the campaign means bugs are almost inevitable - whether they're mission triggers not working properly or baffling AI behaviour. When the latter takes the form of a rescued doctor taking time out from fleeing an occupied village to do some impromptu breakdancing in the middle of the road, it's mostly just funny. But when it's AI members of your own squad behaving like idiotholes (especially when the death of a squad member counts as mission failure) it becomes a little exasperating. Thanks to the confusion and complexity of the game, half the time you're not even sure how much your own actions were to blame for squad deaths. Should you have given them more accurate commands maybe? Is it your fault that they're struggling to pathfind their way around some walls? Who knows. War is confusing.