If you haven't played Armed Assault this is what your missing..

Nicely done. I've never played ArmA and you actually made me want to try it out..

Its a lot more realistic. Well it is one of the most realistic games ever made. Its a simulation really, not a FPS. Also there is a whole country and you can go anywhere at any time, the scope of the game is amazing. I have never played BF but this will make it look like Quake 3.

The action is generally slow paced, it just might seem fast here because of the quick cutting.

so is it an almost MMO type game? huge, permeanent world?

This is the sequel to operation flashpoint. It uses the same engine and is made by the same people who made operation flashpoint.

Its not MMO but on-line games can run for hours or days particularly sahrani life which is an RPG. It all takes place on this huge map with no loading times.

You can command a squad of troops and even play a bit like a RTS if you wanted but its mainly first person action. The AI can be useful in MP because you can recruit them and make them do boring or dangerous jobs.

The single player campaign is a bit rubbish really which is shame but you should just ignore and go straight online. There is no other MP game like it.

It's a boxed retail game that has no monthly subscriptions as it is not a persistent game world, it just has a massive world map to play on.

I know that armed assault has really massive maps but is there any true long range sniping? most games hav sniper rifles with really crappy scopes with 200m has maximum sniping range. Why can't they hav games with a sniper taking out people at 1km+ like in the movie Shooter. And why get us to buy armed assault if a sequel is being developed we might as well w8 for that.

I loved flashpoint (I also own arma, i do enjoy it but) They didn't fix any of the really annoying things that bugged me in flashpoint. Primarily being clunky animations. i.e. un-like other fps games, you can't move and reload, basically once an animation is in progress you can't cancel it and do something else instead. Like you start reloading your weapon a baddie jumps out, and your forced to stand still there and wait for your guy to reload. The AI (my favorite thing is creating missions, so this annoys me) is very inconsistent, sometimes the AI has the skill of a pro seal team other times, its like you handed a hippy a gun and he wont shoot anyone. Also with the AI, as far as entering structures the AI is a little confused, and just don't do it right. Another gripe is, with the realism of the ground warfare from the soldiers point of view, I wish they went that extra mile to "sim out" all aspects i.e. fighting from a tank, or air unit so the game would function great as a stand alone sim from any battlefield position such as armor air or infantry.

Now some positives, as far as simluation goes, you cant really beat it. I LOVE the mission editor and the great mods created by the community (Primarily new soldier types, countries, vehicles, air units, weapons, and full scale maps). But yes the game can be played in various ways, such as an RTS. say you have a squad, you can "order" them instead of leading them if you so choose, pretty precisely I might add. For the scale of the game the graphics arent bad. Overall my only big gripe is the clunky animiations that cause you to feel restricted in movement. Aside from that if your looking for a simulation give it a shot.

Yeah I know. I hate the AI too, that's why I only play MP.

I meant to try this a long time ago, but I had a bad pc back then, i'll give it a try (demo somewhere inst there?), but I doubt i'd like it, slower pace than bf2, more like project reality mod and the other abbreviated AA game from what I read.. BF2 and CS is about as slow as I go lol.

i'll try Armed assault 2 when it comes out