Its far from overlooked, BIS forum will open your eyes.
Operation Flashpoint with code masters was not the first OFP.
BIS have made lots of games but the arma series consist of; original OFP pc only, OFP Elite on the original xbox console only, Operation Flashpoint (Dragon Rising) went into legal wrangle over rights etc with codemasters console/pc, then came the true successor to OFP which was Arma pc only, then came Arma 2 pc only, Arma 3 pc only, is in production now.
They also made VBS/VBS2 both simulators for government use, but there is a lite VBS2 available complete with Editor, a fine sim..
Arma series is by far the most realistic war game/sim available imo, I play in a group of around 30 of us, and A2 is a big part of the overall game we play.
I have OFP (original), OFP Elite original xbox, OFP Dragon rising (sorry but I kept it although never play it now), Arma, VBS2 lite, Arma 2 (plus OA, BAF & PMC), and a rig waiting for Arma 3.
PC is the best format for Arma as its just too large for a console to play as it was intended to play.
I bought a 360 just for Dragon Rising as I wanted to see what the console version was like, it was not BIS at work here it was Codemasters, a complete washout of a game, not along the series idea.
The ‘Editor’ is BIS’s finest achievement imo and making missions, as I and a couple of others do for the group we play in, is what makes arma series so great. (dragon rising console did not include a editor).
Ace is a must for arma/arma2 (ace 2), acre is team speak, quote from their readme “the most realistic and immersive radio system within the current gaming world”.
As a group we play around 200 mods inc islands, over 400 mods are on my storage hdd, so the game is possibly the most supported of pc games around.
The must 'ai' mods are GL4 and SLX mixed, some parts taken from each. They have been copied since by some, but never bettered imo.
There are lots of other ai mods that we use for stance animation etc, but those are the main two..
You need a fairly good system to run Arma 2, but not, as some people will tell you, one from NASA..
Oh and yes there is another A2 thread on here...
Edit; forgot to mention all the added bits like Operation Arrowhead, CO, BAF, PMC etc, but really they are all A2 based. Plus of course Iron Front, although not a BIS game it uses the A2 engine.
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