Arma 2--a relatively unknown two year old Military Simulator FPS--has been shoved into the spotlight as of late, all thanks to a mod named DayZ.
What is DayZ? To put it short it's a realistic Zombie Apocalypse mod (in Alpha stages) set in a fictional post-Soviet country named Chernarus. Players join in on one of the many sanctioned DayZ servers, where their characters are saved on the DayZ database, meaning when you quit or join a different server, their characters and their items are persistent. When I say that it's realistic, I mean it; you will have to eat food as you get hungry, drink water to quench your thirst, and traverse the 225km2 zombie-ridden landscape for supplies in order survive for as long as you can. Zombies are not the only threat either--PvP is fully enabled, so players can and will fight each other over supplies and other such disputes. Oh, did I mention there is permadeath? You die, you lose everything, and have to start all over again.
There is no overall objective in DayZ, as it's a sandbox game. You make your own rules, morals, and objectives--some choose to be friendly, get into groups of people and have safety in numbers, others choose to go it alone, opting to give strangers little trust, and some seek out to kill others and take the loot for their own.
In games like DayZ, it's hard not to get immersed. When you spend hours on a character, getting the best gear you can find, it's a real wake up call when you lose it all to a Sniper in the hills. Some hate games like these, but personally, I love them. Games with high risk and reward ratios give you a feeling of accomplishment like no other. In any normal game there's no real risk reward, maybe you'll lose some points if you die or you'll miss out on a piece of gear if you can't complete a dungeon, but when your loot and your life is on the line it's a whole different ball game.
It's quite hard to critique a mod, seeing as it's free, made by people who aren't payed in any way, and the majority of the game mechanics are tied to the game that it's made for, however, I'll give it a shot anyway.
As I said before, Arma 2 is a Military Sim, meaning it focuses on large scale combat rather than tight knit skirmishes like Battlefield 3 or Modern Warfare does. It's nowhere near an AAA title's amount of polish, and as such it shouldn't be treated like it. Sure there are some glaring game mechanic issues, but it's to be expected with any low budget MilSim. DayZ does suffer from Arma 2's buginess though, as I've died many times by clipping in and out terrain and objects--which either severely injures me or fatally wounds me. The Zombie AI could also be coded a lot better, seeming somewhat random and almost nigh on impossible to shoot at until they are in your face biting it off. I also dislike the unrealistic night time darkness, where from about 8pm till 1 am it's nigh on impossible to see a thing unless you have night vision goggles or some sort of light source. The inventory system could also be handled better, especially in regards to backpacks.
You see, I was able to find some problems with it at least. But seriously, this mod has so much to offer it's mind boggling. This has never been done before, and the devs really nailed it as far as I'm concerned. It is probably the mod of the year, and provided you're even remotely interested in Zombie/Survival genres I recommend giving this game a go.
If you're interested in playing, it's gonna set you back about $30 to get Arma 2: Combined Operations from Steam. Then you'll have to download the mod files from here.
