ArmA: Combat Operations review

Combat Operations is a soldier sim. We see a boatload every year, but this one is special. This is the follow-up to Operation Flashpoint, the game that was so realistic it became a professional military simulator. The raw facts about ArmA tell one hell of a story: 400 square kilometers of island to explore, 30 different weapons, 30 controllable vehicles, accurately modeled bullet ballistics, a full weather system, accurate tides and constellations, pesky insects...

It’s the product of developers obsessed with getting things right, which makes their decision to release it in a clearly broken state utterly baffling. It’s playable and enjoyable on many levels, but level-breaking bugs, game-crashing bugs and pathfinding bugs mean you don’t know what level of quality you’re getting from one mission to the next: will it be the astonishing military sim, or a comedic run around?