The sacrifices we make for you all!
A few months ago I purchased the hardcore Arma II by Bohemia Interactive, it’s quite fun and very violent/scary in parts, see my video below. If you get bored watching me do friendly fire, fast forward to about 5.30 to see the fun you can have with the mission editor:
Why did I buy it? Typical, just so we could keep in touch with progress of the impressive LOOKING ‘Take on Helicopters‘. BI have a great community preview available, where you can see development of one of their helicopter models (a fictional light heli) and sample the controls and flight model. The only catch is that you need to BUY their Arma II ‘Operation Arrowhead’.
I’ve just downloaded their latest preview no. 84444, apparently they’ve done a few tweaks to their flight model.
THE INTERIM VERDICT
Before the update, the flight model was as accurate as my Donkey Kong Game and Watch…meaning pretty well up/down, left/right! Really crap.
Now, after all their hard work, I can truly say that the flight model is actually up to Nintendo SNES standard, still very crude, absolutely NO feel of flight or randomness. It feels like the programmers are TRYING to model a gradual lift and velocity feel, but to me it still feels highly digital, on or off, but to smaller degrees.
Maybe I’m spoilt with Xplane’s helos and the FSX Dodosim. Sorry, but I’ll remain so until more improvements are made.
Graphics
They’re pretty good, as y0u will see from the screenshots and video below. I say pretty good, as my standards are now very high after seeing FSX at its best. I’d say the Arma graphics are 50% of the best of FSX, eg Orbx or Aerosoft scenery.
One MAJOR fault I’ve noticed is the alarming pop-up of trees as you progress, and their strange white look. See the screens and video for this ‘feature’.
Sound
Bits nice, other bits underwhelming. Watch the video to see what I mean. I’m pretty sure you can’t normally hear the birds singing from inside a chopper on takeoff.
At this stage, If I were a heli-nut, I’d stay right away, and keep with what you know. Let’s hope the devs’ learning curve is going stratospheric and they make some big improvements. I like the look of their city scenery. We’ll let you know if any improvements appear.
So there you have it. Trust Simon and Chip to keep you HONESTLY and INDEPENDENTLY up to date!
See you ’round the traps later!
S
X+Sim+Reviews 
I get the impression that this heli sim is going to be nothing but eyecandy…
it seems the majority of the things that read about this completely disagree with almost everything you’ve said.
SO, thanks Simon, thanks chip, Chip I know you mean well but ill take an experiences simmer’s/ real helicopter pilot’s opinion over references to snes and donkey kong!!!
Can u post links to whomever is raving about the flightmodel? As the helicopter is fictional, I assume they’re basing it on a 500? always open to new info and other opinions! We want it to be cool too.