I've been thinking of getting into Arma 2 to play with a few mates of mine, looking for a nice serious bit of warfare. But I see that as well as the original game, there are two standalone expansions as well. If I was to get just one to try out, which should it be? Cheers.
Out of the standalone expansions (Reinforcements and Operation Arrowhead), OA is a much larger game IIRC since Reinforcements is a standalone version of 2 pieces of OA DLC. Now between ArmA 2 and OA... i think OA is probably a better choice due to the refined engine and increased features. However for COOP campaign you'll definitely have to look at the User made stuff because (IMO) the OA COOP campaign sucks balls compared to the original ArmA 2. If you want the long version with regards to why, it's due to OA's COOP making each of you a squad leader with different objectives. Sure you're "COOP" by being in the same campaign and story, but you don't get that same feeling of being in a squad together working together for the same objective (one mission my friend assaulted a mine complex whilst i had to clear a nearby town... we didn't see each other until the very end - and by that i mean i saw his extraction helicopter fly over me). The original ArmA 2 was much better in this respect by putting you all in the same squad... i think the issue here was that essentially only the person in the Squad Leader role had the "power" (i.e. calling in Choppers for extraction and targets for Artillery) but at the same time the Campaign was more based around open world objectives rather than a more structured and linear story that OA seems to be (so far).
An amazingly helpful response, thanks What features etc. would I lose out on by just getting vanilla Arma2 and playing the apparently better co-op campaign on that?
