The boys at Bohemia Interactive have announced an expansion pack for the four player co-op game ArmA II called Operation Arrowhead.  The expansion is set in the hilly regions of Asia, Arrowhead takes place three years after the events of Chernarus.  There's no other detail regarding new weapons or vehicles, but with a current roster of a few hundred, what's a few dozen more?

Some folks in the ArmA community might be a bit miffed about this announcement, the game's forums are still lit ablaze by many of customer complaints with various bugs and crashes.  Bohemia has assured us that a new patch is on the way and that they've actively been listening to feedback on the forums.  Still, you can't help but wonder if the time was better spent on polishing their game instead of making an expansion.

Hopefully the patch and the expansion can fix some of the nagging complaints we had about the game.  Expect some hands on time with it at Gamecom in Europe next week.  No release date has been announced.

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It's figures, one day after we post our ArmA II review - Bohemia Interactive releases a new patch for the game.  Players can download the patch from the official website, and Steam users will get auto updated.  

While the patch weighs in at 134MB, Steam Users need to sit through a 4GB download to update the game due to some issues with the existing version.  

There's plenty of solid fixes like: Grenade could sometimes destroy a building just by impact and  Rainbow is visible even with sun below horizon.  Two issues I know were just killing us.  In all seriousness there's lots of performance and gameplay improvements listed.  The full list of fixes is posted below.

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Military Sims, true Military Sims, are a rarity these days. Instead we've grown used to the likes of Ghost Recon. That's not a knock on Ghost Recon, it's just a true hardcore sim is hard to come by. Enter ArmA 2 for the PC, the latest co-op military sim from Bohemia Interactive. Perhaps there's a reason these sims are a rarity? Or perhaps we just don't know what we are missing.

While the main part of ArmA 2 can be played cooperatively, there's a whole other aspect to the game that allows players to customize the battlefield by scripting their own missions.  You may have seen some of the insane videos we've posted - all of them were created with the game's mission editor.  

The latest developer diary walks players through creating a basic mission - which in this case is really just troop placement.  There are some advanced features though, including scripting support for advanced events and other neat tricks.  

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After watching the following video it's fairly obvious that the soldiers in ArmA II don't like vegetables.  Or they really want meat.  Perhaps they just have a thing against the bovine nation.

Despite this being only with AI teammates, this adds a whole other level to the game's cooperative mode.

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ArmA 2 is available on Steam today, and the very co-op friendly game is already getting fairly solid praises.  While the game sports a robust single player and co-op campaign, as well as plenty of online options - it's the mission editor of ArmA 2 that's getting a lot of attention.

Why?

I'll let this video do the talking, as they say - a picture is worth 1000 exploding planes.

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If you're looking to enter massive cooperative battles against thousands of soldiers, well then, you won't have to wait much longer.  Bohemia Interactive and Got Game Entertainment have announced their partnership for the North American release of Arma II on the PC.

While the game should be available on Valve's Steam service this Friday, June 26th, the retail release won't find its way to store shelves until July 7th.  The game has been out in Europe for a little over a month, and while initially it was released with quite a few bugs, things seem to have been ironed out.  

Games like Call of Duty always do a good job of making you feel like you are part of a larger battle than you actually have direct control over.  But what if all those things you saw on the screen you could actually shoot or affect?  That's exactly what ArmA 2 looks to be promising.

Two videos of the game have surfaced on YouTube, the first shows a night time battle with 1000 AI units fighting against each other.

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Image courtesy of www.ArmA2.com

In the age-old debate of console gaming versus PC gaming -- which was revisited this week during our record-length Co-Opticast -- PC has always fallen short when it comes to ease of use. As Mike and Kat so aptly pointed out, one of the main reasons for this is the hassle of installing patches post-release.

Since 2003, Valve's free digital distribution service, Steam, has helped alleviate that setback, bringing PC gaming up to par by providing automatic patch download and installation. As of September 2008, even game mods are being offered on Steam.

Yesterday Bohemia Interactive announced that Steam would be hosting ArmA II in addition to the standard retail availability. You can pre-purchase and download the game, which will then be unlocked on June 26th.

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