Armed Assault

Thursday 20 April 2006
Armed Assault is a military fetishist's fantasy. Sticky copyright problems mean creator Bohemia Interactive - developer of soldier sim Operation Flashpoint - can't call the game 'Operation Flashpoint 2', but that's exactly what it is. Only better, more ambitious and much, much bigger.

As a grunt in the US Army you're sent to a remote island as part of a peacekeeping force. You spend your time slugging beers and attempting to keep the island's two factions from blasting the hell out of one another.

After training up the southern militia to protect itself from the larger, more organised northern army, the mainstay of the US force heads off, leaving your battalion behind as a rearguard - which is the cue for a tricksy mass assault by the northerners.

In a mix of first-person shooting and base-camp strategic action, your band of soldiers joins forces with the southern army and prepares to repel the surprise invasion - on a terrifically huge scale.

The island is 400 square kilometres of fully explorable terrain, and you can battle across every mountain, village and rolling field. Each mission takes place on the island, rather than in a particular section of it, so there're no restrictions on where you can go during the skirmish.

Ben Richardson is a former Staff Writer for Official PlayStation 2 magazine and a former Content Editor of GamesRadar+. In the years since Ben left GR, he has worked as a columnist, communications officer, charity coach, and podcast host – but we still look back to his news stories from time to time, they are a window into a different era of video games.