Arma 3
Well, this game is basically the Holy Grail of shooters. Bullet physics, Squad and chat management, designated roles, Infantry and Vehicles, and last but certainly not least the modding community. It's that last one that helps draw me to Arma 3 more than anything else. It allows you to fight anywhere, be anyone, and use anything. You want to fight in the mountains of Afghanistan as British SAS using Russian weapons. Done. You want to insert covertly into Australia as U.S. Navy Seals. Done. You want to roleplay life in a Greek city under the rule of a corrupt police force. There's a mod for that. It's this versatility that helped launch Arma to new heights.
Arma or as it was known beforehand Armed Assault is a real deal military simulation. There have been plenty of people that have covered this game and told us this but you don't really get the feel of it until you play a few COOP rounds with a full squad of guys working together. I could sit here and blab all night about the many adventures and misadventures I've had in Arma multiplayer servers along with Arma Milsim groups.
To put it plainly, if you enjoy COD's fast movement gameplay. Arma may not be right for you. Battlefield comes close but not close enough to really compare. So let's break everything down and see what we can come up with.
Arma 3 has a decent campaign. Maybe not the most engaging for some people and boring as hell for others but it serves a purpose other than to entertain you. The campaign is really a long tutorial teaching you the core mechanics of the game. Although I still wouldn't recommend skipping it. It may not be your style but learning at least the important features of the game in the first few levels before jumping into multiplayer will save some people a bunch of headaches.
There are two ways to play multiplayer. First is the traditional PVP type servers that work but hopefully, your computer is above average or you kind of a sitting duck to players with decked out PCs. The other way is through COOP servers, Here you also have multiple choices for how to go about it. You can play COOP campaign missions if you wish or you can play player created missions on the fly. I personally like to go for the player generated missions as long as you have a game master who knows what they are doing.
The modding community, like I said above, is where this game really shines. Be it through the modders who continuously pump out new content or the creators who just make missions they want to play and share them. you can't really go wrong with the mods. Just be aware that the more mod's you download means the more you're computer will have to work.
Speaking of work, let's talk about some the downsides to the Arma series. Starting with the amount of work your computer has to do in order to play the game. Until recently Arma was always running on 32 bit. Which hampered computer performance for even the best PC's but the worst part is figuring out your best FPS on a multiplayer server with 64 players. The best I've seen from a regular average Joe computer is about 40 FPS consistent. Not the worst but not favorable. With $2,000 machines I've seen some impressive stuff but if you compare it to its colleagues it is way behind in that department. Now I'm not "techy" to know the reasons why it's like that but I know it sucks for those of us with low-end computers.
Lastly, the second biggest problem with the Arma series has to do with those same COOP games I praised earlier. sure it can be a grand time if you link up with a good group of guys. but if you link up with a group of crybabies who need hand holding the game gets to be unbearable. Sadly though that's something that only has a group of friends to play with can fix.
So overall, Arma 3 I think is always worth a shot for those that are looking for more from there FPS games and I know they are out there. It's just not for everyone.