On the other hand, there was a needless amount of frustration along the way that could have been avoided with clearer UI and better instruction. It was satisfying because it allowed me come up with a strategy which felt entirely my own, and one which nearly no other shooter could accommodate. After much experimentation, I devised a tactic of sending my aerial drone ahead to scout and tag targets, which then allowed me to coordinate mortar fire and corner enemies in the town.

In one of the more interesting Showcases you are given access to a non-lethal aerial drone and an armed ground vehicle drone which you can use to eliminate targets in a nearby town. It’s an inefficient method to teach you how to fly a helicopter, and practically useless when it comes to explaining the tactical value of more esoteric equipment and features. The only real instruction comes in the form of on-screen hints that tell you which keys do what. However, they each do a poor job of explaining how to use them or how they may be useful later on. Its Showcases (playable scenarios showing off its many features) follow a logical progression that introduce you to increasingly complicated mechanics. To make matters even more difficult, in its current state Arma III doesn’t offer a real tutorial. I had to wonder what my AI squadmates thought of me, the clueless rookie, stumbling into the bushes before I accidently pulverized myself with a satchel charge I didn’t even mean to deploy. With so many different firing modes, stances, movement speeds, and other options, I had difficulty just walking, drawing my weapon and firing, to say nothing of using my equipment, making sense of the map, and working with my squad. I felt comically inept fumbling through my first few hours.

You’re going to have to use almost every key on your keyboard, memorize specific key combinations and what each does depending on whether you’re on foot, in a tank, a helicopter, etc. It’s a first-person shooter alright, but it’s not another “left trigger to aim down the sights, right trigger to shoot” kind of game.

I knew what to expect going into Arma III from previous experience with Bohemia Interactive games, yet I was still overwhelmed by the amount of features I had to wrap my head around before I could play it with even moderate proficiency.

Us army uses arma 3