[Arma2] Dogs of War by Potatomasher

Review by mathias_eichinger

Overviews

There is only one Overview motif, and it is only shown at the start of the campaign. The motif itself is well chosen, since it represents all aspects of the campaign. However, other campaigns have overviews for each mission, and a little text to accompany the picture would have been nice as well.

Cinematics

There is only one general campaign intro, not one for every mission. The campaign intro is well done, with action-packed fighting scenes and custom music.

Briefings

Briefings are very short and to the point, omitting any diary-style entries or sub-sections on strategic situation, OPFOR and whatnot. The spec op missions contain a weapons selection though.

Missions

This campaign gives you 10 missions in total, which is comparatively long. There is the good old OFP style mixture of patrolling, village raids, attack helicopter, sabotage, assassination and transport helo missions. This diversity is what I really like about the campaign.

What is not so likeable about it is the hefty difficulty throughout most of the campaign, changing over to "almost too easy" for the last 3 missions. I would therefore say, that this campaign suffers from balancing problems. For many missions, the author resorts to the old trick of throwing a massive amount of enemies against the player, while denying him the support one would expect the USMC to have. This creates a feeling of disbelief at times, because your squad is frequently overrun by huge numbers of rag-tag guerillas with no air or artillery support available. In the case of some spec op missions you are the lone wolf without medical support which is a pain in the backside since you require a steady aim.

The last 3 missions however are very easy and offer little challenge.

Special

This campaign delivers what people really like about BIS games. The good old OFP style of varied missions that exploit every aspect of the game's arsenal. This style of campaign has become surprisingly rare since ArmA1.

Overall

A campaign that offers variety, but suffers from uneven balancing throughout the course of the campaign. It is not recommended for casual play, as it tends to kill the fun due to difficulty, but if you have plenty of time at hand and you like to try against a real challenge, this is the right thing for you.