I first got into military simulation games when I first played Jane's USAF. Flying in an F117 over the heavily defended Baghdad during the opening hours of Operation: Desert Storm was really cool, though I'd always have a stray AAA battery round hit the bottom of my craft somehow. *shrugs* Guess I suck at flying or I just have bad karma.

I really got into simulator games when I first played ArmA: Combat Operations. I fell in love with that game, because not only was it a game...it got me the closest to the military that I can ever hope to get. Then I found that I totally missed out on the Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis years and I hung my head in shame, but I eventually broke down and ordered OFP 1 Game of the Year edition off of Amazon for only 14.99 plus shipping and handling. I played both of these games A LOT. I still play them to this day.

I have to ask you all what you guys think about military simulator games. Some say they're too realistic to be enjoyable, but I disagree. That's what modding is for silly people!

Here is a screenshot from a recent server I was on with a couple of newly made friends. The objective was to eliminate all patrols, armor, and anti-air defense (ZSU-23-4) near and in a village. At the beginning of the mission, my friend Snake and I traded weapons. I gave him my M4 SOPMOD with aimpoint and in return he gave me an SR-25. His problem with the SR-25 was the scope and how it was aligned, but I managed to get use to it rather quickly, because you have to calculate the distance of the soldiers with the 'ticks' in the scope crosshair. Anyways, we set up a sniping position on a ridge overlooking the Northern patrol route. We took out the Spetsnaz there (I barely got in any hits because I was getting use to the scope) and then Snake and Zulu went along the eastern side of the road to take out the enemy armor. Zulu was wiped out by God knows what and Snake eventually got gunned down inside of the village. They took down a few guys with them, but I was on my own from there on out. I proceeded along the Eastern side of the road (more along the beach) and I made my way to a house (in stealth mode) and started picking a few guys off from there. I then stealthily approached a farm and used that as another sniping position. After that, I proceeded to go toward a hill on the Western part of the village using the woods as cover. Then I got into my sniping position and cautiously picked off the rest of the infantry. Waiting for the remaining BMP to move past so I can move into the village to take out the Shilka, I planned my means of attack. When the BMP passed, I gunned it to the courtyard where the Shilka was. I played a little game of hide and go seek at a barn, waiting for the perfect opportunity to eliminate it. Once it was away guarding the other side of the courtyard, oblivious to my actions, I grabbed some mines out of a nearby crate. Then I hid again...after it made its second round, I gunned it to a downed tree where it usually passed by and then I placed two mines and then gunned it back into the barn I was previously hiding in. Then...BOOM. Shilka down. Air defenses down, though that didn't really mean air support would come in and bomb the town, because we had civilians in the town waiting to be released. Anyways, BMP passed a few seconds later...then I placed two mines on the road...and did the same strategy there. I waited. After the BMP-2 was destroyed, I then proceeded to look for any remaining infantry, because the 'eliminating N and S patrols' objective wasn't complete yet. I took forever trying to find them. I eventually ran to the Southern woods and got shot in the back of the head. But look at my score in the meantime!

Spoiler:

I did the rest of the mission literally by myself.....pretty much. I could have succeeded had I not gotten shot in the back of the head.

Medal of honor was always my favorite. Then call of duty. LOL!

Icemember wrote:

Medal of honor was always my favorite. Then call of duty. LOL!

Aye. Good games. The game I'm talking about here is an actual simulator however. Believe it or not, the engines used for OFP1, ArmA 1, and ArmA 2 were used by militaries all around the world. Canada has used the games, United States especially...as well as the UK. I have no idea who else uses the products, but they are actually effective military tools used to train soldiers in various tasks before they go out into the field. When they're not training in boot camp, they're hooking up in simulators (VBS1, VBS2, or what have you. Virtual Battle Space products by the same company who made OFP, ArmA and AA2 tend to go into the $1000 range since those are actually for the military. I have the civilian counterparts to those, which are OFP1, ArmA 1, and ArmA 2.). Gotta research into them someday. I know that some people seem to think that too much realism can kill the joy out of things, but I think OFP and the ArmA series does a good job of making it fun, yet in a very realistic sense regarding gameplay mechanics. Plus....there's mods. LOTS of mods. Some of these mods actually do give me ideas for DD that I will have to type up soon.

I know this sounds insulting to CoD and MoH, but CoD and MoH are extremely arcade compared to OFP, ArmA, and ArmA 2. Not that that's a bad thing! I actually go between them all, to be honest. You should have seen the amazing mission I was talking about regarding that screenshot. It really was awesome how I was able to solo most of that mission on foot.

Not insulting at all. But yea MOH and COD are as real as it gets for me along with Rainbow 6.

Yea i hear of the army recruit people playing the xbox 360 version. If ya good and of age, you get a mail asking if ya interested in joining the army.

After playing some ArmA: Cold War Assault/Operation: Flashpoint Game of the Year, I decided to get some screenshots of my experience as a Black Op involved in a "Clean Sweep" mission of a Soviet held village.

This is the village after the clean sweep. We lost 2 out of our 4 man squad in the attack, but in the end, mission complete. They will be remembered as heroes!

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

After action report. Objectives complete.

Spoiler:

2 members KIA, name one Bobby Bruning and one James Pound.

Spoiler:

On the upside, I fragged 7 enemies with my H&K MP5SD! If you can call 'killing' an upside...

This isn't a game, but a mod for Flight Sim X. its called Combat Pilot (combatpilotseries.com) and it looks awesome so far.