The 15 best Arma 3 player-created solo missions

The Arma series is famous for its massive multiplayer battles, but there’s still fun to be had on the war-torn islands of Stratis and Altis by yourself. These missions can all be played solo, with a focus on small squads, infantry, or infiltration. They’ve all been created by Arma 3 players using the game’s powerful built-in editing tools, and some are as impressive as anything in Bohemia’s own campaign.

To play the missions, subscribe to them in the Steam Workshop, then go to Play in the Arma 3 main menu, then Scenarios. It's worth noting that updates to Arma 3—which are pretty frequent—can cause bugs in user-made missions, which their creators should (hopefully) iron out promptly. Some listed here can be also be played in co-op if you have a friend who owns the game. Enjoy.

Bad Holiday

Created by Benny and Lentilburger
Type Infantry, squad, air
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A holidaymaker finds himself in the midst of a violent city siege. Scavenge weapons, repel the invaders, and call in the military. A creative premise and an enjoyable, varied mission.

Hostile Water

Created by Mr_Tactical
Type Infantry, squad, water
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Recover a classified device from a stricken British submarine. To find the vessel you’ll need to secure enemy intel to discover its location. A large mission with multiple objectives.

Resist: Road’s End

Created by Kydoimos
Type Infantry, story
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The first chapter of Resist, a user campaign that runs parallel to Survive. Features voice acting, cutscenes, and production values on par with Bohemia’s own missions.

Operation Scar

Created by HallyG
Type Infantry, stealth, assassination
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A night mission in which you play as a special forces operative sneaking behind enemy lines to assassinate an officer. Short, but atmospheric and nicely balanced.

Revenge!

Created by Binkowski
Type Infantry, assault, urban
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A remake of a classic mission from Bohemia’s first game, Operation Flashpoint. Command a large CSAT squad and take two settlements back from a group of terrorists.

Clandestine Sunrise

Created by Navarre
Type Infantry, air, vehicles
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Lead a small recon squad to covertly destroy enemy assets. Decent voice acting, unlimited saves, and excellent tactical deployment of Creedence Clearwater Revival.

Sniper Alley

Created by PFC Veld
Type Infantry, sniping
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A non-linear mission that sees you, a ghillie-suited sniper, hunting randomly-placed enemy snipers across a large valley area in west Altis. Another short one, but brilliantly tense.

Operation Hog Cove

Created by Nichevo
Type Infantry, water, assault
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A brutal, fast-paced mission that sees you and several AI-controlled squads landing on a beach and attacking an enemy force, whose numbers and placement are different every time.

Hard to Peel

Created by Gibbon
Type Infantry, air, urban
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An assault on an enemy airfield, followed by an action-packed push into an occupied city. Some great urban firefights and a custom soundtrack you’ll either love or hate.

On the Other Side

Created by Bauerhousebourne
Type Infantry, stealth, story
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One of the most popular user missions on the Steam Workshop to date, and deservedly so. Cinematic, polished, well-paced, and offers plenty of scope for creative play.

Explore Altis

Created by OlejnaS
Type Exploration, non-combat
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And now for something completely different. This mod highlights points of interest across Altis and lets you teleport to them instantly. A great way to explore the island without being shot at.

Operation Greenstorm

Created by eCHo
Type Infantry, urban
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Lead a small squad and attack Altis’ old capital city under cover of night and thick fog. Some incredible views at the beginning, although it’s quite a hike to the first objective.

Trident

Created by Ubiquitous
Type Infantry, stealth, sniping
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This slick mission offers you three different insertion points. You can sneak in using stealth, charge in with brute force, or snipe from afar. Nice briefing sequence too.

Virtual CQC Firefight

Created by Balr0g
Type Infantry, training, VR
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Arma’s recent Bootcamp update added Metal Gear Solid-style VR training missions to the game. This close-quarters battle is a good way to hone your infantry skills.

Enemy Supply

Created by Kapten K
Type Infantry, stealth
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Land behind enemy lines, use stealth to avoid patrols, and destroy enemy assets. A simple, well-scripted mission that can be approached in a number of different ways.

The Sims 2 is being retired, EA to give owners a free Ultimate Collection upgrade

The Sims 2 has lived a long and productive life. It was born, it made lots of friends, it worked at H&M for a period, and now it's ready to retire. In an email sent out to Sims 2 owners, EA claim that the game will "lose technical support" next week, on 22 July. As a concession to the game's owners, all copies registered digitally through Origin will be upgraded to the Ultimate Collection—a complete edition containing every expansion pack and "stuff pack" released for almost 10-year-old game.

"Your current version of The Sims 2 will lose technical support on 22 July 2014," wrote EA in an email, published on NeoGAF. "We want you to have the most up-to-date version of The Sims 2 in your collection, so you will see a brand new addition to your Origin library: The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection."

EA provide more info in a new FAQ page on their site. "The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection is going out to gamers right now," they write. "Everyone who had a digital copy of The Sims 2 will find the Ultimate Collection in their library within the next 5 days."

Hopefully the move will also prompt EA to actually sell the Ultimate Collection, too. The Sims 2 is, of course, a classic—despite its long and bizarre history of expansions—and it seems strange that it's not available for digital purchase.

Star Citizen raises $48 million, future stretch goal promises "alien languages"

Ah, I remember the days when Star Citizen's expanding warchest felt like a miraculous and important thing. "Gee willikers, mister," I'd write, my face yet to be blemished by months of deleting iOS press releases, "Star Citizen has raised $9 million!" "Wowzas!" I'd later exclaim, not yet driven pallid and sickly from the mysterious substance pouring out of PC Gamer's coffee machine, "$17 million is a lot of money!" Only a year later, and that growing total is no longer a surprise. It simply is—a universal constant that weathers the chaos and turmoil of indifferent mathematics.

Er, by which I mean Star Citizen has raised $48 million.

But rather than that, and the user-voted "Retaliator" ship commercial the milestone has unlocked, the big news is in the game's newly announced $50 million stretch goal. When, as it inevitably will, the game raises that total, Cloud Imperium will create and add "Alien Languages" into the game.

"We will work with real-world linguists to create distinctive and realistic alien languages for Star Citizen’s three biggest alien races, the Vanduul, the Xi’An and the Banu," writes Chris Roberts in the latest crowdfunding update. "No universal translators, no garbled animal noises: Star Citizen’s aliens will be speaking their own authentic languages!"

 

 

"I’m excited about this one," writes Roberts, "and looking forward to meeting the first fan who learns to speak one of our languages! As always, thank you for your support.

Battlefield Hardline "Community's Most Wanted" lists ten more changes in the works

It's not often that "fewer explosions" tops a game studio's to-do list, especially when the game in question is something like Battlefield Hardline. But it's number one on the latest edition of the "Community's Most Wanted" list of changes Electronic Arts and Visceral is making to the game.

It turns out that there is such a thing as too much of a good thing, and that includes blowing things up. "We have heard your complaints about breaking the cops and robbers experience with the amount of heavy explosive weaponry available – but we didn’t want to sacrifice fun!" EA wrote in the first entry of thenew list. "We’ve made changes to reduce the frequency of explosive use to focus on the core gameplay, and we’ve made the use of explosives much more believable now."

The rest of the list is a mix of specific changes and vague promises. A bug that caused medkits and ammo boxes to block line of sight checks during character revives has been fixed, and vehicles have been made tougher, so that enemy players won't be able to "turn your sedan into a four-person death trap quite so easily."

On the fuzzier side of the coin, there's also "Making the world deeper and more interactive," which includes the addition of interactive doors, radios, ammo lockers and other bits and pieces, and "Revisiting the in-game HUD," with an eye to "establishing a clearer visual difference from BF4 and improving the messaging of the in-game HUD, from objectives to player status information." The Mechanic class is also being rebalanced to be "better in more situations," and may be renamed as well; suggestions for a new name may be made in the blog comments.

To be fair, the Community's Most Wanted list is meant to "outline some of the fixes and improvements we are making to Battlefield Hardline," rather than provide a detailed breakdown of specific fixes and updates being made to the game. "We want to reinforce how important your feedback has been," EA wrote. "We have a lot of other awesome changes underway and will be sharing more soon!"

Battlefield Hardline is set to launch on October 21.

10 BEST RPGS EVER

Alright, before we go on to this list of the 10 Best RPGs Ever, we need to lay some ground rules. #1: no MMOs. It’s hard to judge MMO RPGs against single-player RPGs when their quality is so dependent on their community. #2: only one game per franchise. Otherwise you would see a whole bunch of Final Fantasy, Pokemon, and Dragon Quest titles cluttering up this list. #3: no tactical RPGs. While Shining Force and Fire Emblem are amazing games, it simply makes the playing field too wide to judge. #4: no shooter/RPG hybrids. Once again, Deus Ex and BioShock are phenomenal games but they make the playing field far too big. And #5: no imports! Terranigma and Seiken Densetsu 3 were phenomenal games but unless it came out in America it doesn’t do us much good to tell you how awesome it is.

For this list, we are only considering the classic Japanese RPG and American RPG games that defined the formula as we know it today, and even then there are more than enough good RPGs out there to make your head spin. That being said, these are the 10 Best RPGs Ever.

10

Dragon Quest 8

 

 

The US missed the huge hype surrounding games like Dragon Quest III, but it’s indisputable that Dragon Quest is one of the most influential RPGs in existence. Heck, they don’t release on weekdays because Square-Enix is too afraid that kids and businessmen alike will play hooky just to get a copy of the latest DQ game! Since we have to obey our own rules, DQ8 gets this slot, as it’s one of the most well known Dragon Quest games in America, and the first to actually have its title scheme changed back to the true Japanese title from Dragon Warrior.

 

9

Super Mario RPG

 

 

Super Mario RPG was ahead of its time. It had so many awesome innovations on the stale RPG genre. It introduced the “casual RPG” style of timed battles, but still had real stats, equipment and HP. It introduced the incredible innovation of having a party share its MP. It integrated Mario conventions like hidden blocks (chests) and the invincibility star into an RPG setting, and boy, was grinding a blast with a Star Man. It also had a profoundly dark plot for a Mario game that still managed to stick in a lighthearted joke or two. It was easily the best Mario RPG ever made and one of the best RPGs of all time. Now put Geno in Super Smash Bros., Nintendo!

 

8

Skyrim

 

 

A lot of 10 Best RPG lists put games like Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and Fallout 3 on their countdown, and while these games are good, they are also very new. We call this “the shiny.” It’s the tendency that we have to mistake things that are new for things that are amazing just because we played them recently. Skyrim, however, doesn’t suffer from the shiny. It’s just that damn good. It’s impossible to have a list like this without an Elder Scrolls RPG on it, and Skyrim is easily the best.

 

7

Baldur’s Gate II

 

 

Baldur’s Gate II may have been the crowning achievement of top down isometric RPGs. Not only was the Dungeons & Dragons-based gameplay incredibly deep and customizable, but the story was second to none. It took place in one of the most vibrant and living worlds we had seen, in an age where the best voice actor you could afford was Steve the intern. It also had one of the best villains of RPG history. The Baldur’s Gate II experience holds up today, and is worth a replay now and then just to remember how good top down RPGs were.

 

6

Earthbound

 

 

Earthbound challenged the RPG conventions we knew and love. Our heroes were no longer knights and brave warriors, but simple kids who grew up in peaceful towns. Instead of fighting gorgons and skeletons, we fought gigantic piles of puke and murderous carnival tents. Earthbound was as charming as it was rule breaking, and it made us all cry, and pray, and break the fourth wall in enjoyment.

 

5

Final Fantasy VI

 

 

Now remember, we said that we would only insert one game per franchise, otherwise this list might end up being, “The 10 Best Final Fantasy Games and Also Chrono Trigger.” So we had to choose the best that the Final Fantasy series had to offer, and in our opinion, that’s Final Fantasy VI. It introduced huge swappable parties made up of an interesting ensemble cast of characters. It was the first to make magic something equippable rather than learnable. It gave every character their own special attacks which were useful throughout the entire game. Finally, it had one of the best villains of all time in Kefka, a clown that destroyed the world, just for the LOLs! Move over Sephiroth, Kefka has you beat.

 

4

Planescape: Torment

 

 

Planescape: Torment was one of the most critically under-appreciated gems of its time. Once again, we have a Dungeons & Dragons-based game, but the character writing was dark, detailed, and absolutely brilliant. Also, it was one of the few early generation RPGs that made your choices actually mean something. Your actions were yours alone, and you had to deal with the consequences.

 

3

Pokemon Red/Blue

 

 

For some reason, Pokemon is omitted from a lot of Best RPG lists. Why? It’s easily one of the best selling RPGs of all time. It's a huge franchise with a phenomenal history. Players spend hours of their lives trying to get Pokemon with perfect IVs and EVs and… other combinations of letters with V. Heck, it might actually be one of the most complex RPGs out there, considering its about training magical pets to fight against each other. It’s also one of the only RPGs in the world with a huge competitive scene. Of course, if we are going to include a Pokemon game, we can only choose one in the franchise, and so we chose the one that started it all, Pokemon Red and Blue.

 

2

Diablo II

 

 

Now we are getting to the real classics. If we had to choose one game to be the best American RPG of all time, Diablo II would be it, hands down. Though not an MMO itself, Diablo II created or refined most of the conventions we see in MMOs to this day. It was also one of the first really popular multiplayer RPGs, with a much more massive following than any Tales game of today. Then there was PvP, crafting an alchemy, and a story that wasn’t great, but was phenomenal for multiple players to go through. Heck, it could even be said that the rarity system of loot dropping was popularized by Diablo II. This game is full of firsts (or really seconds, considering Diablo I did a lot of what Diablo II did but wasn’t as popular).

 

1

Chrono Trigger

 

 

Chrono Trigger doesn’t just make a good argument for being one of the best RPGs of all time; it makes an argument for being one of the best games of all time. First of all, Chrono Trigger was highly customizable. The inventory system was set up in such a way that you were completely able to support yourself with items and items alone, so you could actually have parties without a healer in it. Secondly, Chrono Trigger separated abilities (TP) with leveling (XP). So grinding wasn’t linear, it was tailored to what sort of advancement you wanted your characters to push forward in. Third, Chrono Trigger had an amazing story that most of us remember to this day… in spite of the protagonist being silent. Then again, even though Chrono was silent, we knew what his personality was like, so he may have been the best silent protagonist ever!

Throw in some amazing artwork from Akira Toriyama, a time travel story that actually made sense, a huge world map, memorable anti-heroes, dual techs, and a horrifying glimpse into the future of… ahem, 1999, and it is undeniable that Chrono Trigger deserves to be #1 on our list of the 10 Best RPGs Ever.