I have recently been getting into Arma 3 again, playing the APEX expansion with a friend (impressions coming soon!). While being fun, what truly caught my eye is the amount of single-player/cooperative campaigns out there on STEAM workshop. And one of those campaigns is the World War 2-themed Battle of Norway – Operation Weserübung. It takes place during the invasion of Norway, and you get to play as a German paratrooper equipped (well, at least from the start) with an MP40 and if you are lucky a few stick grenades.
I’m a few missions in, and so far I got to say I’m mighty impressed. The presentation is very nice, it actually feels old school – Close Combat style with journal clips from the time being played at the beginning of each mission. The missions themselves are good, everything from air drops to all-out assaults with regular infantry. There is only one mission I have had any real troubles with as yet, and that is the one where you have to escape in the middle of the night and eventually get ambushed. My first couple of tries on this mission had my whole company dying in the initial mortar barrage, and I was forced to defend against the Norwegian army all by myself. A task way out of my league, but with a bit of foresight, I managed to save the company on another try, which in turn made things a lot easier – until the big escape in an old truck though. 90% casualties and a wrecked truck, but at least I made it back to friendly lines.
All in all a really nice taste of World War 2 in the Arma 3 engine, which honestly is one of the best, if not THE best engine when it comes to war simulation. What makes it different from the standard Arma scenarios is of course the weapons. There are no scopes except for a few, and manning the MP40 trying to hit targets beyond 100 meters is a challenge, but when you get into close quarters it does wonders. I feel like there is only Arma that can bring out the true uniqueness of these weapons in action, thanks to the scale. Like in Hell Let Loose, which doesn’t hinder you that much – in other words; you can still snipe with a submachine gun.
I don’t know how authentic this is supposed to be compared to its historical counterpart, but I would assume research has gone into it. My knowledge about this particular conflict is limited, but going by how it plays it sure feels authentic enough!
Highly recommend it if you are ever in the mood for some WW2 combat from a maybe lesser-known front.
/Thomas
Tom's Gaming Blog 