Argo Review

Developed and published by Bohemian Interactive, Argo is an official Arma III mod designed to appeal to a more competitive audience. Despite offering a Supporter’s Pack, featuring in-game cosmetics and VIP status, the game is free-to-play and a Microsoft Windows exclusive.

On the fictional island of Malden, players engage in 5v5 FPS combat in the context of different game modes like Combat Patrol (procedurally generated tasks), Raid (attackers and defenders) and more. Moreover, the game features all the must-haves of a modern competitive title: small and invariable environment, leaderboards, and a somewhat fast-paced infantry combat.

This said, it obviously carries Arma’s genetic code, which entails uncontrollable recoil and delayed shooting and dodging mechanics, and generally terrible input lag (inaccuracy in the mouse-game interaction). Arma players have, quite admittedly, never appreciated the game for it’s shooting mechanics, but rather for its sandbox approach to the genre, featuring incredibly extensive and complex maps, player-created game mods, and a slow, methodical gameplay with emphasis on tactics and strategy, vehicle combat and realistic warfare. When stripped away of its core mechanics, the game design and engine not only perform poorly, but feel like an outright downgrade.

Shooter games are among the most competitive and highly optimized titles, and rely almost entirely on accuracy and reflexes, without even mentioning fancy graphics and smooth gameplay, where latency and low frame rates are unacceptable. Argo doesn’t have any of that.

Furthermore, the game features a progression system, a skill tree of a kind, through which players unlock weapons and equipment. The issue is that later weapons and armor (direct damage absorption) are plainly more powerful, and, given that there isn’t an adequate matchmaking system in place, the competitiveness of the game is thoroughly undermined.

The mixed Steam reviews denounce the lack of optimization (crashes, fps drops) as well as a plethora of game breaking bugs featuring, but not limited to, players not showing on the minimal, enemy characters wearing incorrect faction uniforms, being stuck to (or inside) objects, and more.

Argo doesn’t leverage any of Arma’s authentically unique and intelligent features, and is, furthermore, poorly optimized, and buggier than most of the fanmade game maps and mods.