Armed Assault has a good, solid sound to it. Being a combat simulator, the game focused mostly on “combat noises” rather than spectacular music or voice acting.

Amidst all the chaos and carnage of the battlefield, individual sounds are still easily distinguished. For example, I was in a rather tight situation with explosions all over the place and bullets flying in all directions, yet with all that action around, I was able to quickly react to an enemy taking shots at me from behind (thanks to surround sound).

Bohemia Interactive did a great job of overlapping all the sounds of war in such a crisp manner. Helicopters, tanks, explosions, and the guns sound crisp and great in Armed Assault, yet the music, although not bad per se, is the same old wav(s) that we’ve heard in Op Flashpoint. When it comes to character voices, I hate to say it, but it looks like the game designers just did a copy/paste of the voices used in Operation Flashpoint.

Once again, anyone who’s familiar with Operation Flashpoint will recognize the look of Armed Assault in a matter of seconds. Don’t let that fact scare you. Armed Assault looks amazing. I have a good system, yet with everything maxed out I was pulling 2 to 4 frames a second.

Once I turned down the shadows some, the max viewing distance (which turned down still goes for miles and miles), and the detail of the environmental world, the game started running extremely smoothly and still had a kick-ass look to it.

Just to give everyone an example of how powerful the new engine is (graphic wise), the grass in the game flattens under the weight of crawling soldiers. Sniping people is also a lot harder and more realistic. In a prone position, looking down the scope, you no longer get a clear shot most of the time. Now you have to adjust for the blocking foliage.