America's Army

THE BAD:
Training can be kinda tedious, can get rather laggy at times, may be a little too slow-paced for some.

SUMMARY:
The saying that the best things in life are free is true. America's Army offers excellent gameplay, with decent graphics and superb support from the US Army dev team at no price, except perhaps to the US taxpayer.

The game is based on real life. Before you play, you have to complete basic training, which will teach you marksmanship, moving around, the various US Army weapons which you will be using, and urban combat. Once you're done, you can start playing online.

You can also do more advanced training missions. You can go for airborne (paratroop) training or sit for several written tests to become a combat medic. If you hit enough targets (36/40) with the M16, you can train to be a sniper. Lastly, if you're good enough, you can go for the incredibly hard Special Forces training, and become the best of the best.

AA is a team-based game. First, you join a team (usually named Assault and Defense). From there, you can pick a weapon. Usually you will just end up with the traditional M16, but you can also pick advanced weapons such as the M249 SAW (machine gun), the M16/M203 grenade launcher, or (if you're qualified for it), a sniper rifle such as the M24 or M82. You can also pick up weapons from fallen buddies or enemies once the game starts.

Special Forces personnel can even elect to use SOPMOD M4A1s (modified versions of the M4A1 carbine). If you're qualified, you can also choose to become a combat medic, who not only fights alongside his teammates, but can also heal them.

From there, it's time to accomplish your mission. You will always play as a US Army soldier, and you will see your opponents as OpFor (Opposing Force), who look like terrorists. Heh. The OpFor will carry Russian equivalents of US weapons, such as the AK47 and Dragunov SVD sniper rifle. You can utilize weapons found on fallen enemies.

In addition to wiping out the OpFor, you can clear the objectives, which depend on the level and team you are playing on. You can secure an Alaskan pipeline station, protect a downed pilot, procure important information from a terrorist camp, or blow up an enemy Hind helicopter-and much more!

Then of course, there's the honor system. You start with 10 honor, and it increases as you gain points. You gain points by completing objectives, killing OpFor, not dying and leading your squad. Killing teammates will lose you alot of points.
You will need a certain amount of honor to play on certains servers or as a Special Forces member. Beware: if your honor drops to 0, your account will be banned!



Phew, that was long. Anyway, the bottom line is: If you like online games, first-person shooters in particular, then what are you waiting for? Download the latest version of AA right NOW!

THE BAD:
-Multiplayer only
-Quite hard to get in to
-Medic class overrated and underdeveloped

SUMMARY:
Americas Army is a freely distrubuted recruiting tool for, funnily enough, the US Army. It is up with the best of them with regards to graphics, sound, overall appereance and playability.
It starts with you, the player, having to complete your annual weapon shoot (easy to pass, but rock hard to gain an expert badge [36/40 needed]which allows you to continue to sniper school). Then you must complete the obstacle course in a certain time, followed by familiarisation with US weapons.
Finally you go to MOUT McKenna to finalise and put into practice your newly gained skills of a US soldier, by clearing houses in the dark, through sewers and what not.
From there you have access to the multiplayer servers, with some VERY well put together maps (personal favourite is Bridge Defence).
If you are still keen you can continue as I said before into Sniper school, where you learn to wield the M24 and M82 sniper rifles.
Other oppurtunities exist to enlist in the Airborne by completing a 250' tower jump followed by a live jump (It sounds easy but took me at least 20 times to do correctly!)
After that you can specialise as an elite Army Ranger
by completing the Ranger School map.
You also have the oppurtunity to become a Medic after some LONG classes. See my post in the forum for the answers as it is not a spoiler in game, because all you do is walk up to a casualty and press the use button to heal. Quite possibly a minor dissapointment, when it could have been so much better.
Soon they will release another role, that of the Elite US Army Green Berets. You will need to have built up 15 honour though to do that, which is another innovation. Honour is accumalated by killing enemy, completing objectives, staying alive as a leader and is lost only by damaging your own team, so as to promote team spirit, a definite prerequisite for any soldier. There is much more to say about this game, but I do actually have an offline life, so all I will say is that it is definitely worth trying at least. If you don't like it, well then it didn't dent your wallet did it?