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America's Army is a multiplayer first-person shooter computer game released free of charge by the U.S. Army to aid recruiting and public relations. It is based on the Unreal Warfare/Unreal II game engine. America's Army is the first overt state use of computer gaming for political aims, some debate has sparked surrounding the fact that the game is paid for by tax dollars. According to a poll by I for I research, 30% of young people who had a positive view of the military said that they had developed that view by playing the game. Currently, America's Army has over 2 million registered players and is claimed to be within the top five most popular PC action games played online.
The game is very much like Rainbow 6. Since it has a focus on realism, as opposed to unrealistic "arcade" style, it falls into the subgenre of tactical shooter.
As in quite a number of other games nowadays, a round of America's Army features two teams that battle against each other. The unusual thing here, though, is that both teams view themselves as American troops carrying American equipment and weapons, and the enemies as non-uniformed OPFOR (OPposing FORces) carrying Eastern bloc weapons.
The game currently features 21 maps in various locations, from snow-covered mountains, to middle-eastern desert ruins. Maps vary in size, objectives, and weaponry available to players.
While cheating has become much more prevalent, PunkBuster, the anticheat software incorporated by America's Army, is hard at work trying to catch the cheaters off-guard with mass bannings. As a result, some people have been unable to play due to updates. These bannings are done through email account banning, IP address banning, MAC address banning. The methods can even ban a hard drive, meaning the hardware would have to be replaced to play the game again. These methods can be circumvented by cheaters in the know, using programs to spoof the ID's of the hardware.
The most recent update of the game, America's Army: Special Forces (Downrange) is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, and Linux.
Unlike many other games, the developers have focused intensely on realism.
Two meters affect your ability to aim, jump, and recover after exertion. These two meters are your CEM (Combat effective meter) and the Stamina bar. The CEM is dependant on your Stamina bar and affects your accuracy. Whilst the Stamina bar affects how long you can run, how high you can jump and so forth. Your chance of hitting a target is diminished when standing, and is improved by crouching or lying prone, this information is relayed to the players via the CEM, the higher the CEM the more accurate it is. When walking, accuracy is greatly diminished. This sort of realism discourages common complaints ("bunnyhopping") found in other games, such as Quake 3 or Unreal Tournament.
Player damage is mapped based on the part of the body hit and type of weapon used. Damage also causes bleeding, which causes a player's health to deteriorate over time. It is possible, if the wound is not treated by a medic, for a soldier to bleed to death. Typically one shot to the head, or a few to the body, causes death, whereas, a player could possibly sustain several shots to a limb. Wounds affect running speed, accuracy, and general in-game effectiveness.
Hit detection is particularly precise, with the developers claiming it's possible to miss with a shot passing through the gaps in a target's fingers. It's certainly true that more careful targeting is more necessary than in the previous generation of games.
However, unlike most games out today like Doom 3 and Counterstrike, and to keep its "Teen" rating, this game has a different view on being shot. Instead of toting the "realism" of blood all over the place, the game demonstrates wounds as only being light puffs of red. With the arrival of v 2.1, Rag-doll physics were added to death animations, creating more realistic dying scenes, and allowing dead bodies to more readily interact with the environment, for example allowing a body to roll down a staircase, lean over a desk, or fall off a hill.
Players may select from several "classes" including squad leader, rifleman, automatic rifleman, grenadier, and sniper. A few players from each team may also be "medics," able to stop the bleeding caused by wounds received by their teammates.
In the SF version of the game, where only Special Forces qualified players may play, after completing the difficult training, players are allowed to use the M4A1 SOPMOD, a version of the rifle that can be modified for the mission. Examples of modifications are varying scopes and undermounted objects like a bipod, a grenade launcher, and a flare launcher. Those players who have not qualified as SF or who cannot select a spot are allowed to hold positions for the AK-74 version, called an AKS-74U, the RPK, a squad automatic weapon, or the RPG-7, as Indigenous Forces, representing locals helping out the Army in a mission.
Hand grenades in the game can kill easily, and can be "cooked", so the enemy has less time to run. Both the initial explosion and resulting shrapnel may kill or injure the player. Smoke grenades are also available for concealment. Some classes have the flashbang available to them as well. Flashbangs can cause virtual blindness (caused by showing a black screen for a length of time varying by proximity to the explosion simulating the real life temporary blackout caused), and by temporary deafness (simulated by playing a ringing sound instead of the audio normally heard, such as footsteps or gunshots). A grenade issued only in SF missions is the thermite grenade. It is used to destroy vehicles and other objects, and consists of a medium explosion, and accompanied with a bout of flame where the grenade has exploded, causing damage to anyone who may walk through it.
The game features actual real-world weapons, modeled carefully. As in life, each has differing qualities of accuracy, deadliness, recoil, etc.
One of the more interesting technological features of America's Army is the implementation of the OPFOR. Each player sees himself as an American soldier, carrying American munitions, such as an M16, within a team of American Soldiers. He sees his opponents as non-uniformed rabble carrying Eastern-Bloc weapons, such as AK-47s. His team members radio or shout audible messages in English, yet he hears the opposition speaking in an unknown tongue (a made-up language christened OpForeign). However, should he swap sides, he finds that they too see themselves as Americans, and his old collegues are now the ragged foreigners.
Where this becomes confusing to many players is the realisation that when they pick up an enemy weapon, it behaves differently to it's US counterpart. An AK-47 removed from a fallen opponent is fully automatic, more powerful, but less accurate than his M16. Yet when his opponent possessed it, to him it *was* an M16. The key is that each weapon behaves as the owner sees it, with an invisible transformation taking place as it's picked up. Players paying great attention occasionally notice that weapons in enemy hands behave "wrongly", but the effect is subtle.
In recent releases this has carried through to other objects, with the US Stryker Armoured Personnel Carrier appearing to be a Russian BTR-80 if on the other side.
In this way the development team tried to preserve realism for players on both sides, allowing all to play on the side the game promotes while avoiding the politically thorny issue of asking players to kill American soldiers.
Riflemen are the bulk force of all games in AA. They either carry an M16 or an M4 Carbine, and have the highest chance of becoming a combat medic. All rifles come with 7 magazines of 30 bullets each, for a total of 210 rounds. A standard grenadeloadout would be 1 to 4 fragmentation grenades, 1 to 2 smoke grenades, and 1 to 2 flashbangs. On SF maps, riflemen may have access to the thermite grenade.
The Fireteam Leader(FTL), commands a fireteam of 1 to 3 people. In a standard infantry fireteam, there are at least two rifleman, and a possibility of a grenadier and an automatic rifleman. The fireteam leader is issued a set of binoculars, and is awarded based on how many in his team have survived after a successful mission.
The core of the squad, the Squad Leader(SL), commands every single member of his squad. He has remote access to squad-based orders, and is able to set priority for objectives. A Squad Leader does not command any fireteam, but has direct command power over all FTLs. He is also issued a set of binoculars. The SL is awarded based on the total surviving number of soldiers at the end of a successful mission.
The grenadier is the heavy weapons specialist of today's squad based Army. He carries up to 7 [High Explosive] grenade rounds for the M203, which is used to take out enemy personnel. A well-trained grenadier is capable of firing grenades through windows or even use the grenades as an effective close-range slug. The M203's rounds have a fuse to prevent detonation at close ranges after the grenade has left the barrel. A standard grenadeloadout would be 0 to 1 fragmentation grenades, 1 to 2 smoke grenades, and 1 to 3 flashbangs.
The automatic rifleman holds one of the most devastating weapons in the game, the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon. Each AR carries four 200-round magazines, which can be used for suppressive fire and taking out enemy at longer ranges over extended periods of time. A standard grenade loadout would be 1 to 2 fragmentation grenades, 1 to 2 smoke grenades, and 1 to 2 flashbangs.
The advanced marksman has a wide variety of rifles to choose from. He can use the M24 Sniper Weapons System, the M82A1 Barret, and on SF missions, the Mark 12 Mod 0 Special Purpose Rifle. He is also issued an M9 Beretta 92 for emergencies. Advanced Marksmen must pass a multitude of rigorous tests in order to use the rifle in combat. A well-trained sniper can easily kill any soldier, mobile or immobile, in various positions difficult for an amateur sniper. For example, a well-trained sniper can easily fire while standing, despite having a problem keeping a proper sight picture. A standard grenade loadout would be 0 fragmentation grenades, 1 to 3 smoke grenades, and 0 to 2 flashbangs.
The IF of America's Army represent native people serving as police and soldiers, being assisted by Special Forces personnel. IF, while generally inadequately trained compared to Special Forces, are given various weapons that are helpful in accomplishing a task. The weapons that an IF may receive are: AK-74, RPK, VSS Vintorez, and the RPG-7. A standard grenade loadout would be 0 to 2 fragmentation grenades, 1 to 2 smoke grenades, and 1 to 2 flashbangs.
A lot of players of America's Army are a member of a clan. These groups of online gamers, found in many other games, join together to compete against other clans, or for simple fellowship. Hundreds of these clans exist in this game and most of them aren't organized. In most cases those players add the initials of their clan (sometimes called "clan tag" by players) in their nickname since it is the only way to be identified. Most clans have their own website ("clan page") but they usually don't offer anything interesting for surfers to visit them. Some clans even pay a lot of money (usually by sharing the costs) for a "leased server" in order to meet there and become popular.
Unfortunately, there are aspects in the game that disable a fair competetion such as the nearly randomly appearances like "fix-jams", loss of datagrams due to the UDP connection - mostly mistaken for bugs - and real bugs.
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