America's Army

[Rentsy]

America's Army is a game I've had a longstanding interest in. I'm not too bothered by the whole propaganda aspect of the thing, just haven't had time to get around to it. So, when I read a story about how America's Army trained a guy to stop bleeding, and then he saved someone's life in a car accident with that training, I thought, "Damn. Better get America's Army."

Now, America's Army has a conceit that you may be familiar with: it claims accuracy. Unfortunately, any game that would be accurate would be no fun, and America's Army is trying to be fun. You may even be familiar with that gripe about America's Army, I'm hardly the first to fault it. But I've found a second conceit: that the game is free.

I can't seem to find a free download to this "free" game. Every nice, helpful site asks me to defray their bandwidth costs by paying a few dollars. I empathize with webhosters, but a "free game" ought to be free.

 

[Anarchemitis]

Are you saying this because of straight opinion, or where you heaviliy influenced to notice this because you took note of Yahtzee's comment regarding the army in Army of Two?
Furthermore, I am not going to comment on this because then other people wil-damnit!

 

[mokes310]

America's Army is a game I've had a longstanding interest in. I'm not too bothered by the whole propaganda aspect of the thing, just haven't had time to get around to it. So, when I read a story about how America's Army trained a guy to stop bleeding, and then he saved someone's life in a car accident with that training, I thought, "Damn. Better get America's Army."

Now, America's Army has a conceit that you may be familiar with: it claims accuracy. Unfortunately, any game that would be accurate would be no fun, and America's Army is trying to be fun. You may even be familiar with that gripe about America's Army, I'm hardly the first to fault it. But I've found a second conceit: that the game is free.

I can't seem to find a free download to this "free" game. Every nice, helpful site asks me to defray their bandwidth costs by paying a few dollars. I empathize with webhosters, but a "free game" ought to be free.

It's my favorite shooter, and I can finally play it again now that I have my new computer

You can download it for free at gamespot, or, you can find other free links just by going to the America's Army website.

Now, if there is anyone else on the Escapist who plays this game, send me a message cuz it would be cool to play it with you!

 

[BaronAsh]

The game is similar to Counter Strike except there's a whole lot more options in the way of cover and you can bleed out.

 

[mokes310]

So I take it nobody else plays this? Total bummer.

 

[Count_de_Monet]

I played it for a while but it was just so aggravating. The learning curve isn't too bad but it will take a while to get used to not running around like a psycho and shooting at anything that moves. My biggest problem with realistic games like it are how much they promote camping just due to the gameplay. I used to have the same problem with Rogue Spear and Ravenshield where I'd be running around trying to kill the last couple enemies just to find them hiding in the darkest most remote part of the map for the last ten minutes waiting to shoot me in the back of the head...

The other thing, which I'm not sure if they finally did away with in the new version, was being able to see farther by looking at the edges of the screen. People used to scan the whole map using that strategy and then just memorize where your head was and pop you with a sniper rifle. That and the rifle grenades which could fly across the whole damn map... I can't tell you how many times I spawned just to be hit with a perfectly aimed rifle grenade in the first 15 seconds.

Doing the training to get new options was aggravating to the point where I just gave up on getting the special ops training and medic training must have killed brain cells.

It's a good game but I just couldn't make myself care after a while. CS is so much more fun and Ravenshield had far better execution, maps, weapons, and community. This is the best way I can think of to explain it - AA:FPS::EVE:MMORPG. When I played there was a fairly small community of people who were mostly elite-level players who had no tolerance for newbs.

 

[k3v1n]

So I take it nobody else plays this? Total bummer.

I played it for a couple of weeks, and didn't find it interesting I think CS:s is a far better game but, perhaps, maybe I should give it a second try....

 

[mokes310]

So I take it nobody else plays this? Total bummer.

I played it for a couple of weeks, and didn't find it interesting I think CS:s is a far better game but, perhaps, maybe I should give it a second try....

I think you should. It's not like other shooters since it's much slower in terms of pace. The emphasis is on teamwork, not controller skill.