"I failed the test, AGAIN? Doh!"

America's Army is a game developed by the US Government themselves. The game very, and I mean very accurately represents how soldiers train in the US army. You have to pass target practices, and even exams to continue the game! Talk about some serious work here! Overall, Americas Army is a terrific free game, which gives gamers a new twist to the FPS genre.

Story 10/10
The story is obviously what you'd expect training in the army to be. Witness the life of a new trainee to the US army, and learn how to handle firearms, treat wounded soldiers, learn how to parachute from planes, learn to identify vehicles, aircraft and weapons, and much more. This of course, is based on real life, and I always believe that anything based on history, or accurately represents something in real life, deserves a perfect rating.

Graphics 9/10
The graphics on Americas Army are very solid, and definitely keeps up with how other games develop graphics. At the highest detail settings possible, this game really packs some nice visuals, and the strain on most video cards is low, making this an easy game for the average PC gamer to get a hold on. Multiplayer as well contains great visuals, and some levels seem to look better than the actual single player.

Controls 10/10
The controls are very smooth and responsive in this game, plus it has the stamina system, which greatly tones down the use of bunny hopping, which is widely used in online FPS games, in which people believe jumping around will help to avoid bullets. Also be sure to watch out what you jump on, don't jump on tables during class, or you'll get kicked out :).

Audio 8/10
While the gunshots are very realistic to the real thing, there is not much music to the game, and the sound itself isn't top notch. Not too much to comment here, just don't expect anything really spectacular.

Gameplay 9/10
America's Army is the best representation of a real life army shooter on the planet as of the day this review is posted. Nothing in this game is fantasy or something that cannot happen in real life. Wounds to bullets are extremely realistic, as you cannot take very much before going down, and this is the first game I’ve seen to include weapons jams, where you must actually fix your weapon after awhile, when you keep using it. This game is also not all running around and shooting all you see to advance in the game. You must earn your way to the 'good stuff' by shooting at various targets, and even completing exams. Exams are really shocking, and almost entertaining at first, but they tend to get repetitive and boring after awhile....hey! Just like school! What can be really nerve racking about taking exams, is the extensive length of the overall classes. Some classes ranging from 5 or even 10 minutes long. If you get around a 50% or so, you have to retake the exam. This means you have to take the entire class over. Talk about annoying, especially if you fail it often. After you get past all the lectures and briefing (which is a lot of the game), you will finally get into some field work, where you are placed in tactical situations. After completing all the missions, and getting all your badges, this will all pay off with multiplayer.

Multiplayer 9/10
Multiplayer in this game is extremely balanced, and strives to make the perfect, balanced online FPS shooter. With a program called PunkBuster integrated into the game, cheating is not tolerated at all. With PunkBuster, you should no longer have to worry about infected servers with the dreaded aimbots, or wallhacks. There is also a limit of one sniper per team, while everyone else has an assault rifle of some kind. This really helps to stop the people who are constantly camping around the map with sniper rifles, which is infecting a lot of online FPS games. You need to have a certain number of badges to get into a certain server, meaning you need to have completed some, or even all of single player to get into a server, which is good at lowering down the newbie count. Like in real life, this game has friendly fire, and it will not be tolerated if continued to be done. If you continue to shoot your allies, you will be automatically kicked from the server, and placed in a jail cell. Nothing happens in here at all, you just move around...in a jail cell...nothing happens... (Believe me; I’ve sat in there for awhile hoping for something to happen.) With the realism of the game, America's Army proves to be a very promising multiplayer experience. The game play can get pretty repetitive at times, and may get old fast with lack of variation of modes, but it still hits the mark of what every realistic FPS online game should follow.

Recommendations
There are not many games that are as realistically accurate as America's Army, but there are games that can come close. Definitely try Half-Life: Counterstrike, an expansion of the original Half-Life, which has very realistic Counter-Terrorist VS Terrorist gameplay, but also be warned that Counterstrike has been known to have a lot of cheaters. If you are looking for a good WWII shooter, that is squad based, try Call of Duty, the most impressive single player WWII shooter I have ever played. You may also enjoy Day of Defeat, another expansion off of Half-Life, which as well accurately represents war, except for the major camping that some players do.

Worth the Download?
If you have broadband, yes, definitely download it, it's a FREE game, you'd be crazy not to at least try a full FREE game. For dialup users, it may be a looooong time to download this, clocking in at around 600 MB to download. So be sure you really read up on America's Army before spending a lot of time downloading this.

Final Words
The US Government has set out propaganda towards the gamers in the world. America's Army is a very engaging, realistic and entertaining game to play. If you are looking for a very realistic game, or you want to play an educational war game in the process, or even if you are planning on joining the army someday, definitely give this game a download, make Uncle Sam proud!

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 01/12/04