An aside before I begin; I know, in all honesty, that some Americans feel very strongly about their military. I would ask therefore that no-one interprets criticism of this game as being criticism of the American Military in general, i'm perfectly happy doing that in more appropriate places.
America's Army is a strange concept, even for an online FPS designed for the PC. It's one of the world's only games designed for clear propoganda purposes, and this isn't an accusation i'm making, it's the stated goal of the US Department of Defence who finance the game. The intention is to attract those who might be interested in the US army to the point of joining up. To add to this stated goal, there's the fact that the game makes absolutely no money at all. It's freely downloadable, legally I might add, and has no fees attached. This is all very 'free expression', and in a game with a different purpose I would find it less strange and be more enthusiastic. However, combined with its goal, it gives me a slight sense of unease about the quality of the game, like the intention is simply to get it into as many households as possible.
However, other than the slogans I found the game perfectly fine for me, a non-american, to play without patriotism being stuffed straight down my gullet. The 'single-player' of the game basically consists of a series of trainings, to prepare you for various tasks you might encounter online. This was fine, as it all made sense with the recruitment thing and actually did promote a sense of achievement. The problem was that I found a few of the training missions damned unclear, more specifically those training one for parachute jumping. However I finished all of the training that didn't require the airbourne training because I didn't know what sort of thing crops up in multiplayer missions.
However, the experience began to tarnish once i got onto the online servers. First off, forget all the damn training beyond the basic stuff, because it turns out the only maps people go on are those requiring basic training. This really cheesed me off, and also clued me into the fact that a large portion of people playing this game are actually your stereotypical PC fps player, only interested in getting into the online experience at the first opportunity. Then once I got onto the servers, I met even more things that irked me, mostly the fact that for all its stated patriotism the game certainly doesn't stop people being utter dicks online. Sure it stops people killing one's teammates, to a point, but it does nothing about people complaining about camping or calling each other newbs, and most irritatingly those having an international size-comparison. It seemed like a third of all the players were obsessively anti American, paradoxically.
Okay so it would always be hard to prevent this kind of thing on an online FPS, but the game has a relatively small community, and frankly it creates a very poisonous atmosphere. More importantly was my irritation at how difficult implementing teamwork was. Other than people sending the odd preset message, it was bloody non-existent, and whilst a Rainbow Six level of managment would clearly be a bit much, it would surely not be too hard to give the Commander of a team some powers other than shouting 'Hooah' or 'Get the door!'. I don't buy the game being an accurate representation of modern warfare when half the team act like Rambo and the other half sit around too scared to advance.
There's also the fact that the control system is stodgy. It's mouse and WASD, which works fine for me, but the other functions are grouped around the keyboard with a seemingly liberal idea of ideal placement, and whilst my opinion of Halo can be summed up with 'pffff', it certainly manages this aspect of the FPS much better. It says a lot that you have to take your hand off WASD sometimes in order to use important functions, like pointing out an enemy. Online this is much more of a problem because any time you take your hands off WASD is a moment where the inevitable sniper can take his time shooting you in the head. I can't tell you how frustrating it is to be unable to move, look, and point out enemies at the same time.
My ultimate criticism of the game, and I know it's not an original one but I reached the conclusion on my own anyway, is that it's not accurate enough a representation to be adequate for purpose, it instead feels like a PC online FPS that's deliberately years out of date. The obvious reason for that is accurately dismembering limbs and exploding intestines would put one off joining the armed forces somewhat. Fair enough. But this means what the game is effectively showing is 'shooting people is hard work, but it's fun'. And hang on a minute, but isn't that a tad irresponsible, a game that's actually trying to promote the idea that shooting people is a good idea, albeit in context of war? I thought this was the age of concerned mothers writing to the government complaining about violence in video games. Or is it that the game has a military setting and is then exempt from said mothers? But plenty of other criticised FPS for PC feature you as part of the US military.
As a 'recruitment tool' I don't think this lives up to the title whatsoever, unless it's actively trying to recruit violence obsessed teenagers, and taken as an online PC fps, it's years out of date, has clunky controls and teaches you far too many things that you will never, ever need to use again. Regardless of one's patriotism this is not a game I recommend.
America's Army is a strange concept, even for an online FPS designed for the PC. It's one of the world's only games designed for clear propoganda purposes, and this isn't an accusation i'm making, it's the stated goal of the US Department of Defence who finance the game. The intention is to attract those who might be interested in the US army to the point of joining up. To add to this stated goal, there's the fact that the game makes absolutely no money at all. It's freely downloadable, legally I might add, and has no fees attached. This is all very 'free expression', and in a game with a different purpose I would find it less strange and be more enthusiastic. However, combined with its goal, it gives me a slight sense of unease about the quality of the game, like the intention is simply to get it into as many households as possible.
However, other than the slogans I found the game perfectly fine for me, a non-american, to play without patriotism being stuffed straight down my gullet. The 'single-player' of the game basically consists of a series of trainings, to prepare you for various tasks you might encounter online. This was fine, as it all made sense with the recruitment thing and actually did promote a sense of achievement. The problem was that I found a few of the training missions damned unclear, more specifically those training one for parachute jumping. However I finished all of the training that didn't require the airbourne training because I didn't know what sort of thing crops up in multiplayer missions.
However, the experience began to tarnish once i got onto the online servers. First off, forget all the damn training beyond the basic stuff, because it turns out the only maps people go on are those requiring basic training. This really cheesed me off, and also clued me into the fact that a large portion of people playing this game are actually your stereotypical PC fps player, only interested in getting into the online experience at the first opportunity. Then once I got onto the servers, I met even more things that irked me, mostly the fact that for all its stated patriotism the game certainly doesn't stop people being utter dicks online. Sure it stops people killing one's teammates, to a point, but it does nothing about people complaining about camping or calling each other newbs, and most irritatingly those having an international size-comparison. It seemed like a third of all the players were obsessively anti American, paradoxically.
Okay so it would always be hard to prevent this kind of thing on an online FPS, but the game has a relatively small community, and frankly it creates a very poisonous atmosphere. More importantly was my irritation at how difficult implementing teamwork was. Other than people sending the odd preset message, it was bloody non-existent, and whilst a Rainbow Six level of managment would clearly be a bit much, it would surely not be too hard to give the Commander of a team some powers other than shouting 'Hooah' or 'Get the door!'. I don't buy the game being an accurate representation of modern warfare when half the team act like Rambo and the other half sit around too scared to advance.
There's also the fact that the control system is stodgy. It's mouse and WASD, which works fine for me, but the other functions are grouped around the keyboard with a seemingly liberal idea of ideal placement, and whilst my opinion of Halo can be summed up with 'pffff', it certainly manages this aspect of the FPS much better. It says a lot that you have to take your hand off WASD sometimes in order to use important functions, like pointing out an enemy. Online this is much more of a problem because any time you take your hands off WASD is a moment where the inevitable sniper can take his time shooting you in the head. I can't tell you how frustrating it is to be unable to move, look, and point out enemies at the same time.
My ultimate criticism of the game, and I know it's not an original one but I reached the conclusion on my own anyway, is that it's not accurate enough a representation to be adequate for purpose, it instead feels like a PC online FPS that's deliberately years out of date. The obvious reason for that is accurately dismembering limbs and exploding intestines would put one off joining the armed forces somewhat. Fair enough. But this means what the game is effectively showing is 'shooting people is hard work, but it's fun'. And hang on a minute, but isn't that a tad irresponsible, a game that's actually trying to promote the idea that shooting people is a good idea, albeit in context of war? I thought this was the age of concerned mothers writing to the government complaining about violence in video games. Or is it that the game has a military setting and is then exempt from said mothers? But plenty of other criticised FPS for PC feature you as part of the US military.
As a 'recruitment tool' I don't think this lives up to the title whatsoever, unless it's actively trying to recruit violence obsessed teenagers, and taken as an online PC fps, it's years out of date, has clunky controls and teaches you far too many things that you will never, ever need to use again. Regardless of one's patriotism this is not a game I recommend.
