America’s Army 3

America’s Army 3 is the latest in a series of games designed to provide the player with the most realistic look into the challenge of an american soldier. Upon creating your account, in previous versions, you would go through several training missions modelled after real-life bootcamp scenarios. From physical fitness tests, marksmanship ranges, and MOUT courses, you get to play through bootcamp in a virtual way.

In America’s Army 3 however, you can skip the training and jump right into the online action.

Some things I liked about AA3:

1. All new Rank System built on actions in-game.

2. Honor system upgrade, not points go to different categories depending on healing teamates, sniping targets, laying down cover fire, and even jumping on grenades for teamates!

3. All new player customization.

4. Healing system has been upgraded and is now more detailed and a bit challenging depending on how wounded your teamate is.

5. New game modes with new ways to accomplish old game mode objectives.

6. New overhaul of all maps, now with more clutter for sniper positions, cover, and to simulate an actual battleground.

Some things I didnt like:

1. Still glitchy. (I remember I had just neutralized a target and was forced to reload, when suddenly another target appears and when I tried to fire… safety had been turned on for no appearent reason.)

2. ROE’s (Rules of Engagement) Violations can come out of no where. (This might be attributed to glitches, see above).

3. So far, not many players are online.

Ok, so that isnt a long list, but to be fair the glitches I mentioned are pretty fatal.

It also seems the game is a bit top-heavy. Ranking up just to Private E-2 will take quite a bit of gameplay time, with players as Sergeants already extremely skilled.

Some things that I loved about this game really only appear in Modern Warfare 2.

For example, in running to cover a player can sprint and then press “C” and slide home-run style up into a crouch. This is excellent when sprinting from cover to cover while the enemy is laying down a hail of fire.

Also, the realism in getting hit, wounds, and even limping or losing accuracy depending on the body part in which you’ve been hit is excellent for a game like this. To me, it feels like surviving the match is a small victory as opposed to other games where you try to rack up kills. In a game where richocets can actually kill you and random bursts of fire from the light machine gun are unlikely to hit anything other than dirt, I feel more adrenaline pumping FEAR than I do for mindless running and gunning.

It’s a free download on such an amazing game, if you’re a big FPS fan and you don’t at least try it, I’d worry about your sanity.

http://www.americasarmy.com/