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America’s Army: Operations puts the player in the boots of an infantry soldier attempting to qualify for range training

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America’s Army: Operations - 290mb that people without broadband will find difficult to download

America’s Army: Operations. http://www.americasarmy.com/.Developer: US Army Recruiting Distributor: US Department of Defense

THE past couple of years have seen an amazing amount of military shooters hit the shelves. While the Quakes and Unreal Tournaments are still amazingly successful for many gamers, a lot of people (military personnel in particular) have latched onto the increased level of realism offered by tactical shooters such as Rogue Spear or Swat 3.

The American Army latched onto this and in a very creative recruiting campaign have commissioned and released a tactical military shooter that outshines a lot of the recent games to hit the shelves. What makes it even more special is that apart from an Internet connection cost it is absolutely free. Admittedly America’s Army: Operations is 290MB and those without broadband will find it difficult to download but recent Australian PC gaming magazines have included it on cover discs to make it easier.

The game is now up to version 1.4 and as reported in Army a couple of months ago, when it was first released in the US the demand caused the meltdown of several fileservers. The team have continually added new features and unlocked new skillsets to keep America’s Army: Operations high in the popularity ratings of online gamers.

Essentially America’s Army: Operations puts the player in the boots of an infantry recruit requiring players to qualify on the range, in obstacles courses, and in a MOUT facility MILES engagement before they can move onto some of the more exotic locations that army can send its troops. When it was released the Mt McKinley MOUT facility map was a major sticking point.

The game required the qualification before players could progress but there were only limited servers. It took me a good couple of weeks to even get on a server, let alone chalk up enough points to progress.

Players’ stats are stored on central database that requires detailed registration before a player can progress (all the info your local recruiter could want). Depending on range qualification scores, players can unlock sniper weapons from the very beginning (post the second patch). If a player can’t manage a Carlos Hathcock in the beginning it is always possible to go back and reshoot in order to gain the qualification. It sounds stupid but I found getting a good qualification score on the America’s Army: Operations qualification range far harder than any shoot I’ve done in real life.

The game itself is an online team-based tactical shooter with players joining one of two sides (in the aim of political correctness both sides are American, the player just visualises his opposition as the enemy ... recruiters didn’t want potential shooters signing up for Osama’s army). Most games are found on GameSpy although Telstra quite often has an Australian server up and running making it far easier for those in the Southern Lands.

In terms of shooters America’s Army: Operations is right up there with the best of them. Players can adopt and fire from several positions, there are a wide ranges of weapons types available and there are a range of excellent fighting aids for a player’s use. The game also makes good use of the iron sights view that was so popular in Op Flashpoint – in fact qualifying on the range is near on impossible without using the feature.

If you can get past the very strange community that seems to have made this game their home (I’m thinking 12 year-old, Twinkie eating, obnoxious American kids) and find a good team to play with, America’s Army: Operations is easily within the top five games of its category.

To enjoy America’s Army the publisher recommends a PIII800 (or AMD equivalent) or faster, 256MB RAM, 64MB 3D card, 1.2 GB HDD space and a Windows XP/2000/ME/98 OS.