Army Sets Up Videogame Studio 36
Ralph Lee writes "Is it time to enlist? Wired News is reporting that the US Army has set up a video game studio to model training and recruit soldiers on the heels of the successful America's Army title: 'The America's Army Government Applications office was quietly opened in January in Cary, North Carolina, with a team of 15 video-game creators, simulation specialists and ex-Army personnel. Many of the studio's employees come from local video-game companies like Interactive Magic, Timeline, Vertis, SouthPeak Interactive, Vicious Cycle Software and Red Storm Entertainment.'" It's also noted that "the office is working with a team of 24 video-game creators in Monterey, California, on the latest edition to its main franchise, America's Army: Overmatch, which will be released in March 2005."
Software Career in the Army? (Score:5, Informative)
Warning, rant follows:
This is not the forum for complaining about the shoddy software (that Americans probably paid collective millions in taxes for), but here are a few of the simplest pieces of functionality that are miserable failures:
- Server can't cycle maps, causes client GP fault
- Client menu layout is incomprehensible
- Whether you're online or offline is some kind of mystery
- Plenty of 'Error connecting' messages with no information
- Connecting to a so-called LAN game requires opening the command console
- There was talk of 'admin mode' and the only documentation for logging in as an admin is in the FAQ (if it's so frequently asked, then how about making it part of the login dialog?) Then once you log in as admin, are you a player with admin ability, or some non-player observer. How do you get back to being a regular player? Others don't see you logged in, but your personal user name appears in the admin list of online players....