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First Person Shooters (Games) PC Games (Games) Entertainment Games

America's Army - Special Forces Released 76

Posted by simoniker from the digitally-recruited dept.
Thanks to the official site for news of the release of PC FPS/recruitment tool, America's Army - Special Forces, with download locations for the Windows client listed by Blue's News, as this "...latest release in the [freely downloadable] America's Army game series focuses on the critical, specialized role of the Army's Special Forces within the U.S. Army as they fight the Global War on Terrorism." GameSpot has a press release revealing the new missions include "...a Combat Search And Rescue (CSAR) of a downed helicopter pilot, the rescue of a wounded Resistance leader from a hospital in an urban area, a nighttime reconnaissance mission to identify enemy aviation." Previous Slashdot articles have revealed the apparent success of the game in recruiting young people to the Army.
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America's Army - Special Forces Released More

America's Army - Special Forces Released

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  • Iraq gets $86 Billion dollars, we get a video game. This administration is a riot! i love it

    "The ambassador and the general were briefing me on the-the vast majority of Iraqis want to live in a peaceful, free world. And we will find these people and we will bring them to justice." -G.W. Bush

  • Resistance leaders who then bomb your cities! (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    the rescue of a wounded Resistance leader from a hospital in an urban area,

    And 20 years later, the Resistance leader pays you back by bombing the World Trade Center.

    The other Resistance Leader becomes the Iraqi President.

    And Donald Rumsfeld [captionthis.com] gets all the power he wants.

  • Bittorrent link (Score:4, Informative)

    by c.r.o.c.o ( 123083 ) on Thursday November 06, 2003 @08:59PM (#7413572)
    Since all the ftp servers are probably overloaded right now, here's the bittorrent link. I'm getting about 30kbps up/down, so it's not too bad.

    http://www.3dgamers.com/dlexit/torrent/games/ame ri casarmy/armyops200.exe.html

  • FPS or FUD? (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by cgranade ( 702534 )
    Well, this is interesting. Now instead of hearing FUD about our rightous War On Terror, they get to participate in the FUD! How appropiate that such an incredible fiction makes its way as a video game...

    • Re:FPS or FUD? (Score:3, Informative)

      by BrookHarty ( 9119 )
      No where in this game that makes political statements. Its all defend or attack based roles. It doesnt just include sand missions, but snow, mountains and camps. I dont think you played it, or you would know this game has nothing to do with the war on Terror, or the war in Iraq.

      BTW, as a combat sims goes, its pretty good. Team based, and honor rating. Uses the latest Unreal200x engine, in fact was the first game out to use the engine. Give it a try, you wont see any the political FUD you think. Sitting th
      • "Killing is justifiable" is a pretty strong political statement. It may be a commonly held one (what part of "thou shall not kill" don't radical christians understand?), but that does not diminish the fact that it is a polarizing, non-universal, politcal view.
        • Dont look at it as "Killing is justifiable" but as defending and protecting. While the US might be selective at both, this game is not about politics, its about tactics and teamwork. Like most military training, they train you to do a task, follow orders, not give you the poltical ramifications on peoples religion and the orbit of the moon.

          Sometimes a sim is a sim, a game a game. GTA3 wasnt a training aid to kill police, Americas Army isnt a brain washing tool with a political agenda. We have CNN/Fox ne
          • So what do you suppose it IS for if its not for propoganda purposes? Why would they spend money just to make a game? It may be just for recruiting but thats propogranda to really.

  • That's great and all (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ArmorFiend ( 151674 ) on Thursday November 06, 2003 @09:16PM (#7413689) Homepage Journal
    that they've posted windows download locations, but what about the other platforms? I seem to recal this being an all-platforms release. You might think that you could find some info here [americasarmy.com], but then you'd be wrong.

    (or maybe all those flash ads I supporessed give some info?)
    • From the america's army site:
      Please note: this release includes only the Windows client version. Mac client, Linux client, and Linux server will be released at a later time.
    • Not enough room in the story to clarify it, but the first link [americasarmy.com] says:

      "Please note: this release includes only the Windows client version. Mac client, Linux client, and Linux server will be released at a later time."

      Doh.

  • Fight on Terror? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by igny ( 716218 ) on Thursday November 06, 2003 @09:25PM (#7413734) Homepage Journal
    I would prefer Air Force's simulators. I really want to feel how F16 or F117 fighter feels like... Some people might like Navy's... When will NASA start popularizing themselves with free simulators?

  • Recruiting tool or mission analyzer? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Baron_Yam ( 643147 ) on Thursday November 06, 2003 @09:33PM (#7413777)

    It seems to me that building a mission and having thousands of real people have a go at finishing it would be a great simulator for planning a REAL mission. But hey, that's just me.

    • Re:Recruiting tool or mission analyzer? (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      [voice #1]... Sir, we're at location Delta. Visual contact has been made with the enemy. Repeat, visual contact has been made. Over.

      [voice #2]... Franks, you take Biggs and Henderson and approach from position 9-Bravo-7. Adams, you run in a circle and fire randomly at nearby foliage. Smith is to make a direct attack with his Bowie knife on the enemy position, and Murphy is assigned to block the teams access to equipment. GO GO GO!

    • It seems to me that building a mission and having thousands of real people have a go at finishing it would be a great simulator for planning a REAL mission. But hey, that's just me.

      I wasn't aware that the US military had developed the sort of instant reincarnation technology that would allow a real soldier playing out the role of [St0n3d]N00B1N4T0R(3618) to realistically enact the brilliant strategy of spawning, running up to the base, killing two guys, dying, respawning, and then repeating the strategy f

  • Draft (Score:3, Informative)

    by Michael.Forman ( 169981 ) * on Thursday November 06, 2003 @09:34PM (#7413784) Homepage Journal

    Unlike reality [thestar.com], at least they're not thinking of randomly forcing people to play the game.

    Michael [michael-forman.com]
  • Bit Torrent link for the 1.9 to 2.0 Upgrade. You need to have 1.9 already for this 223 meg upgrade to work. Filerush'll have the full one up in a bit. http://www.filerush.com/torrents/aao_patch_190to20 0.exe.torrent [filerush.com]
  • NASA should get in on this idea
    I'd love to see space simulators
    Gosh, the FBI/CIA too -- think Counter-Strike
    Great games that help recruit
    Extra advertising for them,
    Really sweet games for us!

    everyone wins!

  • This is so fucked up (Score:2, Insightful)

    by drix ( 4602 )
    What an ingenious way to snooker thousands of unsuspecting children into signing their lives away to a life of killing. If the KKK, Michigan Militia, or some other militant fringe-group released recruiting software (I think I remember a Tom Clancy book about that), we'd all be watching day 27 of the standoff live on CNN right now. Yet when it's done by the Army, even better with your money, everyone says it's a wonderful recruiting idea. When Mortal Kombat splattered gallons of cartoonish blood on the scree
    • Give me a break. Get out of your fantasy world and join the rest of us in a world where evil exists and we need our military more than ever. Thank God for the men and women who are willing to give their lives to protect our life and liberty, including those of dumb ingrates like you.
    • The folks in Congress are typically complaining about senseless, gratuitous, and illegal (if the portrayed act occured in real world, not that the game itself is illegal) forms of violence. Military actions conducted by the US tend not to fall into those categories. Military training seeks to prevent such violence. There is no inherent hypocracy. Add to this the fact that the goal of some military actions is to break things not kill people. Killing enemy soldiers is somethimes a last resort. Better to depri
      • The folks in Congress are typically complaining about senseless, gratuitous, and illegal ... Military actions conducted by the US tend not to fall into those categories

        Stated as fact, but very much a matter of opinion. And Congress doesn't compain because of gratuitous violence in and of itself, but rather because it believes they predispose players to violent, antisocial behavior at a subconscious level. To then turn around and harness that very effect to fill up some recruiting roster is at once cynical
        • No, members of Congress complain because it will get them votes. The do not want to fix the issue. If they did they would past stupid laws that say if someone looks under the age of 18, the picture is childporn, even if they person is over the age of 18.

          You are making the mistake that Congress is about getting things done, it isn't. It is about insuring that those currently in Congress, stay in congress.

          "and Congress doesn't compain because of gratuitous violence in and of itself, but rather because i
        • ... they predispose players to violent, antisocial behavior at a subconscious level. To then turn around and harness that very effect to fill up some recruiting roster is at once cynical, totally lacking inner logic and, yes, hypocritical

          "Violence". Gratuitous and unnecessary violence is something military training seeks to prevent. The violence is a means to a specific goal, it tends to be highly controlled and limited in scope. Keep in mind the goal is not necessarily to kill enemy troops. The preferr

    • Re:This is so fucked up (Score:4, Interesting)

      by ChaoticLimbs ( 597275 ) on Friday November 07, 2003 @12:16AM (#7414654) Journal
      Ha ha. Innovation at its finest- A leftist liberal who hates the military and George W. Bush. Your post seethes with youthful hatred of the military. Maybe I am more sensitive to it as a veteran. Who knows.
      Let me enlighten you a bit- there are bad men out there in the real world (outside the US), and they do some very bad things to other people. The human animal can be the worst one in many ways, and ignoring them does not make them stop. In some cases, you have to kill them. Arguing in a forum will not change it. Protest signs won't change it. Sometimes you just have to kill people and break things.
  • I finally tried to get this to run.

    $ apps/armyops/armyops
    GL_EXT_bgra not supported - bailing out.

    History:

    Exiting due to error

    Here is my setup.
    ATI all in wonder running Debian, XFree86

    XFree86 Version 4.2.1.1 (Debian 4.2.1-12.1 20031003005825

    This seems to be a supported extension, according to most docs.

    Do I really need xfree 4.3? Or is this a config value somewhere?
    • The DRI drivers cause problems with the ATI cards concerning the game. I used the ATI binary drivers with XFree 4.3 on my 9800 Pro and had no problems.
      • I'm just a little concerned that I'll do all this switching around :ATI drivers, recompile the Kernel etc and I'll just end up trashing my system without actually getting the game to work.

        Are the Binary ATI Drivers GPL legal?
  • Hey why shouldn't it work for the army, I mean according to all the parents out there GTA has been a great recruitment campaign for Crime :)
    • And as the freaks^H^H^H^H^H^Hparents failed to mention, Dance Dance Revolution has got all the kids going dancing every night. Pikmin as got them out in the garden turning all the rocks over. Super Monkey Ball has got 'em putting their pets in beach balls and hurling them around the back yard. SimCity has made it "cool" to be a civil servant in local government. Railroad Tycoon has seen a whole bunch of us invest in the thriving rail industry. I can't take this horned hat off my head after playing ICO for 5
  • I played the first version. How much has this game changed? Is it worth checking it out?
    • Like most of the previous releases the developers are experiencing SERIOUS problems again. Each time you play a game, you will have to login which is automatically done for you. However the login servers are overloaded and a large percentage of players are unable to play. Matter of fact, I have been unable to play since Thursday. Once the game was announced players were overwhelming the site looking for 2.0 release.

      Since there has been major problems with each release, I honestly think the developers reall
  • ...seriously, it's practially unplayable on my system (which is no slouch and easily exceeds the minimum recommended requirments stated on their website, Athlon 1800XP+, GeForce4 64mb gfx card, 1024 Mb ram). I've been running the 1.90 client for a little while and that was silky smoothe. Now, I hear bullets and can't turn round in time to take the person out, the whole system becomes jerky and unresponsive. Granted this is a first release, but seriously, playability of it sucks. The new maps, however, a
  • Tell the poor me to some one else, we know your just as guilty as 'the enemey'....

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