A few things about America’s Army:
It may (I am 90%, but not 100% sure of this) have been the first PC, online, FPS to feature ragdoll physics for dead players.
It employed a… rather baffling way of doing team conflicts:
You are always on Team America, and the opposing team is always Team Generic Terrorists. (With 80s/90s movie era costumes for the bad guys, dependent on map location)
What this results in is… you have your M4. You are shooting at bad guys with AK74su’s. But… from the opposing team’s POV, its the same.
So, if you kill someone… you can now pick up an AK74su. Even though from their POV they dropped an M4.
And so on, with rough equivalents as an SVD and an M110, an RPK and an M249.
These ‘picked up’ weapons would basically morph into having the ballistics of the Eastern Bloc weapon at the point they were picked up.
Very weird, I’ve never seen another game do that.
The game also had a good number of training courses, many of which were initially bugged as all hell.
I remember the SERE course failing me consistently, showing that I had been detected by guards who are apparently able to see through boulders or 30 feet of a hill (the camera would show you how you were spotted like a ‘deathcam’ and it was quite obvious it was often total bs).
Also, in certain training missions it was possible to shoot your instructor.
This would result in you being sent to the brig: Log in to your account, and for a week, all you get is a view from inside a prison cell, no game menus or options at all, rofl.
Oh, final thing: I am pretty sure this was the first online PC FPS that modelled that M203 projectiles must travel a certain distance before the explosive charge will detonate, so taking out someone with an M203 round to the face, non explosively, became a way to humiliate people, as you either had to be pretty skilled to do it , or your opponent had to have very poor situational awareness.
Also, in certain training missions it was possible to shoot your instructor.
This would result in you being sent to the brig: Log in to your account, and for a week, all you get is a view from inside a prison cell, no game menus or options at all, rofl.
Hilarious! I guess adding permadeath to the game would’nt’ve helped with the recruiting mission, but this feels like it’s in the same spirit.
The game had a whole system of ranks and qualifications based off actual Army ranks and skills.
You had to do pretty comprehensive medical training before you could be a field medic, you had to qualify as a marksman to be able to use a DMR, you had to pass the SERE school before I think night time missions and NVGs could be used, had to complete parachute training before levels you’d paradrop into, etc, and these would become available as you reached a certain number of kills or successful missions or what not.
Basically, it had a persistent progression system, and it was quite in depth…
… And if you did things like tons of team killing, or killing the instructor, not only would you end up in the brig… you’d have basically all of your progress reset.
Its about as close as you can get to permadeath in a round based, pvp shooter.
You are always on Team America, and the opposing team is always Team Generic Terrorists. (With 80s/90s movie era costumes for the bad guys, dependent on map location)
The enemy is dumb, they think we’re the enemy but they are the enemy!
Oh, final thing: I am pretty sure this was the first online PC FPS that modelled that M203 projectiles must travel a certain distance before the explosive charge will detonate, so taking out someone with an M203 round to the face, non explosively, became a way to humiliate people, as you either had to be pretty skilled to do it , or your opponent had to have very poor situational awareness.
Oh wow, it is maybe a first. I remember doing that in Modern Warfare 2 quite a bit, but didn’t realize how much this game pre-dates it.
Another fun fact about the game is it has a surprisingly robust audio system built in. I had a clan member who could pinpoint exactly where an enemy was on certain maps (pipeline I think?) just by the sound their footsteps were making and the direction/proximity to his location.
Also, shout-out to all the boys out there that did the precision m203 artillery bombing on bridge! I remember getting good enough to hit each of the individual cover posts. I spent so much time playing this game.
Oh, final thing: I am pretty sure this was the first online PC FPS that modelled that M203 projectiles must travel a certain distance before the explosive charge will detonate
In SOI this was referred to as the fuck zone, because it was 14-34 meters (this is 15 years ago, memory’s hazy). Crude joke, but effective mnemonoic device. Was related to the number of rotations for the round.
In my civilian life, handled a case before the Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals related to mortar rounds, and his contracted had been terminated because the paint thickness had an effect on the arming distance.
This would result in you being sent to the brig: Log in to your account, and for a week, all you get is a view from inside a prison cell, no game menus or options at all, rofl.
shooting at dead bodies also put you in jail but I think it was only for 15 or 30 minutes or something certainly not a full week
So, I worked on this. I built their in game support system (irc backed!), wrote a bunch of the web auth code, and accidentally once deleted the production user database from the secondary site (whew, disabled and re-replicated from primary).
It was a lot of fun and got me a trip to E3 back when it was the big thing.
It was an interesting concept because no matter what, you would play the american side and fight the terrorists. (you would look like a terrorist to the other team)
I recall they lowered guys out of a helicopter on ropes one year, too. It was hilarious to walk around the floor at E3 and see CoD or whatever guys in their fakey-looking booth bro costumes pass real army guys wearing real uniforms passing out enlistment info and ads for America’s Army. Why pay booth bros when you can just assign some soldiers you’re already paying?
It was a legitimately good completely free multiplayer FPS game. I was into it for a while ages ago, and it was quite fun.
I genuinely doubt it actually inspired a remotely meaningful number of people to actually join the army, though.
Probably the opposite. Who wants to do a job where you die the first hour on the job?
It was actually pretty good. I remember having to pass an ingame training course to use the medic class. I still vaguely remember how to apply a tourniquet lol
I still vaguely remember how to apply a tourniquet lol
Do blood sweep on individual. On the affect limb place tourniquet high and tight into the groin/armpit as possible. Velcro firmly. Twist stick until you think the stick will break (ignore screams of person you’re applying it to). Write the time on the tourniquet so the medics know what to do about it later.
I think when it first released in 2002 they would have taught two inches above the wound. High and tight for all purposes came later as the default trained procedure.
It’s slightly above the wound (2 inch) not highest up. Also never on a joint. One tourniquet might not stop the bleed, then you need to place another one higher than the previous one.
I remember from my own time in recruit training they taught us to kneel on the affected artery while we were applying the tourniquet
This was in the original training! A step in the original classes that kind of vanished in the later trainings (from my memory at least). I think most people missed the artery when they slammed their knees into people anyway. I dunno, I didn’t ask so I don’t recall why that step kind of vanished. Probably no longer trained because it got in the way of people getting it high enough as well. I bet it would still help if performed correctly though.
That was such a pain in the ass, 10mins in I finally think to myself “wait, this is supposed to be fun, why am I watching class in a game?” dropped the game and nvr came back
It was extremely popular. I played it a lot. Many players were international because, you know, it was free.
It was great anti-miliarty propaganda. I mean I died several times per hour.
It was extremely popular.
It was free to play. But it didn’t hold a candle to Team Fortress, Call of Duty, or even Tribes in terms of overall player count. The project was eventually abandoned when Pentagon officials realized they could just send kick-backs to EA executives in order to inject their propaganda into a more popular franchise.
Now US Army and Navy sponsorship of tournaments is routine, streamers regularly get promoted based on their military affiliations, and native advertising has ramped up substantially.
But it didn’t hold a candle to Team Fortress, Call of Duty, or even Tribes in terms of overall player count.
In terms of player count, no. But mechanics and graphics? They were pretty freaking good.
Although one pretty ridiculous thing was that one would never play as “the enemy.” You’re always on the side of the US Army, obviously, and the enemies are vaguely mid-eastern people dressed very stereotypically, yelling. But if your friend was on that enemy team, they’d see themselves as a US soldier and you as a somewhat racist terrorist stereotype. And the guns work like that too; you start of with an M16 or whatever your role might be, but when the enemy kills you, they’ll pick up an AK with a drum magazine. Weirdly the guns had different mechanics, so which ones was the game using at what times?
Anyways, thought to mention. I played Tactical Ops mostly at that time (having had stopped CS when the annoying 1.6 steam update came), but with one friend we did AA. Always on American servers, playing with like 190 ping. (And yes, if it’s a steady ping, you can actually get used to it and hit things. Well even.)
I played this at the same time I played Tribes (renegades always) and this game was a novelty, Tribes was the fun.
I saw a new Tribes is coming out/just came out, but I’m wayyyy too old to keep up now haha.
Tribes is my all-time favourite shooter. I esp loved Tribes 2… unpopular opinion maybe but wow was that an amazing game to me.
I was one of those international players, it was pretty good and a nice change when you needed a break from Wolfenstein Enemy Territory, which was very popular around the same time.
