America's Army Review Page 2

10 Jul 2009 at 16:50:27 by Andy Alderson
Systems used to review this title: (PC)

This is combined with a realistic damage model which means that it will only take one or two well-placed bullets to put you down. However, each team member also carries a basic medical kit, allowing them to treat and essentially revive any injured teammates. There’s even a little minigame for the first aid procedures which requires you to pick the appropriate treatment for the injured soldier’s symptoms. It’s a nice little touch and, again, comes a lot easier if you’ve completed the training. Once you’ve treated your patient, you’ll be rewarded with teamwork points so it’s not only beneficial to stick close to your squad in case you get shot, there’s also an incentive to help your team.

The game’s clever Rules of Engagement (ROE) system takes this notion of teamwork encouragement even further. The ROE basically tell you how to maximise your point scoring by punishing stupidity and rewarding both individual and team-based achievements. For example, shooting team-mates is a ROE violation, meaning you will lose points in the round. Equally, shooting downed enemies is also uncool and you’ll be docked points. However, get up close to the injured enemy, secure them and you’ll gain points. It’s a smart system which gently pushes players towards teamwork and it’s very rare to come across outright teamkilling stupidity in America’s Army.

However, while the central concept of the game works very well, the game is currently hamstrung by technical issues. While it’s certainly easier to get into an online game now, you’ll still find yourself being kicked back to the menu every now and again. We also experienced freezing in both in the game and while navigating the menus.

The game also suffers from what appears to be highly inconsistent netcode. There were far too many occasions when, even with a sub 30ms ping, we’d experience some shocking lag spikes during a match and there’s just an overall feeling of sluggishness when playing online. And then there are the glitches. While some are initially quite funny (like when weapons disappear and troops must resort to pointing their fingers of death at the enemy), others are enormously tedious (like the glitchy grenade-throwing animation) and it’s hard not to come away from America’s Army feeling like you’re playing an unfinished game.

Even the improved Unreal Engine 3 visuals can’t save the day. Despite using the highest video settings, AA still manages to look drab, muddy and just plain old. Put it alongside any shooter from the last couple of years and it won’t compare favourably. There’s a general lack of inspiration in the player models, the animations and the overall appearance of the multiplayer maps meaning that, rather than being gritty and visceral, America’s Army just looks faintly depressing. However, while it doesn’t make much of an impact in the visual department, the game’s audio is much more impressive. The guns all pack a convincing punch and you certainly know when you come under fire, with bullets cracking viciously around your head.

Unfortunately, as it stands, there’s just too much wrong with America’s Army 3 to recommend it. While the developer has implemented some impressive teamwork and balancing mechanics, you rarely get the chance to enjoy them. There is undoubtedly a decent online shooter somewhere in the game, but you currently have to dig way too deep to find it.

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