Fighting For America’s Army

When the U.S. Army released its game, America's Army, back in July 2002, I made it my top priority to get it for myself. I have been playing that and the second release, America's Army: Special Forces, ever since. I'm proud to say that the very first time I went through the scenarios, I scored an expert marksmanship on the weapons qualification portion.

The best thing about America's Army is that it's free for your PC! It's been an excellent game over the past years, and now America's Army will be expanding into the console market. The U.S. Army, Ubisoft and Secret Level worked together to create America’s Army: Rise of A Soldier for the Xbox and PlayStation 2. The game allows you to create a soldier and take him through the adventures of an Army career from the first day of training. The intense single-player missions and high adrenaline multiplayer mode builds the skills of your soldier and advances him through is career from recruit all the way to Special Forces team leader. Unfortunately the skills you build up in your single player soldier will not apply to the soldier you use for online mode. You can play up to 15 other players at a time (16 total) online. In addition to that, you can do split-screen cooperative play with your buddy.

I had the opportunity to briefly play Rise of A Soldier while I was at the E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) in May, and from what I could tell, it is as good as the PC version. I just had to get used to playing the game with console controls instead of a mouse and keyboard. If you appreciate strategy over the mindless running and gunning action, you will definitely enjoy the gameplay. You use the strategy to build your experience and your skill level ranking.

America’s Army was initially designed and developed to use online gameplay as a virtual portal to allow civilians to explore and learn about soldiering in the U.S. Army. Authentic weapons, equipment and combat situations come directly from U.S. Army subject matter experts. To create the realism in the game, the developers worked with various Green Berets and Stryker Brigade units to model their missions and equipment.

A free CD of the PC version of America’s Army is available at any Army recruiting office or can be downloaded from www.americasarmy.com.
America’s Army: Rise of A Soldier for the Xbox, was released earlier this week on November 15, and the PlayStation 2 version will come out on December 13 just in time for Christmas. It is rated T for Teen and is available for about $50 at GameStop or Toys n’ Joys.