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Try America's Army Online for a good FPS game. The bonus is that its free for download/use (apart from it being payed for by US taxpayers).

The US Army seems to take it pretty seriously, in fact they are prepared to spend a few million of YOUR taxdollars on it and as a FPS game its pretty tame in violence compared to some.

Check it out and grab it here, (it's "free" because you have already paid for it:) (based on the Quake 3 Engine afaik).

Its up to you to decide wether its just a fun novelty recruiting tool in the shape of a video game , or a serious combat strategy training simulation tool for helping you kill (or eliminate the threat as they say) more effectivly in the "real" Army in "real" situations.
i know red pixels on a screen isn't in reality very convincing but the strategy/planning/management etc of the game tasks can be the same as reality, presumably desired skills as far as the Army are concerned.

its a fine line.

with the blaming violence on games thing , i too cannot see it (possibly cos im an old skooler), but what i do know is
crap in==crap out
if you put shit gas in your car it runs wack
if you eat crap food it makes you ill
so i presume the brain is affected the same.

They want all their recruits to train on the best computer simulation available to the government today.

Scouting not your speed? Adults not willing to help out with troop logistics occasionally? Go grab your local equivilent of Computer Bits and find your local gaming groups. Yeah, it's not really reducing hours gamed, but it's getting that all-important social interaction, which is the ultimate goal.

Gaming too much is more of a social issue than a technological one, and one that requires a social solution.

Also, it was quiet interesting Americas Army came out before UT2K3 using the UT2K3 engine. So the engine does look good on other non-bouncy fps games. (Any other U2K3 engine based games out?)

From the Unreal Wiki, released UT2k3 engine games:

America's Army
Devastation
Raven Shield
Splinter Cell
Unreal 2
Unreal Championship
Postal 2 ...and of course itself, and any others I have forgotten.

Notable upcoming Unreal Engine games include:
Deus Ex 2
Thief 3
XIII

Unreal Warfare, Epic's worst-kept secret, is next-generation (from UT2003's engine) and is said to rival Doom 3s and Half Life 2s. Speculation I have heard is that is seems to be a large scale combat game (either that or i'm getting this confuesd with Digital Extreme's Stargate game), perhaps in the style of BF1942 or PlanetSide (yes, there are games in development (unannounced) that are using the Unreal Engine as a platform for a MMORPG, so it is a possibilty).

There were a number of guys in my company that wondered (with genuine amazement) how they could be so good at counter strike and quake but suck so bad at being an infantryman. I love tactical first person shooters, especially the one the Army released but when I decided to become an infantryman I did so knowing the difference between real pain, and blood on a screen. It takes something different than knowing how to use a joystick to become a great fighter pilot, and it takes something different than being able to twitch like an aim-bot to be a reliable infantryman.

America's Army home page.

Training on violent video games was one of the key contributing factors to the United States' success in invading Iraq.

When can I get one of these as an add-on for my copy of America's Army?

Maybe they can give them away for free to kids to get an early start on training.

Heinlein would be proud.

A specific advantage is in the near-future military.
We joke about it, but combat is becoming more and more like video games. For 40 years, pilots have targeted radar blips with electronic weapons, although they needed tough physical conditioning to withstand the aircraft's thrust.

Now, with remotely operated Predator drones and similar UAVs, a "warfighter" can grab a joystick in his cubicle and go hunt some Al Quaeda.

See a quote from LtCmdr Shilling (a developer of the Army Game) to this effect in an AP story.

Every time I log on to America's Army, There, any MMORPG, or even Slashdot, I'd say that I'm entering an alternate Matrix. If only I could disconnect from "reality" as easily as I can from slashdot. (go go gadget meditation!)

America's army.. Loyal. Proud. Brave. Shooting Arabs.

Seems to be a cunning ploy of the US Army to indoctrinate todays youth in the fun and games of killing people for your country. How wonderful technology is.

http://www.americasarmy.com/faq.php?section=Parent s#parents3

Why the fruck do You not feel like You're being screwed with XBox Live? Why are You paying for a service which should be included with the $50 You spent on the game in the first place.

Anybody who feels that $50/year (on top of broadband and game purchase costs) is acceptable for playing games online NEEDS to spend some time playing online PC games. For a taste, download America's Army (for free) and see what it's like to play against 32 people at once, without any stupid annual or monthly fee.

The only games I'd be willing to pay annual fees for are MMORPGs, and even then only if they were using those fees to create new and valuable content. XBox Live seems like nothing more than an unnecessary obstacle to online gaming with the XBox.

Anyone else feel like innovation in the FPS genre has stagnated since the introduction of Counter-Strike?

I would definately not call Counterstrike innovative. It was a copy of stuff that was already around.

Now if you wanna try something that's a bit different, try America's Army. Not only is it different, it's also free to download and play :) (well, if you're American, you sorta already paid for it with your tax dollars). Very strategic FPS, even moreso than BF1942. Wthout team strategy, you lose. You also need to be able to successfully pass standalone missions before certain maps and weapons are made available to you for online play (so no one is a total newbie).

The scenarios of The Army Game are exactly not what the US army is/will finding itself in.

As you mentioned, in the game, the teams are always 100% balanced, and have equally powerful weapons, communications, and survelliance/intelligence assets. The US army will never be willing to engage in a fair fight- it's against their simplest doctrine ("never attack without a 4x numerical advantage" for instance)

Plus, everything that moves is either an ally or an enemy (or one of a small number of hostages).

To make the scenarios at all realistic, there'd have to be dozens of coordinated US soldiers, hundreds of OPFOR (spread out, without reliable communication or leadership) and thousands of civilians. And those OPFOR and civilians should be able to change roles at any moment.

I'm surprised there was no mention of Americas Army in that article - I'm aware that the games primary focus is as a PR tool, however I would have thought it could also be used as an effective tool for training and simulation. Hell, even better on the PR angle, let the players who clock up 10+ hrs of AA per week that they can continue playing the game when they join up and it counts towards their training time, and watch them line up......

Ok, this is creepy, in light of the fact that I love playing America's Army: Operations.

Governments are already involved in the gaming industry. America's Army is just one example of computer games produced for state PR (read: propaganda).

There has always been a long tradition of anti hate-games in Germany, funded by the ministry of the interior. The game series is called "Dunkle Schatten" (dark shadows").

If Peter wants funding "just for fun", he might think of giving something back to the one who funds him.

Oh, that reminds me of one question. Are the ads and banners in sport games (for making the game more realistic) sponsored by real companies?

Of course, it's great that there is an industry for gaming and it's not trivial in economic terms. I have to question some of those counter-motivations. Why must it be a subscription service? People obviously don't trust what they can't put their hands on, so keep sending them to the store for the $50 box version. Tack on other options at $5-10 a one time pop, with the understanding that upgrades won't always be free, etc, etc. Before you know it, you too are a part of a multi-billion dollar gaming industry. Also it seems to me that a better model is to figure out how the technology can be reused between MMOG and business, even mission critical stuff. That way you get industry and goverment to carry the load while cool games are a nice spin-off. As much as it saddens me to admit, the DoD is certainly getting wise to that idea.

Who'd ever of thunk the US Army would be leading the charge into this realm.

America's Amry is a great recruiting and training tool.

I thought our tax dollars were used to market government-approved violent games to our nation's youth. Silly me, it's being used for the development and proliferation of OSS!

Why do I always feel like I'm waking up from a nightmare?

Are you hinting at the America's Army game? That was developed by the US Army and is free? Or are you unaware of it?

What about giving the games away for free? What about violent freeware games?

No, those have to stay available for obvious reason.

Let's not forget about America's Army, the game that our government paid to produce and is free to download.

America's Army is pretty cool, too.

Huge community, and most of them are friendly people.

Unless the video game makers state their intents for the game, it is next to impossible to know if the company is providing violent entertainment for the purpose of making sales, or because they might have a hidden agenda, or maybe even because they personally like the idea of running people down in cars (arguably disturbing). If a game company produced a game that allowed you to become a terrorist and choose Suicide Bomber, Fly Plane Into Building, etc. would we treat that game the same way as a game that lets the player run people over using automobiles, or the same as a first person shooter where you just blow things away?

We don't necessarily know the intent of the game company, but we can make informed decisions about the game based on its content, or own values, and/or the social politics of the day. Therefore maybe it's not a bad idea to enforce the rating system on video games just like ratings are (usually) enforced in the movie theatres for age groups. For example, don't let minors purchase violent video games, whether they have to wait to a certain age or need consent of a parent might work. However we all know the realities of computers and how easy it is to electronically distrubute bits and bytes. Most likely the kid will get his or her hands on the software eventually. However I don't believe that's an argument for not enforcing the video game rating.

Maybe a parent who doesn't mind their kid joining the army, doesn't mind the "recruiting experience" offered by the U.S. Army video game (which involved killing people). However the same parent might not let their kid become a terrorist offered by another video game. However in another country this situation might be reversed.

I remember years ago Buick had a driving simulator that, naturally, had you driving various Buicks. You could also get more info about specific models (mostly lists of standard features, etc.). In its day it was very leading-edge, and I passed it around freely. The U.S. Army has released a free wargames sim as a recruiting tool, and it's very good. I'm going to burn it onto some CDs and stuff them into stockings in the hope of enlisting a squad among my family for some serious time-wasting.

If that's what you mean by "viral" ads, go for it, and don't feel bad about it. Just be sure it's quality stuff, because the quality will reflect directly on the sponsor. One issue you should worry about is bandwidth. If these ads are large, consider a format where people can email links to their friends rather than the ads themselves.

And if your company plans on spamming them to the world, or participating in the "astroturfing" mentioned elsewhere, then I wish your company horrible flaming death :-)

I've been playing a strategic FPS game for the last couple of months.... America's Army. Unlike most FPS games, this one requires team strategy to win. And another cool factor: It's totally free! (You can pay to order the CD, but you can download the full game online). And roughly on a monthly basis they release new maps and new weapons and such. It's an amazingly fun game.

Stability of the online world is important for a commercial system because, without it, you need an army of paid staffers running the world. More interesting for the Slashdot crowd is the peer to peer option. If the design is stable enough, there's potential for it as a peer to peer system. So far, nobody has done a successful, fully decentralized, MMORPG. But someday, someone will.

A big simulated world has to work in such a way that obnoxious behavior doesn't get you anywhere for very long. Otherwise, everybody leaves. It's really hard to design for that. Yet it's a key problem to work on, as it addresses some of the basic problems of civilization.

One of the outstanding related problems is coming up with a way to keep obnoxious people from re-entering the world with new identities. There are various solutions to this, most of which involve credit cards. But not all of them. America's Army, the US Army's free online game, has a novel solution. To play the game, you must first go through basic training, which is not too much fun. (Virtual drill sergeants yell at you.) So having your character banned means you have to go through Basic again. This limits player bad behavior.

America's Army even has a realistic system for in-game player punishment. They dump the player into a cell in the U.S. Military Prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Bad harmonica music plays until the system decides to let the player out.

The mindset of the America's Army world is very Army. You will fight as a team, whether you like it or not. You will train and qualify with a weapon before you use it in combat. Careful design has made that work. Train, cooperate, or die.

From the article:
"More worrisome than the risk of escape, they acknowledged, is that the project could lay the scientific groundwork for a new generation of biological weapons, a risk that may force them to be selective about publishing technical details. But they said the project could also help advance the nation's ability to detect and counter existing biological weapons."

It used to be that you'd have to have a clear goal and some ethics to get funding and public good will. I guess all you need these days is to mention that it'll help protect the motherla, er, I mean assist Homeland Security.

Maybe I can get a grant to play America's Army: Operations.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not at all sqeamish about this project, I think it's great. I'm just wary of every science project ...every any project latching itself unto this Third Reich wünderclone speedboat and heelhauling itself into existence and the public faith.

The variant on this, create a game with your marketing dollars.

http://www.americasarmy.com

Oprah Winfrey had an 'expert' on the other day, who tied the recent sniper killings in the D.C. area to Counter Strike. The 'expert' said that Counter Strike had trained this individual to kill and how to handle a gun.

Anyone play Americas Army? This game teachs you how to breath when sniping, and if you pass the initial target practice you goto Snipers School. Based on the Unreal 2003 engine, its suppose to be as close as you can make virtual training.

The game was paid for by the Armed Services, and is a free.

I'm sure the folks over at The Army are glad to hear this one!

You can always apply to become a Beta tester for Americas Army. You should play it abit, and get to know it all before you go and sign up though.....

Well, if you don't like advertisements in video games, the failure of "The Sims" either by playing quality or advertising placement would be a good thing. Other companies will be looking towards "The Sims" on the viability of ads in video games. Since essence of management creativity involves the act of seeing what other successful companies are doing and trying to copy it before the gravy train leaves, if "The Sims" w/ ads fails, the idea will not be as 'hot' as if it works.

If the companies get their act together, like the US Army, they will be giving away awesome video games for free with their products as an inducement for consumption. Would be a good market for companies like EA...

I play American Army (unreal2003 engine based) and I get 35fps, with lows at 19 on very heavy battles. But I also like pushing my resolution at 1024x768 with 2x AA on an AMD 1800, GF3/TI500, so a GF2 should be able to do 600x480 with no AA at almost playable speeds.

considering that America's Army is now out (and it's really quite good) i don't see what the point in trying to get TF2 out is at this point anyway.

TF2 did contribute one non-vaporous thing tho... the moving mouths when you speak through the mic in Counter-Strike. yeay!

Hmmm, did anyone actually read the article ?

Is says :
That's not all. We're also working on an in-game browser, linux server port, and host of other features.

Don't tell the Army!

Oh yes, nobody talks about about the corporate area.

I currently have to use netscape 4.7 for iplanet(netscape) products, preside products, nortel, lucent, ericcson. Have to use IE for e-room and intranet sites that our IT department builds (hr, finance, payroll, etc.)

The one left I cant really even fake partially is e-room, that company is like a virus, they invade and make all the project manangers use it, then your stuck with crappy IE.

But Im a mozilla user, I have to create custom filters in proxomitron filter out java applets that check which version of browser im running. My work order system runs flawlessly under mozilla, but the webmaster put 2 java apps to make sure im running IE! The whole company wants IE, but my production servers need Netscape 4.7.

Then there is cold fusion and java applets guis, ARGH... Why cant everything be plain text with input/drop down/check mark boxes? I'm trying to get work done on slow links across the country with servers thousands of miles away from me, and I have to wait for a damn java gui to pop up. KILL ME NOW. Developers dont code web admin tools worth shit. I wish they had to walk a mile in an operations/sys-admin shoes.

Have you played the free game www.americasarmy.com? Its based on the unreal 2003 engine, its free, if you like counter-strike, you will love americas army.

You don't have to wait in line at FilePlanet. Use the mirrors.

For those who hate fileplanet, click here for Mirrors.

3dgamers has it here

The load will lighten up eventually. Check out the rules of engagement on their site. Will it stop cheating? Not a chance. But maybe they could knock one or two doors down, just for show.

I was reading the news section of Penny Arcade this morning, and they were talking about America's Army. Slashdot's mentioned it a few times recently; FPS released for free by the American military. They're doing something interesting to handle team-killers. If a player breaks "rules of engagement" enough times, then your character "goes to jail" and you can't play on the server for a period of time. Check it out here, it's towards the bottom of the page. Sounds like a cool solution to me.

That's cause they have all their technical people working on something real worthy. A free video game, well semi free. I'm sure I'll get a call from my local recruiter after he sees me play.

Did anyone notice on the jump page in the box entitled SOLDIERS: Empower Yourself the misspelled word desicions? Does that not seem oddly fitting for an advertisement that has something to do with Americas Army?

Here is the site... and the flash intro.

Here is the site... and the flash intro.

americasarmy.com