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America's Army Comes to the Mac
mrpuffypants writes "Not to leave all of the Mac community out in the rain the U.S. Army has released a Mac version of America's Army. Now get out there and train for Iraq, maggots!"
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While the performance is understandably poor on my dual 800 (1.5 gb, GF3... I get around 20 fps) the game has real potential. Unfortunately its close quarters combat is quite flawed. Strafe jumping junkies who somehow manage to squeeze full-auto fire out of their M16A2 abound. Disappointing, to say the least. Looks like the devs kind of gave up on polishing the gameplay about 5/6ths of the way to completion. All that would be required to fix this is a simple realistically correct adjustment: You can't strafe jump while holding a full-auto assault rifle. Or, at least, my knowledge of the human body doesn't state that it's true. Who knows what genetically engineered super soldiers the Army is cooking up these days, though ;) I think perhaps some chained-jumping handicaps like those in RtCW, I think it was, would be appropriate. But, there are a handful of weapons to use, and sniping is appropriately difficult (though I haven't had a chance to try out it outside of the training field... yes I am an Exper Marksman :) ). So, to sum up... A game with strong potential, but it needs polish. And more FPS.
-- Apple: Where Microsoft wants to go today.
Gee, the US hasn't had conscripts since the '70s so maybe you have no idea what you're talking about.
Btw: unless you want to categorize Rush Limbaugh as a sunflower-loving hippie, mac users are a bit more diverse than the stereotype.
1 left liberal, 1 post, 2 wrong stereotypes. Bleah
Lying about sex with your intern, not impeachable.
In case you didn't know, Clinton was impeached.
obviously you are new to gaming since "strafe jumping" is actually called "bunny hopping". also you cannot fire while jumping. you can fire while strafing back and forth. i assume that you started today, you probably havent played many of the maps and maybe still in the MILES (laser tag) maps like MOUT and Tunnels. Those maps are intro maps you will see how the game can excel when you are on a large outdoor map like Radio Tower or a FPS killer map like Bridge.
.50 caliber sniper rifle, m4 with laser sight,grenades, flash bangs, smoke nades plus the enemies counter weapons.
o ru ms&file=viewtopic&t=1142
When AA was first released, I thought of it as Counter Strike 2 with all the cheats removed which is one of the reasons I stopped playing CS. But I discovered that AA was team orientated. If you can find your nitch on a squad, you can really dominate.
Some things that you missed that I think should be noted:
- you can shoot through doors now and bullets can ricochett and kill you
- TK (that is "team killing) is a huge no-no
- You will need to learn the Rules of Engagement (ROE) which have a negative effect on gaining honor.
- You get bonus honor for being squad and fire team leaders.
- You need to know your CEM (Combat Effectiveness Meter), the higher it is, the more accurate your shot is.
- To forgive ppl, when you are TKed accidently. Apologize when you TK someone.
- There's many different qualifications such as Airborne School, Sniper School, Mtn Range division, etc... by passing those schools, new maps open to you.
- The higher your honor the better your chances are of getting the weapon you requested.
- Game weapons (depending on map and team size): M16, Saw, m16 w/ 203 grenade launcher, regular sniper rifle,
Coming in AA 1.9, two new classes: Medic and Special Forces. I am looking forward to becoming a medic (although its not like a true medic, but a combat medic with a gun -- read americasarmy.com). Rumors are that you need to have a 35+ honor to be a medic and 50+ for Special Forces.
I've logged 70+ hours into this game, playing for a few days then stopping for a week or so (depending on work and life duties). So I feel qualifed to review the game.
overall for a free game, its pretty damn good. the FPS are quite good if you have a good video card. a gf3 is okay. i dont think my 600mhz iBook with its ATI 16mb video card could handle it, but maybe it will be okay as a dedicated server.
"hooah"
fps tweak
http://75thrangers.us/portal/modules.php?name=F
a quote from the post...
" Ok I was gettin like 23 fps on bridge SE, and i new
i could do better. I have a radeon 9200 128mb. So a
Dev told me that i could tweak the Cache size in the
armyops.ini file and it would help alot. The default
is 32. If you haev a 128 mb card set it to 128 mbs, 64
card =64 cache. I went from 23 fps to 60! "
i have an ati 9000 128 pro...i made the changes and it didnt seem to do much. i had my friend make changes to and he has a gf4 ti 4200 128 and he didnt notice any changes.
-- ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space!
Does this remind anyone else of the 80's movie The Last Starfighter where the goofy kid living in a California trailer park gets the high score on a video game and gets recruited by the "Star Leauge" to save the Earth or Universe or Star Leauge or something like that?
This really could become some next generation of recruitment.
I mean, think of the possibilities for NASCAR to recruit top scorers for Gran Turismo, or the National Football Leauge to recruit top scorers of Madden 2004. Heck, if you can wiggle your fingers fast you must be able to do the real thing too. I'd hate to get in a kick boxing competition with the high scorer of Dynasty Wariors 4. I bet that overweight 12 year old would use the old A-B-A-B-B on my ass and the next thing I know he'd be holding my beating heart in his hand!
All of a sudden I miss the 80's
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.