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This article is about the computer game; for the United States Army see United States Army.
America's Army is a free multiplayer first-person shooter computer game released by the U.S. Army as an aid in recruiting and public relations. It is based on the Unreal Warfare/Unreal II game engine. Some debate has sparked surrounding the fact that the game is paid for by tax dollars.
The game is very much like Rainbow 6. Since it has a focus on realism, as opposed to unrealistic "arcade" style, it falls into the subgenre of tactical shooter.
Unlike many other games, realism dictates that your chance of hitting the target is greatly diminished when standing and near zero when walking. It is increased with being prone, and having some mode of gun support up, such as a bipod. Being with a team leader also increases accuracy.
Damage isn't taken well. You can only be hit by a few shots, before death. Wounds don't just lower your health percentage, they also cause bleeding until death, and lower accuracy.
Grenades in the game can kill easily, and can be "cooked", so the enemy has less time to run. If not killed by the initial explosion, you can be killed or injured by shrapnel. A nearby explosion in a grenade or flashbang can cause virtual loss of vision (caused by showing a white screen for the blindness duration), or hearing (by playing a ringing sound instead of the game's actual audio, or muffling the real audio). This greatly adds to the realism.
The second version of the game, America's Army: Special Forces was released November 6th, 2003. It is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, and Linux.
