So, I worked on this. I built their in game support system (irc backed!), wrote a bunch of the web auth code, and accidentally once deleted the production user database from the secondary site (whew, disabled and re-replicated from primary).
It was a lot of fun and got me a trip to E3 back when it was the big thing.
It was an interesting concept because no matter what, you would play the american side and fight the terrorists. (you would look like a terrorist to the other team)
They parked a few vehicles outside the E3 convention center:
I recall they lowered guys out of a helicopter on ropes one year, too. It was hilarious to walk around the floor at E3 and see CoD or whatever guys in their fakey-looking booth bro costumes pass real army guys wearing real uniforms passing out enlistment info and ads for America’s Army. Why pay booth bros when you can just assign some soldiers you’re already paying?
Holy shit, I was there that year! I remember that!
Any idea what those pads they are parked on are made out of?
pad
(why does it look like carpeting?!)
I just want to say, your work on that game absolutely would’ve contributed to making my high-school years better. Me and my social group played this game constantly, spent tons of hours playing SF Refinery 😂 From the bottom of my heart, thank you so much!!
It was a legitimately good completely free multiplayer FPS game. I was into it for a while ages ago, and it was quite fun.
I genuinely doubt it actually inspired a remotely meaningful number of people to actually join the army, though.
It was actually pretty good. I remember having to pass an ingame training course to use the medic class. I still vaguely remember how to apply a tourniquet lol
That was such a pain in the ass, 10mins in I finally think to myself “wait, this is supposed to be fun, why am I watching class in a game?” dropped the game and nvr came back
I also remember playing the ingame training but not the actual game. I don’t remember intentionally quitting like you did, but I don’t think I finished it either.
Yeah the game was shockingly good for what it was
I recall playing the tutorial. Never went online. Dial up sucked. Interesting tidbit, if you shoot your drill instructor at the range you’re dropped into a prison cell at Fort Leavenworth. All you can do from that point is listen to somebody whistling and drag a tin cup across your cell bars.
Wait…can you quit to main menu?
Didn’t expect so much hate for this game… In terms of simulations, in 2002, the original game was light years ahead of its time. They did a lot of things right that it took the more popular mil sims years to get correct. I’d go as far as to argue it is one of the most realistic squad-based tactical shooters of all time.
It being that realistic made it a terrible choice for me.
So I did all of the medical training that had on there, which I did learn stuff from but also found out that I should never actually work in the medical field.
But because it didn’t easily identify friend from foe, I kept killing my own team. Not on purpose I was just really bad at identifying friend from foe and if I saw it moved I killed it.
Otherwise it was a solid game. All the issues I had with it were with me.
I’ll suggest that there hasn’t been anything like it. I’ve tried a couple that were supposed to be more realistic mil-sim and not just FPS run-‘n-gun, but they don’t hold a candle to AA.
Painfully realistic. To the point of not really being fun. Which I think was kind of the goal – they Army was trying to show the kiddies a little bit of what reality was like, while also trying to rope them in.
Closest comparison is probably ARMA 3, IMO
The special forces test was hard.
For the written test. there’s parts where you would be shown a helicopter for 100 milliseconds then have to remember the configuration, number of rotors, ordinance… Or you see a tank for a split second and have to correctly identify the barrel measurements and other little details.
The stealth mission was difficult too. I managed to be a medic and a ranger but not special forces.
The special forces test was nuts, was playing on a friend’s account at the time but it boiled down to just crawling through the lowest point along the entire path. Literally the entire mission you’re in a drainage or small creek just crawling and going stealth. I can’t remember if you eventually fight or do anything, I just remember the two hours of crawling on the ground to go undetected.
After I got the SF certification you could play this map called Hospital where you’re extracting a VIP while an insurgent team is trying to kill him. So much fucking fun. I loved this game. Yvan eht nioj
That’s when I stopped playing. I think I was an hour in before I got spotted and then wasn’t going to spend another 2 hours literally crawling.
There was a guy who saved someone in a car crash and he said he learned what to do medically in the moment from this game.
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Nawww it was way harder than that!! If you wanted to play as the medic class in a game online you had to do the offline training. The training made you sit through like a 45 minute long combat life saver class. No shit had to like walk into the classroom and sit near the projector and look down to answer questions lol
If you wanted to do the Special Forces maps (basically night mode maps) you had to pass this skull dragging class where you had to avoid being spotted and slowly move into an area. I remember trying for like 3 days just to pass that friggin class!
This was legit very popular for a while. It was even common in e-sports.
I heard on a podcast a long time ago that the Army considered it one of their most successful recruiting tools. Not because it brought in more recruits, but because fewer recruits dropped out, apparently because playing the game led to fewer surprises after joining.
Til
I played it for a while. It was ok for the time, when there weren’t many pseudorealistic tactical FPS games.
Oh man, was it version 2.1 or 2.4 that was the best? I think it was the one where urban assault was released. So many hrs playing until 3.0. There was a test to be able to play medic in the game. It taught basic first aid.
then they realized pouring money into actual game studios with more cost-effective
And that gamers didn’t want actual realism.
People were in an uproar over “indoctrination” by the game. If your child can be convinced to join the army by playing that game… maybe it’s for the best.
Ya, idk how this would recruit someone into infantry. I played it for a little bit and it was a getting shot simulator. Idk if I ever even saw someone on the other team.
Every game I play teaches me that I will immediately die in real life if anything bad ever happens.
Every FPS - shot dead immediately. No respawning.
Scary game - heart attack immediately.
Every sword game - maimed horrifically.
Zombie apocalypse - eaten immediately, and I’ll turn into a fat one that explodes later.
Shit, that game was fun to pass the time, but never once did it inspire me to enlist.
To be fair, it was a video game aimed at children to teach them how to be good soldiers during a time when the US was entering a deeply unpopular war under false pretenses.
Around the same time there were all sorts of lawsuits surrounding video games and their effects on children, so maybe it was a double whammy.
Regardless of any claims for or against violent video games, the Army shouldn’t be recruiting like that.
AA2 and AA3 were legitimately great games.
Had big vans parked on the UT Campus lawn paid for with Pentagon money, where you could play the game right next to a real live military recruiter.
I like to think about this while I’m looking at videos of Palestinian student protesters getting maced, tackled, and dragged away by campus security.
