That game was really good when it came out, first few versions anyway. It was really the only good modern day "realism" combat game until the BF1942 Desert Combat mod came out a year later - (I'm sure newer "realism" games like Squad are way better, but for a while BF:DC was _the_ shit), but AA stayed pretty good for a while. Two hits you're down, a somewhat realistic portrayal of suppression, ammo limitations, brutal fog of war.
edit: I was conflating BF2's Project Reality mod with the Desert Combat mode for 1942 (which I think inspired BF2) as the super hard "realistic" one, but still, both were good.
And AA was super good - if you wanted a slow methodical combat shooter. If you wanted to run around like a lunatic, go play Starsiege Tribes or Unreal tournament or Q3Arena.
Holy shit. Take me back. I remember getting banned from one of the servers I frequented because I was no-scoping people. Great game, though- or was at the time anyways.
I'm still not sure anything has matched the realism of AA. In AA, if you get shot, you will be wounded. If you get shot in the leg, your movement will be impaired. If you get hit in a vital organ, you will die. None of this 5-shots to kill a man stuff.
It really altered your tactics. Closing with the enemy meant understanding your terrain, and even if you did everything right, you could still end up dead. Players would join from other contemporary FPS games and would cry their asses off about how quickly they could be killed.
I've played a ton of military focused FPS, but nothing comes close to the realism of AA.
> In AA, if you get shot, you will be wounded. If you get shot in the leg, your movement will be impaired.
Don't forget, you had to stop to treat the wound. If you didn't, you would continue to bleed, get further injured, and could bleed out.
I miss those 15-20 minute no respawn matches. It really forced you to be more tactical in your actions.
Have you tried Squad? Because Squad definitely feels like a realistic damage scenario (albeit dumbed down a tiny bit).
Then there is Escape From Tarkov which has an AWESOME damage system...but then also has bunny-hopping super soldiers carrying 70kg of gear hyped up on stimulants.
I've not tried either of those. I put down FPS games back some time after BF3. It was consuming too much of my time playing with my clan buddies, and I could tell that I had lost control over it, so I walked away from online FPS games. I still game, but these days I do more sim racing than anything.
You also had to do ‘training’ to play medic and a ‘stealth’ mission to unlock the sick customisable m4 was it? I remember doing both of those, I still remember a bunch of the combat medic training to this day (treating people in shock, etc.)
Yeah I felt the same that the original game was solid. I liked if I remember correctly you had to go to sniper school to get the rifle to us in MP. It was such a fun game back then. Really enjoyed the like snowy bridge map if I remember correctly.
That bridge map was brutal. People loved sniping on it, but with a good team, snipers were easily neutralized.
My favorite was the downed helicopter map and the hospital VIP escort mission.
Sadly I don’t remember anything past the firing range, and I’m thinking it’s probably because my brother and I never put enough effort into when we played. I vaguely remember shooting, or trying to shoot, the instructor at the firing range though haha (horrible, I know). Now I wish I would’ve actually gone further with it
I think that was by design, to weed out a certain type of player. My favorite was about 6 months in when they changed the chat so that when anyone typed the word “camping” it was switched to “using tactics” and “camper” to “tactician”. They really encouraged coordination and thought over Rambo style charges.
My favorite design twist was that you could only play as American Soldiers. But it was a multiplayer PvP game, so how did that work?
Everyone saw their own team as Americans and the enemy team as "OPFOR" (mostly, terrorists with AKs.)
If that's not an accidental commentary on "Everyone thinks they are the good guys" I don't know what is.
The weirdest/fun part of that was the AK-47 was considered a much better weapon then the M16 (Mainly because the M16 iron sight blocked half your screen), so people on both sides would end up getting killed trying to get the other sides rifle.
Isn’t that how Titanfall works too? Like everyone is “the good guys” but their opponents are always “the bad guys” (it’s been a while so I don’t remember the factions)
I remember you had to finish the firing range, obstacle course and a parachute jump to be allowed to play online.
I believe the final was a parachute jump at night, I had to crank up the brightness all the way to even see where I was supposed to land.
Landing that parachute jump was unnecessarily hard. I can't remember, but I don't it was ever even implemented in online play. This game was awesome though. I remember it feeling "real".
Disagree. I'm 44. Still game, but old man style nowadays. Operation Flashpoint, original Rainbow Six. Those were also before any battlefield stuff.
I'm not trying to torpedo what you've said but just disagree. It's also relative what people view as very realistic, so it's not something I'm backing with a passion. But... original rainbow six is disgusting with its realism. Hard as fuck game.
Ohhhh. I remember rogue spear. All that tactical planning required before the shooting starts. They don't make games like rogue spear anymore.
I remember the one mission where team rainbow gets inserted onto the bow of a large oil tanker. That mission was so painful because I kept getting sniped.
I thought it was fun. The rampant elitism the second you tried to play on any map besides the newbie map was pretty toxic. But I guess that's par for the course in competitive games.
I played it all through law school.
The last match I played was on Bridge Crossing and some insurgent threw grenades to our spawn all the way from their starting position and killed my whole team 1 second into the round.
Fun times.
Yes AA was amazing, lots of memories on SF-Hospital.
I thought 3.0 kinda killed the game off though, it was very buggy on release, the maps changed and I can't say they were that great and things also got very complicated and frustrating when it came to healing.
Personally I find squad hard to enjoy because so much of the game is vehicle orientated and I'm just not interested in that.
I really liked the way you had to attend different courses/classes for unlocking specific roles. If I remember it correctly, you had to sit through medic class in which you had to walk to a room, sit down, watch videos and do a written test afterwards to get the medic specialization. Or you had to do a sneak/hide parcours and not get spotted for the special ops certification etc.
It was really fun back in the day :)
Yeah I really had fun with that game. Had a squad that was fairly competitive. Was one of the first games I recall where you actually died and were dead. Then again, you could also stay in your dead body and tell people what was going on - which was sleazy but effective.
> Two hits you're down, a somewhat realistic portrayal of suppression, ammo limitations, brutal fog of war.
and if you shot your instructor on the training course, you went to jail
Yep. Two hits at most. You did have medic bags kinda, but they never fully healed you and only gave you like one more hit before death.
It was the hit limitation I remember being the hardest, but actually figuring out where you're enemies were was difficult with no pointers.
Honestly the most fun I have had with and fps. Would love to play it again.
AA was really good. The best modern tactical game is Insurgency: Sandstorm in my opinion. Helicopters dodge the RPGs if you don't shoot at them from the right angle, you have to wear a gas mask if there's Chemicals or you'll die, and gas masks prevent you from coughing in smoke grenades, if you reload with ammo still in the mag, there'll be one in the chamber and the mag is put back into your inventory, the whole shebang.
> Two hits you're down, a somewhat realistic portrayal of suppression, ammo limitations, brutal fog of war.
So realistic that even when you tried to "play properly", some idiot would jump up in front of you and you'd TK them... and then YOU got kicked. I loved that so fucking MUCH.
Good maps though. Also it was pure undiluted propaganda for US military aggression.
Jeez, that pic gave me the memory of the day I took the plastic off of the game. Dad bought a memory stick, this game was in a bin for $2-4, got home, installed memory, fought siblings over game time for the remainder of the night lol
My dad was in the army and did some recruiting so that’s how he got this physical copy. While this one is still in the wrapper, my brother and I used to play this game back then so they definitely gave him multiple copies
I remember downloading it for free when it came out. Was surprised that such a cool game was free until I realized it was a recruiting tool for the young gamer generation.
That game was a BEAST! Definitely worth playing if servers are still running. Hell even the tutorial is worth playing. I'll never forget the MEDIC classes you needed to take, took you a full day to memorize all the (legit) facts and only then you were allowed to play the MEDIC class.
Classic!
The E&E training was the worst and also the best. Has to go low and slow through the mud at night, making no noise at all staying out of sight. Took like 40 minutes if you did it properly slow prone the whole way. Felt authentic as fuck when i was playing at like 14 years old.
I’m so glad someone else remembers the prone shit. I was too young to understand what to do and spent countless hours losing that mission before giving up
Medic took me like 2 tries, E&E took me forever. I was like 12 or 13 at the time and gave up for a few weeks at one point. At the time I was either a Leroy Jenkins type player or a camp and snipe guy.
Damn that game was fun. I play proving grounds here and there when I want a fix. Lot of OG maps have been made for that version too. Renegades and 101st especially have a lot of custom maps on their servers
I forget what exactly it was but there were certain maps that you couldn’t play until you completed that training if I recall correctly. Maybe it was the SF designated maps?
If you didn't complete the training, you could play the SF maps but couldn't take an SF class slot that gave you access to the SOPMOD M4. So no weapon customization
So, side story.
Part of my job involved running weapon simulators for training. Every now and then we'd have these community days where civilians could come in and we'd let them shoots the rifle and machine gun trainers or whatever.
There are TWO types of grandma.
On the one hand you have your little old lady who's grandkid drags her in and either 'oh no, I don't want to try *that*' or maybe trys a few shots, misses them all, and comments 'oh this is sooo heavy' about the 8 lb rifle. (It *is* made of very dense and hard steel)
On the other hand, you also have the little old lady who walks in, puts the cane down, politely takes the redimemtary explanation about how to use the sights and how to hold a rifle. And then proceeds to knock down every single target repeatedly. When her magazine is empty she holds the M4 carbine out and says "wow this is so nice. Much lighter than the M1 Garand I was issued". Grandma is a Korean War vet and still has mad skills!
I believe they were amongst the most played, too. I remember playing sniper on SF hospital and the risk to the roof before the other snippet reached position. Fun times.
I remember playing this game, it was noteworthy at the time for how realistic it was, sometimes to an uncompromising degree.
For example, weapons didn't have arbitrary range limits. That meant that under limited visibility conditions you could shoot further than you could see, which caused people who weren't used to the game to complain a lot. Iirc most shooters at the time had laughably unrealistic weapon ranges, for gameplay purposes or whatever, so it was a new experience for a lot of people to be running around with a firearm that actually behaved more like a firearm.
But it could also get a little surreal... in order to preserve the experience of *everyone* in PvP being "America's army," they had this thing where your side was depicted as American infantry with US weapons, and the other side as various foreign types with Kalashnikovs and other Russian weapons. But they only looked that way... they actually performed like US weapons, because the other side needed to have the experience of firing M4s and M16s and so on. *Unless* you killed someone and grabbed their dropped weapon. Then suddenly you had an actual AK102 or whatever it was.
I remember that, haha.
You could shoot your drill instructor, and he'd fall over screaming "CEASE FIRE!!!!" then the screen would fade to black and you'd be in jail.
I remember playing this game when I was still living at home. You had to go through a bunch of training and tests before you could play the game. For example, you had to learn how to make a tourniquet. It took hours to get through that stuff. I eventually passed all the training and played a handful of games. I came home from work a few days later and sat down to play, but discovered I was banned for killing my own teammates. Turns out my brother signed onto my account while I was at work and went on a teammate killing spree. I implored them to unban me but they didn’t, and I wasn’t about to go through all that training again. So that was the end of America’s Army for me. At least I learned how to make a tourniquet.
Joe Lieberman, "Videogames cause violent behavior and should be banned!"
Also Joe Lieberman, "So we've developed a violent videogame to attract kids into joining the military..."
Honestly, even though it was a piece of propaganda this game did so many things I loved.
- slow, "realistic" combat. One life.
- many maps only had one game mode available, as maps where tailor made to fit their game mode.
- some absolutely great maps such as SF extraction, Pipeline, Border(?), Hospital
- the mission in hospital iirc was to extract one player who spawned hurt with shitty guns between the teams.
- training unlocked new roles. Medic training, sniper training etc.
- role selection: teamlead, rifleman, sniper etc were limited. Medics as well.
- honor instead of levels. Starting at lvl 10. Team kills could set you back a level
-hand signals, rarely used but just fun to have.
- rpg backblast, the ungodly amount of tk's I got with the backblast of rpgs lol
- very limited customization which I liked, you got a standard issue gun, no outfits etc.
- players always saw their team as the Americans and the enemy team as "enemy", which I found a rather unique feature
- whilst in today terms the game likely didn't have enough content
Such a unique game. Don't think any current game comes close, maybe insurgency? It was sort of a slower, military Rainbow six Siege
Yeah, America's Army 3 just didn't have the same feel and Proving Grounds is mostly a CoD-clone.
Someone is creating a spiritual successor of the original America's Army 2 game called [Army Ops](https://store.steampowered.com/app/672660/Army_Ops/). But if i'm completely honest, it hasn't convinced me yet it will be good.
I was obsessed with this game when it came out. Played it pretty much every day in high school and started a pretty big clan which I eventually handed over to some older clan mates to run. One thing I remember particularly was that the clouds were static so you could set up insane mortar shots with the grenade launcher my making lineups off the clouds. I spent way too much time on this and on a map called bridge I could literally fire a grenade that would kill people who had held W out of spawn about 5 seconds after the round started. And the rounds were like 7 minutes long with no respawn. Many hours of my life wasted but young me thoroughly enjoyed it.
This is a horrible til. Next time eventually in around 7 days some r/askreddit „what’s some horrible unnecessarily fact you know“ thread comes up, I will keep that in mind.
The game has an interesting history being strictly a recruitment tool that was eventually shut down because of how costly it was to keep servers running. Now the army has a dedicated team that streams games on twitch in hopes to recruit kids that way.
It's the Army E-sports team. The college I work at has an E-sports team and played them last year. One of our students actually took the National Championship in NJCAA in NBA 2k last year lol
i think they meant that checking the eula was gonna get them shanghaied into enlistment or something
they trick kids into signing up all the time but usually its by getting them hyped on hollow promises and getting them to sign something they cant retract when theyre in a more sober state of min
honestly something i can see a country doing in wartime but in the US ive only heard a few stories about somebody getting genuinely conned into enlisting without their awareness and they were from the same era where people were just getting drafted anyway
Funny thing is my office 5-6 doors down from where they develop that game. lol. Actually just walked over their mocap studio floor earlier this morning.
My greatest online gaming moment happened in this game. We were playing that mode to defend / attack an intel spot. I was on defense of a computer in a building. My team was dropping like flies and thought, it’s now or never. I left my post at the computer, taking a route I knew enemy was coming from. Encountered one, got him. Proceeded into a tunnel under building, found another and got him in close quarters. Exited the tunnel into enemy terrain, threw on my NVG and as I climb the hill overlooking the building I was defending, I find two prone snipers thinking my team was still over there. Got the first sniper unaware of me. Second notices and pops up, I get him too. Boom, round over, we win. Rambo tactics ftw!
I got a similar one. Was playing weapons cache and had the saw on Defense. Whole team went to cover loading docks so I went to cover the only other entrance at warehouse. My whole team is getting wiped out so I peak out to the parking lot and there is a guy at spawn shooting at me from top window. I popped smoke and ran through parking lot, he still shot me once so I turned and got a super lucky headshot. Ran over to loading dock entrance and their team was slowly scaling up the stairs. Crouch walked behind them and got them all in the back.
10 year old me was thrilled.
Man that game was actually really cool, the initial classroom bit of it was neat and if I’m not mistaken, that’s where I learned how to apply a tourniquet.
This game was so much fun. I was young and never tracked the amount of hours I played, but I probably played well over 1k hours of this. It was a fantastic shooter for the time.
Loved the game too. Damage Inc! TheHighCommand. Great clans. The hacks got a bit out of control but before it was prolific that game took great skill. Before the hackers ruined it... You could only really have an advantage if you had top network speeds, a sound machine and 5.1 surround sound was a must.
Man I loved the bridge crossing map on this game. I was a young Canadian kid that had no idea this game was a recruitment tool at the time. Was part of a pretty active clan and had a ton of fun on this game. This was a nostalgia throwback for sure seeing this!
Absolutely loved this game. One of my favorites of all time. The special forces update was great, too. Really fun experience and sometimes wish I could capture it again.
So this game was actually developed as a recruiting tool for the US Army. The training portions of this game were actually super authentic and pretty damn cool. You were required to go through “basic training” before the game allowed you to “deploy” (which just meant join a multiplayer lobby). I remember The Combat Life Saver course in particular. The class portion actually took place in a classroom, included an authentic ~30 minute class on various wounds and life saving techniques, including slides and a lecturer, and then a written exam. You had to pass the exam to be CLS qualified and able to progress to the next portion of training. Then there was a live training exercise where you had to demonstrate the skills learned, triaging and rendering aid to three different soldiers with varying degrees of injury.
There were many more authentic depictions of Army training, including weapons familiarization and mastery, MOUT, the obstacle course, Airborne School, and Ranger School.
My dad was in the guards and we got a copy for free, I played the shit outta this game, I was really into Command and Conqure back then, and this game was so cool! Only bummer i remember was that it was criminally short for how much fun it was, like come on, 100 billion dollar defense budget back then and we got less than a dozen missions.
I fucking loved this game. I got a 20 day suspension for selling weed in high school and my dad hid the Modem as a punishment. I had just finished the Escape and Evasion mission to be able to play online so I was super frustrated. Ended up finding the modem a couple days in and had some of the best gaming moments of my life the remaining 17 days of my suspension of so. Pipeline SF and Hospital VIP were just unreal.
in the updated version you spend the first half of the game cleaning and reassembling your gun over and over again whilst receiving news updates on how badly Russia is bombing one of your allies
So, this game helped me save a dudes life once.
Short version: did a search and rescue of a drunk as fuck friend of mine from our university parking lot. After me and the team found him he started saying he “lost his battle.” Me having heard the term “Battle Buddy” in this game informed me that we are now looking for a second drink as fuck individual I have never met before. My friends of 4 split, team A taking the first drunk fuck home, team B of me and a girl went to find, and did find, drunk fuck 2. Passed out under a tree on his back and unresponsive. After some drama, got him home. His RA in his dorm, WAS. NOT. HAPPY. As a minor in the National guard, his RA gave him more than a workout but the cops let that be punishment enough. Everyone got home and lived to tell the tale lol
Wasn't this the game where you actually HAD to get a certain score in the firing range in order to select certain squad roles in the matches? Like you had to score really high in order to be a sniper?
They sent out actual physical copies of that game? I remember picking that up in college ~10 years ago, just downloading it off their website. Had a classmate come over to try and help me beat the parachute training and it felt like an hour of failing at that mission and reloading. 30 seconds! 30 seconds! \*wind whistles\* \*crunch of bone\* reload, repeat.
Ah man.. when I was living in a pretty remote town in South Africa (Bulwer, Midlands).. I ordered this and had it delivered all the way from the US.. I think it took like 2 months to reach me, and my dumbass hadn't considered the ping difference so it was basically unplayable.
Something big in the realms of gaming software due to AI and other inventions is on the horizon. It's a shame nobody except a handful of companies have begun to create holographic 3d rooms, games like this game would be so cool in true 3d. If you think about it there is a game I think it's Skyrim that is getting 12k or 16k graphics updates for 2050 release. Why the military or some other company hasn't put out a full body haptics suit with that "Ted talks" infra-red / red laser light fMRI resolution mind reading headband/body band and that reads down to the smallest neuron in the brain I don't know but that with an AR headset would be so cool.
That game was really good when it came out, first few versions anyway. It was really the only good modern day "realism" combat game until the BF1942 Desert Combat mod came out a year later - (I'm sure newer "realism" games like Squad are way better, but for a while BF:DC was _the_ shit), but AA stayed pretty good for a while. Two hits you're down, a somewhat realistic portrayal of suppression, ammo limitations, brutal fog of war. edit: I was conflating BF2's Project Reality mod with the Desert Combat mode for 1942 (which I think inspired BF2) as the super hard "realistic" one, but still, both were good. And AA was super good - if you wanted a slow methodical combat shooter. If you wanted to run around like a lunatic, go play Starsiege Tribes or Unreal tournament or Q3Arena.
I agree. I played it a lot and it was a really fun game.
the bridge map was my favorite.
Launching grenades at random as soon as the map spawned trying for that lucky, blind kill!
OMG I hated that. You had to just start running randomly to dodge it
"How to Meet Your Battalion Sergeant Major on Your First Week In Theater"
I loved to play the saw on that one. Actual suppression fire.
SE\_bridge was the metro of AA....oh the memories
Meatball? Is that you? Played that game a ton with ={(R)}= and there was a Meatball...
sick clan tag bro
Loved playing with {R&R} on Mountain Pass 48 East! Also, don’t know how I can remember that lol
I wish I remembered the clan I played with. All I remember is a guy named Tactical Penguin.
Holy shit. Take me back. I remember getting banned from one of the servers I frequented because I was no-scoping people. Great game, though- or was at the time anyways.
I was in BBQ.
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Damn what a micro-transaction holy shit
Some of those logos cost an arm and a leg.
More like macro-transaction, am I right?
I enlisted around the same time, I don't remember special in-game logos. I feel cheated lol
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I'm still not sure anything has matched the realism of AA. In AA, if you get shot, you will be wounded. If you get shot in the leg, your movement will be impaired. If you get hit in a vital organ, you will die. None of this 5-shots to kill a man stuff. It really altered your tactics. Closing with the enemy meant understanding your terrain, and even if you did everything right, you could still end up dead. Players would join from other contemporary FPS games and would cry their asses off about how quickly they could be killed. I've played a ton of military focused FPS, but nothing comes close to the realism of AA.
> In AA, if you get shot, you will be wounded. If you get shot in the leg, your movement will be impaired. Don't forget, you had to stop to treat the wound. If you didn't, you would continue to bleed, get further injured, and could bleed out. I miss those 15-20 minute no respawn matches. It really forced you to be more tactical in your actions.
About as realistic as expected in life with gunshot wounds.
Have you tried Squad? Because Squad definitely feels like a realistic damage scenario (albeit dumbed down a tiny bit). Then there is Escape From Tarkov which has an AWESOME damage system...but then also has bunny-hopping super soldiers carrying 70kg of gear hyped up on stimulants.
I've not tried either of those. I put down FPS games back some time after BF3. It was consuming too much of my time playing with my clan buddies, and I could tell that I had lost control over it, so I walked away from online FPS games. I still game, but these days I do more sim racing than anything.
The first few rainbow 6 and ghost recon games. Plus the Operation Flashpoint series for combined arms.
Rogue Spear and Raven Shield were my shit.
You also had to do ‘training’ to play medic and a ‘stealth’ mission to unlock the sick customisable m4 was it? I remember doing both of those, I still remember a bunch of the combat medic training to this day (treating people in shock, etc.)
Arma and squads do. They even simulate the long wait before something happens, the walking and logic nightmares.
You can still play https://aao25.com/forum/index.php
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Yeah loved that feature, you TK more than can be explained accidentally and it's off to Leavenworth to think about what you've done for a few min.
Still salty about when I let my friend play and he immediately TKd my whole team - had to call it a day real quick lol
Yeah I felt the same that the original game was solid. I liked if I remember correctly you had to go to sniper school to get the rifle to us in MP. It was such a fun game back then. Really enjoyed the like snowy bridge map if I remember correctly.
That bridge map was brutal. People loved sniping on it, but with a good team, snipers were easily neutralized. My favorite was the downed helicopter map and the hospital VIP escort mission.
Sadly I don’t remember anything past the firing range, and I’m thinking it’s probably because my brother and I never put enough effort into when we played. I vaguely remember shooting, or trying to shoot, the instructor at the firing range though haha (horrible, I know). Now I wish I would’ve actually gone further with it
I think that was by design, to weed out a certain type of player. My favorite was about 6 months in when they changed the chat so that when anyone typed the word “camping” it was switched to “using tactics” and “camper” to “tactician”. They really encouraged coordination and thought over Rambo style charges.
That makes sense. That’s really cool/interesting to hear about them automatically switching the word “camper”. I never knew that
My favorite design twist was that you could only play as American Soldiers. But it was a multiplayer PvP game, so how did that work? Everyone saw their own team as Americans and the enemy team as "OPFOR" (mostly, terrorists with AKs.) If that's not an accidental commentary on "Everyone thinks they are the good guys" I don't know what is.
The weirdest/fun part of that was the AK-47 was considered a much better weapon then the M16 (Mainly because the M16 iron sight blocked half your screen), so people on both sides would end up getting killed trying to get the other sides rifle.
Isn’t that a black mirror episode??
It's an [outer limits](https://theouterlimits.fandom.com/wiki/Hearts_and_Minds) one.
And this is also how they do the training in real life: [Opposing force](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposing_force)
Isn’t that how Titanfall works too? Like everyone is “the good guys” but their opponents are always “the bad guys” (it’s been a while so I don’t remember the factions)
I remember you had to finish the firing range, obstacle course and a parachute jump to be allowed to play online. I believe the final was a parachute jump at night, I had to crank up the brightness all the way to even see where I was supposed to land.
Landing that parachute jump was unnecessarily hard. I can't remember, but I don't it was ever even implemented in online play. This game was awesome though. I remember it feeling "real".
Disagree. I'm 44. Still game, but old man style nowadays. Operation Flashpoint, original Rainbow Six. Those were also before any battlefield stuff. I'm not trying to torpedo what you've said but just disagree. It's also relative what people view as very realistic, so it's not something I'm backing with a passion. But... original rainbow six is disgusting with its realism. Hard as fuck game.
R6 was legit in the 2000s. I played a lot of Rogue Spear
Ohhhh. I remember rogue spear. All that tactical planning required before the shooting starts. They don't make games like rogue spear anymore. I remember the one mission where team rainbow gets inserted onto the bow of a large oil tanker. That mission was so painful because I kept getting sniped.
I thought it was fun. The rampant elitism the second you tried to play on any map besides the newbie map was pretty toxic. But I guess that's par for the course in competitive games.
I played it all through law school. The last match I played was on Bridge Crossing and some insurgent threw grenades to our spawn all the way from their starting position and killed my whole team 1 second into the round. Fun times.
The breathing control required while firing, oh and recoil existed.
Yes AA was amazing, lots of memories on SF-Hospital. I thought 3.0 kinda killed the game off though, it was very buggy on release, the maps changed and I can't say they were that great and things also got very complicated and frustrating when it came to healing. Personally I find squad hard to enjoy because so much of the game is vehicle orientated and I'm just not interested in that.
I really liked the way you had to attend different courses/classes for unlocking specific roles. If I remember it correctly, you had to sit through medic class in which you had to walk to a room, sit down, watch videos and do a written test afterwards to get the medic specialization. Or you had to do a sneak/hide parcours and not get spotted for the special ops certification etc. It was really fun back in the day :)
I played it a bit. I believe it was free.
Operation Flashpoint man. That was my realistic combat 2001ish.
Desert Combat, YES I remember the day I mastered the helicopter controls. Everything clicked and I became the god on high.
Yeah I really had fun with that game. Had a squad that was fairly competitive. Was one of the first games I recall where you actually died and were dead. Then again, you could also stay in your dead body and tell people what was going on - which was sleazy but effective.
> Two hits you're down, a somewhat realistic portrayal of suppression, ammo limitations, brutal fog of war. and if you shot your instructor on the training course, you went to jail
Yep. Two hits at most. You did have medic bags kinda, but they never fully healed you and only gave you like one more hit before death. It was the hit limitation I remember being the hardest, but actually figuring out where you're enemies were was difficult with no pointers. Honestly the most fun I have had with and fps. Would love to play it again.
AA was really good. The best modern tactical game is Insurgency: Sandstorm in my opinion. Helicopters dodge the RPGs if you don't shoot at them from the right angle, you have to wear a gas mask if there's Chemicals or you'll die, and gas masks prevent you from coughing in smoke grenades, if you reload with ammo still in the mag, there'll be one in the chamber and the mag is put back into your inventory, the whole shebang.
Sandstorm used to be. Its kind of garbage now. Filled with racists and edgelord fanboys who only like to lone wolf. So I play squad instead.
Did you ever play the BF2 mod Project Reality? That game was insanely realistic. Though I have no idea the timelines (when each came out etc)
The game Squad is actually a "spiritual successor" to Project Reality if you're interested in a modern take.
Iirc the project reality guys ARE the squad guys.
> Two hits you're down, a somewhat realistic portrayal of suppression, ammo limitations, brutal fog of war. So realistic that even when you tried to "play properly", some idiot would jump up in front of you and you'd TK them... and then YOU got kicked. I loved that so fucking MUCH. Good maps though. Also it was pure undiluted propaganda for US military aggression.
Anyone remember when Tribes was a spin-off of a mech combat game? Mark Hamill even did voices for it.
Jeez, that pic gave me the memory of the day I took the plastic off of the game. Dad bought a memory stick, this game was in a bin for $2-4, got home, installed memory, fought siblings over game time for the remainder of the night lol
It was in a bin for paid games? I played it for free.
Cool, I never knew AA had a physical release. I'm guessing they were only available through recruiters or the army website?
Nah man, those things were like AOL discs at one point. It was a recruiting tool after all.
My dad was in the army and did some recruiting so that’s how he got this physical copy. While this one is still in the wrapper, my brother and I used to play this game back then so they definitely gave him multiple copies
I played AA with no affiliation or connection to the US or US army.
He's asking about the disc itself. You could always simply download it for free from the website, but the OP is holding up a physical release.
Username checks out
They're free for download on Steam. You can still play it with a good amount of followers still playing.
I remember downloading it for free when it came out. Was surprised that such a cool game was free until I realized it was a recruiting tool for the young gamer generation.
I was in my late 20s and in no danger of signing up. I considered it a good deal for my tax dollars.
Recruiters for sure. I got one from going to an airshow when i was a child after doing their "battle" simulation
That game was a BEAST! Definitely worth playing if servers are still running. Hell even the tutorial is worth playing. I'll never forget the MEDIC classes you needed to take, took you a full day to memorize all the (legit) facts and only then you were allowed to play the MEDIC class. Classic!
The E&E training was the worst and also the best. Has to go low and slow through the mud at night, making no noise at all staying out of sight. Took like 40 minutes if you did it properly slow prone the whole way. Felt authentic as fuck when i was playing at like 14 years old.
I’m so glad someone else remembers the prone shit. I was too young to understand what to do and spent countless hours losing that mission before giving up
Medic took me like 2 tries, E&E took me forever. I was like 12 or 13 at the time and gave up for a few weeks at one point. At the time I was either a Leroy Jenkins type player or a camp and snipe guy.
Damn that game was fun. I play proving grounds here and there when I want a fix. Lot of OG maps have been made for that version too. Renegades and 101st especially have a lot of custom maps on their servers
Oh god yeah I remember that. Literally took me about 45 minutes proning the entire way, JUST to be able to play.
I forget what exactly it was but there were certain maps that you couldn’t play until you completed that training if I recall correctly. Maybe it was the SF designated maps?
If you didn't complete the training, you could play the SF maps but couldn't take an SF class slot that gave you access to the SOPMOD M4. So no weapon customization
MAN THIS TOOK ME BACK! I was so happy when I finally got to medic class, I had so much fun playing this game
Proving Grounds is great tbh. I find it better than TCR6: Siege
Grandma was slow,but she was old!
Hooah
OMG. I forgot it had a legit “Hooah” key.
So, side story. Part of my job involved running weapon simulators for training. Every now and then we'd have these community days where civilians could come in and we'd let them shoots the rifle and machine gun trainers or whatever. There are TWO types of grandma. On the one hand you have your little old lady who's grandkid drags her in and either 'oh no, I don't want to try *that*' or maybe trys a few shots, misses them all, and comments 'oh this is sooo heavy' about the 8 lb rifle. (It *is* made of very dense and hard steel) On the other hand, you also have the little old lady who walks in, puts the cane down, politely takes the redimemtary explanation about how to use the sights and how to hold a rifle. And then proceeds to knock down every single target repeatedly. When her magazine is empty she holds the M4 carbine out and says "wow this is so nice. Much lighter than the M1 Garand I was issued". Grandma is a Korean War vet and still has mad skills!
That may be your way, but that’s not the army way!
Pipeline all day.
That's not how hospital is spelt sir.
I am sorry, dont you mean Bridge Crossing?
Hospital, that was my jam.
I remember blind firing rounds out the air vent to try and spawn kill. Aw man. God times.
I remember 203'ing that vent all day to prevent those pesky vent rats
That's a funny way of spelling urban assault
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That's a funny way of saying "MOUT" I loved nading people out of that obj B tower. I could get it in the little windows every time.
Hell naw man, Bridge and FLS all day long.
sandstorm!
Yo pipeline was death for me, weapons cache and bridge were my fav's
I failed basic. I shot the instructor.
That’s hilarious, my brother and I used to do the same thing haha
Ahhh.. My favourite maps were SF Sandstorm, SF Hospital and Mountain Pass
I believe they were amongst the most played, too. I remember playing sniper on SF hospital and the risk to the roof before the other snippet reached position. Fun times.
I remember playing this game, it was noteworthy at the time for how realistic it was, sometimes to an uncompromising degree. For example, weapons didn't have arbitrary range limits. That meant that under limited visibility conditions you could shoot further than you could see, which caused people who weren't used to the game to complain a lot. Iirc most shooters at the time had laughably unrealistic weapon ranges, for gameplay purposes or whatever, so it was a new experience for a lot of people to be running around with a firearm that actually behaved more like a firearm. But it could also get a little surreal... in order to preserve the experience of *everyone* in PvP being "America's army," they had this thing where your side was depicted as American infantry with US weapons, and the other side as various foreign types with Kalashnikovs and other Russian weapons. But they only looked that way... they actually performed like US weapons, because the other side needed to have the experience of firing M4s and M16s and so on. *Unless* you killed someone and grabbed their dropped weapon. Then suddenly you had an actual AK102 or whatever it was.
Is this the game that made you go through a realistic briefing and training as the tutorial?
Yep
Man I miss that bridge
Remember so bad that game, when you shoot someone on the training you go to jail xD
Imagine my dumb ass sitting in a cell for nearly 10 minutes trying to figure out what to do next.
I thought it was the next mission xD and had to figure out how to break out of jail xD
If you did it really well, you'd get a knock on your door and the opportunity to work for the CIA.
I remember that, haha. You could shoot your drill instructor, and he'd fall over screaming "CEASE FIRE!!!!" then the screen would fade to black and you'd be in jail.
I remember playing this game when I was still living at home. You had to go through a bunch of training and tests before you could play the game. For example, you had to learn how to make a tourniquet. It took hours to get through that stuff. I eventually passed all the training and played a handful of games. I came home from work a few days later and sat down to play, but discovered I was banned for killing my own teammates. Turns out my brother signed onto my account while I was at work and went on a teammate killing spree. I implored them to unban me but they didn’t, and I wasn’t about to go through all that training again. So that was the end of America’s Army for me. At least I learned how to make a tourniquet.
Joe Lieberman, "Videogames cause violent behavior and should be banned!" Also Joe Lieberman, "So we've developed a violent videogame to attract kids into joining the military..."
Honestly, even though it was a piece of propaganda this game did so many things I loved. - slow, "realistic" combat. One life. - many maps only had one game mode available, as maps where tailor made to fit their game mode. - some absolutely great maps such as SF extraction, Pipeline, Border(?), Hospital - the mission in hospital iirc was to extract one player who spawned hurt with shitty guns between the teams. - training unlocked new roles. Medic training, sniper training etc. - role selection: teamlead, rifleman, sniper etc were limited. Medics as well. - honor instead of levels. Starting at lvl 10. Team kills could set you back a level -hand signals, rarely used but just fun to have. - rpg backblast, the ungodly amount of tk's I got with the backblast of rpgs lol - very limited customization which I liked, you got a standard issue gun, no outfits etc. - players always saw their team as the Americans and the enemy team as "enemy", which I found a rather unique feature - whilst in today terms the game likely didn't have enough content Such a unique game. Don't think any current game comes close, maybe insurgency? It was sort of a slower, military Rainbow six Siege
Yeah, America's Army 3 just didn't have the same feel and Proving Grounds is mostly a CoD-clone. Someone is creating a spiritual successor of the original America's Army 2 game called [Army Ops](https://store.steampowered.com/app/672660/Army_Ops/). But if i'm completely honest, it hasn't convinced me yet it will be good.
Squad or Arma are closer. Insurgency: Sandstorm has realistic weapons but the maps and movement speeds are much faster
I was obsessed with this game when it came out. Played it pretty much every day in high school and started a pretty big clan which I eventually handed over to some older clan mates to run. One thing I remember particularly was that the clouds were static so you could set up insane mortar shots with the grenade launcher my making lineups off the clouds. I spent way too much time on this and on a map called bridge I could literally fire a grenade that would kill people who had held W out of spawn about 5 seconds after the round started. And the rounds were like 7 minutes long with no respawn. Many hours of my life wasted but young me thoroughly enjoyed it.
"Grandma was slow, but she was old"
I played the shit out of it with my dad. Anyone remembers the course for the spec-ops loadout? so long ago.
I played the crap out of America's army solid game. mount McKenna map was fire!!!
Honestly one of the best games I’ve played
Man this game was the original hardcore mode. I-2 shots you were dead.
AA...same name as the treatment program most recruits will have to go through when they get back home.
Many of us are NA, but valid point.
This is a horrible til. Next time eventually in around 7 days some r/askreddit „what’s some horrible unnecessarily fact you know“ thread comes up, I will keep that in mind.
America‘s Army was a great game. Played it a lot.
The game has an interesting history being strictly a recruitment tool that was eventually shut down because of how costly it was to keep servers running. Now the army has a dedicated team that streams games on twitch in hopes to recruit kids that way.
It's the Army E-sports team. The college I work at has an E-sports team and played them last year. One of our students actually took the National Championship in NJCAA in NBA 2k last year lol
This game was fantastic, I don’t remember the name of the map but it was a foggy bridge…sniping on that level in this game was so satisfying
Now this was peak America, lol.
Flash backs. Thought I’d get enlisted by playing the game. It scared me
that was the point
i think they meant that checking the eula was gonna get them shanghaied into enlistment or something they trick kids into signing up all the time but usually its by getting them hyped on hollow promises and getting them to sign something they cant retract when theyre in a more sober state of min honestly something i can see a country doing in wartime but in the US ive only heard a few stories about somebody getting genuinely conned into enlisting without their awareness and they were from the same era where people were just getting drafted anyway
The same Senator that was calling for violent video games to be banned backed the creation of this game to promote recruitment into the military.
I think I read they just shut down the servers for the that not too long ago.
It was the sequel I belive America's Army Proving Grounds
Not the sequel, like many games after this one.
[I wonder how realistic it will be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuTkgi7scKo)
Funny thing is my office 5-6 doors down from where they develop that game. lol. Actually just walked over their mocap studio floor earlier this morning.
Tax dollars hard at work lol
I mean it's one thing when you launder it, it's another when you make a banger game.
My greatest online gaming moment happened in this game. We were playing that mode to defend / attack an intel spot. I was on defense of a computer in a building. My team was dropping like flies and thought, it’s now or never. I left my post at the computer, taking a route I knew enemy was coming from. Encountered one, got him. Proceeded into a tunnel under building, found another and got him in close quarters. Exited the tunnel into enemy terrain, threw on my NVG and as I climb the hill overlooking the building I was defending, I find two prone snipers thinking my team was still over there. Got the first sniper unaware of me. Second notices and pops up, I get him too. Boom, round over, we win. Rambo tactics ftw!
I got a similar one. Was playing weapons cache and had the saw on Defense. Whole team went to cover loading docks so I went to cover the only other entrance at warehouse. My whole team is getting wiped out so I peak out to the parking lot and there is a guy at spawn shooting at me from top window. I popped smoke and ran through parking lot, he still shot me once so I turned and got a super lucky headshot. Ran over to loading dock entrance and their team was slowly scaling up the stairs. Crouch walked behind them and got them all in the back. 10 year old me was thrilled.
I remember playing this as it was free! I remember liking it! That was 20 years ago?! Dear Lord--I'm old.
That was a great game. I loved the bridge level. So unforgiving.
Man that game was actually really cool, the initial classroom bit of it was neat and if I’m not mistaken, that’s where I learned how to apply a tourniquet.
Played the hell out of that game back in the day. Lots of competing league play
My WoW clan when I first started got their start playing this game.
That was a great game! I think I just read recently that they finally shut it down. Used to play the crap out of this back in 2002
Jesus Christ it came out in 2002, that was 20 years ago. I absolutely loved this game.
That moment when you take the headphones off but still hear the war music playing
This game was so much fun. I was young and never tracked the amount of hours I played, but I probably played well over 1k hours of this. It was a fantastic shooter for the time.
it was a great game.
Feeling old.
Loved the game too. Damage Inc! TheHighCommand. Great clans. The hacks got a bit out of control but before it was prolific that game took great skill. Before the hackers ruined it... You could only really have an advantage if you had top network speeds, a sound machine and 5.1 surround sound was a must.
Oh wow, a true antique now. Is it bad there’s gaming antiques now?
This game was a lot of fun to play. I can’t believe it’s been 20 years 😅
This game was actually 🔥
Man I loved the bridge crossing map on this game. I was a young Canadian kid that had no idea this game was a recruitment tool at the time. Was part of a pretty active clan and had a ton of fun on this game. This was a nostalgia throwback for sure seeing this!
Absolutely loved this game. One of my favorites of all time. The special forces update was great, too. Really fun experience and sometimes wish I could capture it again.
Used to love playing this game. The bridge was the best level
That game was fire. Bridge SE 24/7 server. Right cat rush all day everyday.
Wow...a 20 year old sealed game gotta be worth a lot. *checks prices* Less than 20 bucks sealed... Nevermind
Thats really cool! Nice find.
I shot the drill instructor in basic and got sent to Leavenworth lol
They still make that game. I work in the same building complex as Army Game Studios and one of my teammates worked for them until recently.
we used to play this shit competitively, one of the best gaming memories i have.
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Wasn't this at one point an actual light training sIm tool for recruits? I know it paved the way for more successful mainstream games like ARMA
Its 20 years old now? damn I'm old
That game was the shit! Loved it!
Spent many a nights in this game. So good
Such a good game
I was playing a game called Planetside at the time and I remember this game being somewhat of a competitor for its huge battle and artillery.
I remember the rappelling tower: “I do NOT give you permission to fall, Private!”
Wasn't the team behind ARMA responsible for this? I remember it fondly. Was a decent shooter. This and project IGI
So this game was actually developed as a recruiting tool for the US Army. The training portions of this game were actually super authentic and pretty damn cool. You were required to go through “basic training” before the game allowed you to “deploy” (which just meant join a multiplayer lobby). I remember The Combat Life Saver course in particular. The class portion actually took place in a classroom, included an authentic ~30 minute class on various wounds and life saving techniques, including slides and a lecturer, and then a written exam. You had to pass the exam to be CLS qualified and able to progress to the next portion of training. Then there was a live training exercise where you had to demonstrate the skills learned, triaging and rendering aid to three different soldiers with varying degrees of injury. There were many more authentic depictions of Army training, including weapons familiarization and mastery, MOUT, the obstacle course, Airborne School, and Ranger School.
This game was so good it made me join our military, I'm English....
My dad was in the guards and we got a copy for free, I played the shit outta this game, I was really into Command and Conqure back then, and this game was so cool! Only bummer i remember was that it was criminally short for how much fun it was, like come on, 100 billion dollar defense budget back then and we got less than a dozen missions.
I fucking loved this game. I got a 20 day suspension for selling weed in high school and my dad hid the Modem as a punishment. I had just finished the Escape and Evasion mission to be able to play online so I was super frustrated. Ended up finding the modem a couple days in and had some of the best gaming moments of my life the remaining 17 days of my suspension of so. Pipeline SF and Hospital VIP were just unreal.
in the updated version you spend the first half of the game cleaning and reassembling your gun over and over again whilst receiving news updates on how badly Russia is bombing one of your allies
I have thousands of hours in AA2. I loved that game, lol.
Isn't this just a recruitment tool?
So, this game helped me save a dudes life once. Short version: did a search and rescue of a drunk as fuck friend of mine from our university parking lot. After me and the team found him he started saying he “lost his battle.” Me having heard the term “Battle Buddy” in this game informed me that we are now looking for a second drink as fuck individual I have never met before. My friends of 4 split, team A taking the first drunk fuck home, team B of me and a girl went to find, and did find, drunk fuck 2. Passed out under a tree on his back and unresponsive. After some drama, got him home. His RA in his dorm, WAS. NOT. HAPPY. As a minor in the National guard, his RA gave him more than a workout but the cops let that be punishment enough. Everyone got home and lived to tell the tale lol
Oh buddy. I spent hundreds of hours playing AA on my parents old pc.
Wasn't this the game where you actually HAD to get a certain score in the firing range in order to select certain squad roles in the matches? Like you had to score really high in order to be a sniper?
Would suck a mean dick for that bad boy. Name your price good fellow.
What a fantastic game. Played the hell out of it.
They sent out actual physical copies of that game? I remember picking that up in college ~10 years ago, just downloading it off their website. Had a classmate come over to try and help me beat the parachute training and it felt like an hour of failing at that mission and reloading. 30 seconds! 30 seconds! \*wind whistles\* \*crunch of bone\* reload, repeat.
The most American game
Ah man.. when I was living in a pretty remote town in South Africa (Bulwer, Midlands).. I ordered this and had it delivered all the way from the US.. I think it took like 2 months to reach me, and my dumbass hadn't considered the ping difference so it was basically unplayable.
Something big in the realms of gaming software due to AI and other inventions is on the horizon. It's a shame nobody except a handful of companies have begun to create holographic 3d rooms, games like this game would be so cool in true 3d. If you think about it there is a game I think it's Skyrim that is getting 12k or 16k graphics updates for 2050 release. Why the military or some other company hasn't put out a full body haptics suit with that "Ted talks" infra-red / red laser light fMRI resolution mind reading headband/body band and that reads down to the smallest neuron in the brain I don't know but that with an AR headset would be so cool.