America's Army: Recon has been released and it's spectacular!
 

Those who don't know, The U.S. Army just released the first half of their 7 million dollar video game. It's called Recon and it's completely free. The file is about 203 meg and it's available for download at the usual places (Fileplanet, 3Dgamers, etc.) You can also find it at Nvidia's site:

http://www.nvidia.com/view.asp?IO=army_download

My first impressions:

The graphics are just breathtaking. High polys and textures are endless. The player animations are excellent. The reload animations put every other game I've played to shame. Not only are they accurate, but it takes about 5-6 seconds to do it. When you are shooting, you line up people on the actual crosshair or sight of every gun.

It's very heavy on the realism. Breathing will mess up your aim. You have to time your shots by listening to your breathing patterns. The sound effects are also spot on.

From what I've witnessed so far, this game was very well planned and executed. Anyway, back to the game for me. As for the rest of you, go get it now!

How can you comment on the game when all you can do is play one limited training mission?

He's commenting on America's Army: Recon, which is the preliminary version of the game, from what he's witnessed so far. Sounds okay to me.

What are the system specs for this game?

Haha, the online system has a bit of a fatal flaw: after training, you're only allowed to play one map. There are currently 2 or 3 servers running that map.

Yea, they need more servers. There are 2000 people on Gamespy waiting to play. Perhaps the instillation of their own server list will eleviate that problem.

After you get in, you have to win 5 games to get the next map. I just finished a series and now I'm working on the next one.

I'm really anticipating the airborne jumps and sniper school.

Only 1 map? I thought the demo was to have 9 maps and later 10?? I'm getting it now anyways, when I first read about this game, I thought it would be pathetic but it actually looks fairly good.

Now I remember, the first multiplayer map is the 'training' map where you have to beat it to continue to the next, I had forgotten... also, my download crashed so here I start again.

Assertion failed: RenDev [File:C:\fireteam\WinDrv\Src\WinViewport.cpp] [Line: 450]

History: UWindowsViewport::OpenWindow <- UGameEngine::Init <- InitEngine

There are 4 training levels that have to be passed to move on to Mout McKenna. After you successfully completed a series on the Mout McKenna map while playing online, you have finished your training.

Then the rest of the maps are unlocked for you to play online.

For all you console fans, there could be an XBox version in the works.

Here is some coding from the Default.ini file that came with the Recon release:

[XboxDrv.XboxClient]
TextureDetail=Medium
SkinDetail=Medium
LightmapDetail=High
TextureMinLOD=6
TextureMaxLOD=9
Brightness=0.8
Contrast=0.7
Gamma=0.8
NoFractalAnim=True

[XBoxAudio.XBoxAudioSubsystem]
ReverseStereo=False
Channels=32
MusicVolume=1.0
SoundVolume=1.0
AmbientFactor=1.0
UsePrecache=True

Even if that was true, why would it be funny?

Game menus load ok but when in the game it is all screwed up, blinking textures everywhere. Tried it on my bro's Nvidia GeForce 2 card and it worked ok.

i'm using a Radeon 8500

oh well, a look at the docs is in order...

Well.. Nvidia did have a hand in developing the game if I recall correctly :)

My Radeon 8500 LE works perfectly. I'm getting high framerates online and off.

Yvan eht nioj!

Go Army! !yvan teaB

Do you use your 8500 in dual monitor mode? I can run games with the desktop spanning both monitors, and usually games will run without me having to switch to single monitor mode.

Which drivers are you running? I haven't updated to the Catalyst drivers yet.

Um, it is true. It's funny because it's a huge bottleneck.

I got this when I want to play...

History: CheckDeviceCaps <- UD3DRenderDevice::Init <- UGameEngine::Init <- InitEngine

No, I don't use dual monitor mode. But I doubt that's the problem.

Upgrade to the Catalyst drivers. I'm using them. It's makes a big difference in the latest games.

it would be cool if it was actually possible for me to download this ****ing game. the servers are so horribly slow

Have you tried FileShack?

This is the first game to come out with the unreal engine right?

Any idea when the full version will be out and has this thing got single player mode?

This is a recruiting thing, right?

All this, download that, upgrade this, get these drivers etc. talk reminded me very quickly of why I gave up on PC gaming years ago. :D