Seeing as it is free, everyone should at least try it i suppose, but im nervous, Is it the kind of game that only truly hardcore players would enjoy?

I've never played any of the other games in the series and i assume COD4 is alot different then this. ( And no, i dont think COD 4 is realistic, so shutup about that and stop assuming things.)

You don't have to join the marines...It's nothing like COD4, if you think COD4 is realistic you are sadly mistaken.

Like America's Army 2.0, it will be purely a propaganda vehicle for (you guessed it) the US Army. The first game would have been halfway decent were it not for some horrendous design decisions, and the general vibe I got from it. Some of the training missions were pretty ludicrous; for example, one mission (maybe for medic training?) required the player to literally walk into an in-game army barracks, sit down at a virtual desk, listen to a virtual lecture, then take a multiple choice test at said desk. WTF?

I liked America's Army when it was new.  First ever Unreal Engine 2 game, pretty nice playing.

I checked it out again about a year ago or so, it was a clunky mess and looked horrible.

Can't wait, havn't played in a while. Will SF Hospital be in AA 3.0? 

I didn't think much of the previous America's Army but I suppose as its free I might as well give it a try. I'm not expecting much out of it though.

I'm in the Beta. The medical training is much more easier, and more involved (there are dummies).

Edit: I could record it and show you. The weapon training is mostly unchanged.

I'm pre-loading it as we speak (http://store.steampowered.com/app/13140/). I somewhat enjoyed the original, and some of the elements the video previews have shown look like I'll like it even more. We'll just have to see.

I just hope they did something to kill dropshots. One of the main things that turned me off the competitive portion of the game.

I will be trying ;) I preloaded it already. I came by it by chance, I haven't played AA for a very very long time.

America's Army Propaganda 3.0

I have it preloaded, we should get a group going when it drops.

It's unlocking in a little over a half hour from now.  I hope it's good.  The beta had some performance issues when playing online, so hopefully they've fixed that.

I liked the last version but from what I've seen of the beta this new one won't be much improved. I have it preloaded, but at the very least it's going to be very limited compared to the last one, at least to begin with. I'm sure they'll keep updating it and make it very good at some point, I'm just not sure it's going to be very good from the start. Also, don't expect a huge graphical leap, it seems to reuse a lot of the content (or it happens to be content of similar quality) despite using Unreal Engine 3 now. Perhaps they'll improve that over time as well. Anyway, I liked the core gameplay, I'm sure I'll have at least a little fun with it even if I put it down and wait for a future, better version in the end. Thanks for funding this US doods :P

I will get it because its free.

Played for a while, I was right to think the visuals aren't vastly improved, or they seem that way as I haven't played in a while, but they're certainly adequate. I really like what they've done with the controls though, I can see myself playing this a lot. The weapons feel right, their iron sights are great, I like how you change the range for the grenade launcher with the mouse wheel, I like how you can slide during a sprint, etc. It feels very solid overall. There's room for improvement in everything but hey, it's free. The medic seems more involved and quite cool too. Great first release.

I just went through a bit... anyone see that the training is fucked up? as in you cant pass training missions when you should?

Nope, passed them all on first try except medic as I clumsily skipped the talky bits with the space bar which is also like a "use" button...

its gonna have steam achievements and its free, so it is definitely worth a try

I just played throught it for a bit, steam achievmeents are fucked and the game is forgeting that I completed the marksmenship and basic training 4 times already, fucking army cant do anything right, enjoy :D

I played the first one briefly. I seem to remember failing a training mission because I tried to shoot my commanding officer in the face...

I played AA ages ago (it might have been 2, or even 1, I can't remember) and I really didn't enjoy it, so I won't be checking this out. The steam achievements are tempting, but I'm not going to play a game I don't like just for achievies.

Yea, It messed up while I was running through training - didnt give me pass for the general obstacle course or the rifle range... dammit.

I'm probably going to get Halo ODST.  That's the same thing, right?

Servers appear to have been totally overloaded...hopefully it will cool down soon enough that people still care.

Argh, my steam thing is taking forever to verify the game files, i want to try this HURRY UP INTERNET

i get to the "loading mission" screen when i try to start training and it freezes there, honestly dont care enough about this game to figure out whats wrong so i guess i wont be trying it after all

Im having so many problems with it like having the wrong password (even after I used "forget password" and get a new randomly generated one :|) so I had to make a new account. it keeps showing me code for what looks like an acheivment-like system instead of whatever it mean to be showing  and when I completed marksman training it kept trying to update for 45 minutes :|

Ill try again tommorow/at the weekend hoping the servers will be a bit calmer.

Man this game is completely broken.  I've tried playing through basic like 6 times now, its only loaded twice, the first time i couldnt go prone and the second time it loaded the weapons range instead.  Thats after I took half hour creating an account.  I'm just glad it's not just me because it looks pretty cool for a free game.  I completely skipped AA2

" Seeing as it is free, everyone should at least try it i suppose, but im nervous, Is it the kind of game that only truly hardcore players would enjoy?
I've never played any of the other games in the series and i assume COD4 is alot different then this. Also i hope i dont have to join the marines if i play this.... "

I'm downloading it right now at a snail's pace. I'm extremely surprised they're not implementing BitTorrent for this like they did with America's Army 2.0 and the updates. With the beauty of BitTorrent, the more people downloading a file, the faster average speed.  It would really help their servers with a 3.24 GB game.

Either way the games authentication servers are totally down, training doesnt reigster any scoring right now.

Also, the entire development team was fired launch day.

Every time i click on a server to join, the game freezes, not sure what thats about......

This was one of the worst launches I've been a part of :\

" @Absurd: How come? "

• The game is buggy (almost unplayable)
  
• The preload wasn't truly a preload since you had to download another 1.5 GB
  
• the Auth servers wouldn't record your training.
• There was only around 20 servers at launch and thousands were trying to play

The developer for this got shut down, the day after release as well.

" The developer for this got shut down, the day after release as well.

http://kotaku.com/5296131/americas-army-3-devs-let-go-day-after-launch

"

For whats its worth, the gun controls feel tight and I really like the mechanic on the grenade launcher. Tonight we might be setting up our own server, let me know if you want to join.

I ran a few games and I was unimpressed. Its still very buggy and the matches are not intuitive at all. they last about 30 to 40 secs each. Its a Mil sim for sure but I'm just not convinced it worth the time or effort. We may try it out again tonight if you want drop me a line and you can run with us.

Yeah, I only managed to get a sngle game going, any new attempt just returns me to the main menu. It also still hasn't given me all my achievements despite the patch and that I re-did them. For example I got a perfect score in that final basic training bit with the target course, but I still don't have the ribbon, yet I got the other achivement (I forget which, the profile of a gun is its icon) during that. I'm leaving it on my PC until it gets better though. AA2 is currently more feature complete and stable and therefor better, but I do like the enhancements I've seen for 3 in the different shooting and movement mechanics. It's just not quite solid yet. Hopefully it will get better soon enough, though with all that development trouble it may just not improve, we'll have to wait and see. Other issues are the performance and the visuals. Unreal Engine 3 is nothing without good assets, and this game still looks like it's running on 2.5. Not even the lighting is really improved. Yet it doesn't run so hot either, even though I can run the actual UT3 flawlessly with maxed settings.