Gaming News - October 2002

Washington, DC (October 10, 2002) - The U.S. Army today announced that it game, America's Army, is now available on CD.

From The U.S. Army:

The U.S. Army began distributing nationwide this week America's Army: Operations, a computer game with first-person-perspective action where players enter into virtual military service defending the United States.

Designed to communicate information about Army opportunities, adventures, challenges and training, the free game CD has shipped and is starting to appear at local Army Recruiting stations, ROTC detachments and Army events listed at www.americasarmy.com and www.goarmy.com. The CD features missions that were previously available via download from
the Internet (from mirrored sites listed at www.americasarmy.com) plus two new exclusive missions featuring the 82nd Airborne Division and 75th Ranger Regiment. The game is rated "T" for teen by the Entertainment Software Ratings Board.

The game provides civilians with an inside perspective and a virtual role in today's premier land force: the U.S. Army. Developed by the U.S. Army and Department of Defense simulations and virtual environments experts, America's Army includes the Operations game, as well as Soldiers, the role- playing portion in which players navigate life's challenges to achieve life goals in the Army. When Soldiers is released early next year, it will interlace with Operations to yield a revolutionary game experience in which progress in either Soldiers or Operations will open new capabilities and
opportunities in the other game for players to explore Army career opportunities and adventures.

"America's Army is a great communications vehicle to create a community of interest in the Army and to highlight the role teamwork and values play in the Army," said Lt. Col. Casey Wardynski, project originator and manager of the America's Army game. "The game has opened entirely new channels of communication between young adults and the Army. In terms of gameplay activity, numbers of active players, traffic on the AmericasArmy.com website, and comments from players, we continue to receive extremely positive  indications that America's Army melds computer games' engaging qualities with the Internet's information-intensive capabilities and has built interest in Soldiering by conveying Army information that is interesting to young Americans."

"The enthusiastic response to America's Army over the past four months by young people and the public tells us that we are both educating and entertaining game players with information about our nation's Army, its core values and the opportunities our Army offers for personal and professional  success," said John McLaurin, executive agent for the project and Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Military Manpower and Reserve Affairs.

The full 20-mission version of Operations will be available on CD and for a test drive via eight interactive kiosks as part of the U.S. Army College Tour. Details on this state- of-the-art mobile outreach program are at www.goArmy.com. Operations is also available on cover discs of current issues of Computer Gaming World and PC Gamer magazines, and in the December issue of Computer Games magazine. The Army is supporting the game along with iGames™, a national organization of game centers, with an America's Army: Operations Tournament (www.igames.org) that kicks off on Oct. 26.

In the Operations portion of the game, players progress through single player basic training missions in preparation for online multiplayer missions ranging from the defense of the Alaskan Pipeline against terrorism as a member of the 172nd Infantry Brigade to training exercises as a member of the 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry). Mirroring the progressive training available to Soldiers, players proceed to more advanced training by attending virtual representations of the Army's Marksmanship School, Airborne School and Ranger School. Successful school completion presents players with new assignment and adventure opportunities.

Gamers always play in a team and are bound by the laws of  land warfare, Army values and realistic Rules Of Engagement (ROE). In squad versus squad operations for up to 32 players, gamers always perceive that they are on the U.S. Army team, regardless of which team they join. To emphasize the importance of teamwork and ROE, players who engage in fratricide or violate their rules of engagement incur significant penalty points. At a certain threshold, these penalty points result in a player being removed from gameplay to a virtual version of the Army Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth. The Army launched a special RECON version of its Operations  game online on July 4, and followed up with several additional missions and game enhancements over the summer. Since July 4 more than 852,800 players have registered to play Operations, with 515,760 having completed basic training. With over 18 million missions played, at an average of 6-10 minutes per mission, daily game play has grown to a level of over 278,000 missions per day.

Mark Friedler, CEO of Gigex, Inc., the leading distribution service for computer games that managed downloads of Operations, said, "According to the numbers, Operations had incredibly heavy demand and is the most successful product launch that Gigex has ever done."

America's Army achieves unparalleled military realism through its in-house development and cooperation from 20 Army units. The game accurately depicts today's high-tech Army infantry units -- military equipment, training and scenario realism. Character motions are true-to-life due to detailed motion-capture of real Soldiers. The game was developed using the latest version of Epic Games' "Unreal Engine®" and is optimized for NVIDIA GeForce2™ graphics processors.

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