America's Army: "FREE"dom is overrated (2.8.5)

Before everyone who reads this and flips shit because they think I just said that "Freedom is overrated," chill out and listen to me. Freedom, like what we have as Americans is not overrated (though I'm sure a way-too-liberal former significant other would disagree). The point of this post's title is that the fact that just because America's Army is a free game, the low cost does not make it good.

Yes, I know that I shouldn't complain because it didn't cost me anything to play other than the 10 hours it took download the mere 2 gig game on a cable modem via the 'AA Deploy Client.' Still, this is like the third time I have tried to get myself interested in this game and I just can't, which is really sad given it has TONS of potential.

Currently the game is on build 2.8.5 with 3.0 just around the corner, a corner I have already reserved my username for, but even though it has gone through constant patches and updates since its original release on July 4, 2002, the game still is full of crappy controls, poorly designed maps, and physics that make even Doom 3 look realistic. Beyond all that, do you know what the worse part is? There is no built-in voice chat. None. We have a popular TACTICAL first person shooter in build 2.8.5 that is without VOIP? That's inexcusable.

Can you imagine playing Counter-Strike and not having VOIP to chat with your friends and teammates? No, because they got it right years ago... and CS isn't even tactical-based (let's be honest)! America's Army is a game, but it's meant to serve as a realistic simulation for actual tactical operations within the US Army and without using a 3rd party client there is no way to tell they guy next to you where you are about to move to without stopping movement, pressing the "y" key, typing your game plan, pressing "enter," waiting for him to respond, then moving ahead.

I'm sorry, but I still find the offline training missions more fun than actually facing a human opponent over the Net.

Here's to hoping version 3.0 fixes everything with this game that has all the potential, but no drive. ::cheers, mate::

Rating: 2 / 5