Apophis

It's that time again! America's Army has just officially released the next iteration of the America's Army game titled: America's Army:Special Forces (Direct Action) v2.5! One major addition is the new America's Army Honor Licensing program. This new program will FINALLY allow Tactical Gamer to run our very own AA Honor server! Something we've been looking to do for many years.

Here are some of the additional highlights from the release notes:

Included in this version of America's Army are two new Special Forces multiplayer missions. One of these new missions contains both the Special Forces playable Soldier class, as well as the Indigenous Forces playable class. The other new mission is 'SF Exclusive' containing only the Special Forces playable Soldier class.

SF Extraction: (SF & IF)

A daytime urban mission where both teams must race to retrieve a briefcase containing sensitive information about terrorist operatives. Each team must locate and secure this one briefcase and then carry it to their extraction point successfully. The team that successfully extracts with the briefcase in hand wins! This mission's spawn points, and extraction points (1 per team) - are all randomly selected each round.

SF Dockside: (SF Exclusive)

A small tournament map which takes place during a stormy night in a run down harbor setting. Both teams must locate and secure two cargo containers containing biological agents. The first team to secure and hold both containers wins! This mission's spawn points and container locations are randomly selected each round. This mission also features breachable doors, and usable automatic doors.

New Training Mission

Shoot House (MOUT Training)

The Shoot House (MOUT Training) training mission has been added to America's Army. Shoot House replaces the existing MOUT Training in Basic Combat Training.

Shoot House is designed to provide players with a dynamic and replayable training experience. Players will enter a building, consisting of up to 10 rooms, where pop-up targets have been randomly arranged. Players will choose a weapon and enter the Shoot House building, each room will present the player with various friendly and enemy targets. Players will have to make repeated split-second decisions whether or not to engage the targets - shooting friendly targets earns penalties. This training will be timed and scored for each weapon, results will be recorded in the America's Army database and sent to a Web site where players can compare their scores with others.

Gameplay Enhancements

Adjusted Recoil:
When firing in full auto the recoil gradually increases to a higher amount then levels out. This more realistically portrays the controllability of automatic fire and promotes shooting in bursts or single-fire.

Damage Hindrance System:
Physical reactions to damage have been enhanced. When hit by bullets players will camera shift to display pain and also to promote taking aim to make the first shot count. Other effects are also included such as view shifts when receiving falling damage.

Grenade Enhancements:
Grenade kill damage has been dropped to a more realistic 5 meters (from 10) with fragment damage causing a gun down stun effect allowing room clearing assaults to still be successful.

CEM Adjustments:
The CEM has been weighted to cause very large increases whenever sight mode is initiated. This added realism will promote the concept that a player needs their sights up if they want to shoot accurately. In addition to this, transparency has been added to the 2D sights for more realism and to make them easier to use. CEM bonuses due to proximity to other teammates have been adjusted as follows: highest bonus given when in close proximity to the Squad Leader, next highest bonus given when in close proximity to your Fireteam Leader, and a small bonus now given when in close proximity to any teammate (promoting teamwork).

Added Horizontal Hand Tremor:
Previously only up and down breathing aim wander was noticeable on most weapons. Now more left and right wander has been added to more effectively portray arm tremor when weapon sights are up.

Bunny Hopping Deterrents:
A player can no longer reload while in mid jump or jump while a reload is occurring. In addition the jump key is limited with a stall time between each jump. These two additions should deter most bunny hopping outright, however once a player becomes accustomed to the changes they can go anywhere they originally could in a speedy manner.

Grab a copy of the new America's Army from the Tactical Gamer Download area (for supporting members) or your nearby friendly file distribution network!

__________________
Diplomacy is the art of saying "good doggie" while looking for a bigger stick.

perry

Nifty. Linux version should come shortly.. so they say.