E3 2003: New America's Army Information
15th May 2003, 10:11pm
New game characters include:
Combat Medics
Individual training begins with classroom instruction at Brooke Army Medical Center, Fort Sam Houston, Texas where players learn the ABCs of lifesaving and the basics of casualty assessment.
Players successfully complete training to include tests of their lifesaving knowledge in order to gain the medic attribute that is integral to team success in online missions. After completing written tests, players move on to field training for a hands-on practical exam of their lifesaving skills in a mock casualty exercise. After successfully completing this mission, players will gain the medic attribute and can select the Combat Medic role in multiplayer missions. This new role will propagate across existing and new missions in America’s Army.
In online operational missions, players can become a casualty due to enemy or friendly fire as well as from trauma such as bad parachute landings and falls. Depending upon where a player’s character is injured, the game calculates and distributes physiological damage to the game character. By quickly reaching and administering medical aid to a fallen game character, players serving as a Combat Medic can stabilize the injured game character and accrue higher standing in the game. Depending on wounded players’ health status, they may be able to return to duty in a mission.
Special Forces
New mission expansion packs to be distributed through the summer, fall and winter, will allow gamers to virtually explore the development and employment of Special Forces (SF) Soldiers.
Players will complete missions drawn from the Special Forces Assignment and Selection (SFAS) process. Players who successfully complete SFAS during the summer and fall will move on to the Special Forces Qualification Course (Q-Course) to explore new SF roles including 18D - Medic, 18B - Weapons Specialist, 18C - Engineer, 18E - Communications and 18F – Intelligence.
As players successfully complete each phase of the Q-Course they will gain access to new systems and capabilities unique to the Green Berets.
When the full version of America’s Army: Special Forces is fully deployed by the winter of 2003, gameplay will culminate with missions that span the capabilities of an SF detachment to include Combat Search and Rescue, direct action, surveillance and reconnaissance, and unconventional warfare.
Stryker Combat System
This spring, the Army’s first Stryker Brigade will be ready for operational employment. As this advanced organization joins the Army, the Stryker will also make its first appearance in the America’s Army game. Incorporating advanced information systems, lightweight armor, a grenade launcher or a 50-caliber remote weapons station (RWS), the Stryker brings new capabilities to America’s Army beginning at E3.
Employed within a support-by-fire role in its debut Operations mission, the Stryker allows gamers to explore this first step in Army transformation to lighter forces that apply information technology to provide Soldiers unprecedented situational awareness. Players will be able to enter this high-tech vehicle that features state-of-the-art night vision, navigation systems and other technology for situational awareness.
Over the coming months, there will be a number of missions allowing players to explore operations within a Stryker Brigade including a scenario where players defend the Stryker while taking out the enemy’s armored vehicle (BTR60).
Over the next few months, the development team will unveil significant game updates including:
new combat systems to include the M4 Carbine that features extensive rail mods for attaching laser aiming devices and sighting systems; the MP5SD6 Remington 870 shotgun for forced entry; the AT4, a shoulder-fired anti tank rocket; and the BDM, a shoulder-fired bunker demolition munition. SF team members will be able to modify their weapons just a real Soldiers do (for those weapons that offer this capability).
OC3’s Impersonator technology which provides lip-sync facial animation to dramatically increase game immersion and realism;
new character models featuring higher poly counts, higher resolution graphics, and real-time player shadows;
a new game interface providing new styles of gameplay to include enhanced roles for leadership positions as part of mission planning phases; and
new missions that incorporate friendly, enemy and non-combatant AI. Friendly AI will be in the form of instructors and team members. Non-combatant AI will expand the importance and impact of rules of engagement as gamers encounter civilians and members of non-governmental-organizations in simulated training and combat missions. Enemy AI will create opportunities to model the overmatch technologies provided to U.S. Soldiers in the form of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), precision fires, and situational awareness.
