Let's Talk... America's Army: Proving Grounds

After four months of beta testing, the 4^th release in the America’s Army series has finally been released and is available for free on Steam. One thing I that’s important to note is that America’s Army: Proving Ground is free-to-play but it isn't the free-to-play that has developed such a negative connotation in recent times, this game is literally just completely free. Thankfully, unlike the notoriously buggy AA3, America’s Army: Proving Ground feels nicely polished and is pretty much bug-free. AA: PG is a pretty fun online tactical shooter that I feel isn't getting as much attention as it deserves. Sure, the relative realism may seem a little daunting at first and there’s certainly a slight difficulty curve to get over but if you give the game a bit of time you should have a pretty good time.

For those for don’t know, America’s Army is actually made by the US army, which always amuses me when I think that there’s a team of game devs amongst all the burly soldiers. Home to some controversy in the past, America’s Army has been criticised for being something of a recruitment tool to entice the youth, which is essentially what it’s intended to be but to someone with zero interest in joining the army it’s just a pretty cool shooter.

A basic HUD makes the game feel more modern than previous AA titles

 America’s Army: PG is a team based tactical shooter with an emphasis on teamwork that very much rejects the classic “run ‘n’ gun” attitude that most modern shooters instil.  Players are incapacitated when they go down, where their team mates must revive them before the enemy team tags them to take them out of the round permanently. Players can also temporarily mark enemy targets for the rest of their team to see, and you can even take ammo from your team (they don’t lose ammo, that wouldn't be any fun). There’s definitely a “stick together or die” attitude that this game tries to enforce, but personally I found that a trusty trigger finger and a keen eye were trustworthy allies also.

This game is free so it isn't exactly bustling with content. A surprisingly packed map pool of 13 maps and a very basic weapon rotation of traditional weapons are pretty much all there is to this game. The five weapons consist of an assault rifle, sniper rifle, shotgun, pistol, and an LMG. You can choose between a small selection of sights and scopes and have the ability to switch between firing modes on the fly. You can also choose between a combination of either smoke grenades, fog grenades, or grenades that blow balls off. Pretty basic stuff and I certainly would have wanted a little bit more in the way of weapon variation, but it’s free so what can you really expect?

The game looks pretty good and there's a nice selection of maps

The game suffer from a few balance issues, however, and even though there are only five weapons to choose from I rarely felt the need to use anything other than the assault rifle. Which is okay, I guess, seeing as I wouldn't call it overpowered but I would have liked some incentive to use another weapon outside of being bored of the AR. I enjoyed the gunplay once I had tamed the wild kick of the guns and I really liked the reliably accurate feel that the guns provide, something can feel a little sporadic in some shooters. An exciting tension makes reviving team mates in the open a risky gamble whilst choosing between tagging an enemy or waiting around to use them as bait keeps every kill tense right down to the last second.

Weapons sound and feel great (something you’d hope the US army gets right) with some pretty strong kick on most guns that certainly takes some getting used to.  The game looks pretty great and runs pretty well on medium rigs, I had it running at around 60 FPS on medium settings and my PC is several years out of date. All things considered I rather like AA: PG, it might not be everyone’s cup of tea but it certainly feels a lot more approachable than previous more “hardcore” iterations of America’s Army. It’s something that’s more enjoyable to play with friends, especially because of the emphasis on team work. It’s worth checking out and hell it’s free, so why not?