A group of political activists, Direct Action to Stop the War, is taking their protests to the streets over Ubisoft’s America’s Army game. On the Direct Action website the party accuses the U.S. Army of recruiting teens and condemns the videogame for violating international law.

“America’s Army” is a game developed by the U.S. military to instruct players in “Army values,” portray the army in a positive light, and increase potential recruits. The “game” is the property and brainchild of the US Army, which admit freely, and with pride, that it is one of their principal recruitment tools. The game has been granted a “teen” rating, allowing 13 year olds to play.

The military recruitment of children under the age of 17, however, is a clear violation of international law (the U.N. Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict). No attempt to recruit children 13-16 is allowed in the United States, pursuant to treaty. In May, the American Civil Liberties Union published a report that found the armed services regularly target children under 17 for military recruitment. The report highlighted the role of “America’s Army,” saying the Army uses the game to “attract young potential recruits . . . train them to use weapons, and engage in virtual combat and other military missions”, adding that the game “explicitly targets boys 13 and older.”

The game is having an effect. An informal study showed that 4 out of 100 new recruits in Ft. Benning, Georgia credit America’s Army as the primary factor in convincing them to join the military.

Direct Action is marching today to raise awareness of these alleged violation of human rights.

Ubisoft is not the only South Park neighbor engaged in the development of the game, Gameloft is working on the cell phone application and Secret Level was a designer on the 2005 Xbox version… This August 6, on the 63rd Anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, come out and ask the producers and developers of America’s Army to stop helping the Army recruit children.

According to GamePolitics, Direct Action sent a letter of protest to Ubisoft CEO Laurent Detoc. The group claims that Detoc sent them a response indicating that Ubisoft will no longer be producing America’s Army.

Ubisoft has already planned not to make any further games of America’s Army, that they may announce that decision in the future and he discouraged us from continuing our Hiroshima Day action… If Ubisoft’s claims are true, why have they not publicly announced the end of the work for the Army’s recruitment videogame, and why have they not ended their contract with Army, set to expire in 2015?

The organization claims that the game violates United Nations protocol and international law, specifically the U.N. Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict.

Having read up on the protocol in question, I wonder whether Direct Action bothered to read it themselves. The U.N. optional protocol states that “conscripting or enlisting children under the age of 15 years or using them to participate actively in hostilities in both international and non-international armed conflicts” is a warcrime. The protocol also has specific guidelines for governments that allow children under the age of 18 to voluntarily opt for recruitment.

States Parties that permit voluntary recruitment into their national armed forces under the age of 18 years shall maintain safeguards to ensure, as a minimum, that:

(a) Such recruitment is genuinely voluntary;

(b) Such recruitment is carried out with the informed consent of the person’s parents or legal guardians;

(c) Such persons are fully informed of the duties involved in such military service;

(d) Such persons provide reliable proof of age prior to acceptance into national military service.

As stated in 10 Steps to Joining the Military on Military.com, “You must be at least 17 years old (17-year old applicants require parental consent).”

Peace Protesters are following the America’s Army exhibit to its next venue after they forced changes to the presentation at Wisconsin’s Summerfest. The next stop for the exhibit is an airshow in Duluth, Minnesota. WAFF-48 news out of Huntsville, Alabama reports that a similar protest is planned for the airshow.

The America’s Army exhibit has the game set up in a Humvee. People have to be at least 17 before they’re allowed to climb in and take on virtual enemies. The exhibit is on tour visiting venues from Airshows to NASCAR.

Michele Naar-Obed, a volunteer for a group called Loaves and Fishes, is one of those opposed to the exhibit.

“I’m very upset over this. I think this is just insane that they would use this kind of venue to train our youth to kill people.”

U.S. Army SFC John Haymond finds her protest ironic under the circumstances.

“it’s kind of curious that some people would object to a virtual army experience game when the central draw to the Duluth Air Show is the Blue Angels who are flying F-18 Super Hornet strike aircraft, which last time I checked, was a military weapon.”

I have a hard time taking these protesters seriously. No one is being coerced into playing the game. The whole idea behind it is to simulate the experience of being in combat so that players can get a feel for whether the US Army might be a good fit for them.

Unfortunately, the events at Wisconsin’s Summerfest have encouraged these protesters and may in some eyes lend validity to their claims that the exhibit “glorifies” war. It often seems that those who cry most loudly for freedom of speech are the first to want to take it away from their opposition.

via GamePolitics

The Army is taking notes from the success of Apple retail stores and revamping its recruitment centers. To stimulate flagging numbers, Army recruiting centers are going high tech and interactive.

“If you think of a classic recruitment center, [all of] its forms and brochures are about as exciting as the post office,” said Marc Babej, partner at Reason Inc., a marketing consultancy in New York. “Why talk about it when you can demonstrate it.”

Potential soldiers will soon be able to play America’s Army and try out three different simulators to get an idea of some of the different roles in today’s Army.

The first new recruitment center is designed to be less intimidating and more “like walking into a NASA center,” said Walters. It will consist of three large simulators with full-scale mock-ups of Army equipment and wrap-around 270-degree video screens.

“The modeling command and control systems are like those used in Iraq,” said Maj. Larry Dillard, U.S. Army marketing exec.

The Apache simulator allows a pilot and co-pilot to experience the aircraft and its weapons systems. The Black Hawk helicopter simulator provides four door gunner positions. And, the armored HMMWV vehicle simulator has positions for a driver and several gunners. The centers also will include an area where visitors can compete in America’s Army, a videogame released in 2002.

Thanks to GamePolitics for the tip.

via Brandweek

We have known that the new Lord of the Rings title Conquest was going to be like Battlefront only with orcs. We have been given information regarding which battles from the movies and the books will be playable, we know which classes we can play, we know that we can choose between being evil and good, and we know that it will contain both a hearty single player campaign as well as multiplayer.

What is interesting though, is the news regarding “vehicles” for the game. Over on Crispy Gamer, Paul Semel got to sit down and chat with Pandemic’s Sean Soucy and here is a little tidbit Sean let slip about being able to move around in Conquest:

“Horses, wargs, playable trolls and ents, catapults, siege towers and battering rams are just some examples of the kinds of things the player will have at his disposal in the game, but the battle is set in the air as well as on the ground. We’ve got fel beasts swooping down from the sky and carrying off soldiers. Eagles come to the aid of the forces of good to attack the orcs from above……..The “vehicles” we’ve got in the game end up adding quite a bit to the gameplay and are very satisfying in their own right. “

I guess this means that if we decide to play “evil” we get to be a goblin and ride a warg. How flipping cool is that! Watch out Legolas, I am coming to bash your pretty face in.

Via: Crispy Gamer

Some gamers are content to grab a game off the shelf or download it from their console menu and play it. Then there are those few who are PC gamers because they’re never content to leave things as they are. They express their creativity through building fan sites or modding their favorite titles to add extra features or cheats to make their game experience more enjoyable.

Here’s an FYI for all the creative gamers out there on the latest software for your “toolbox”:

• Earthrise Fan Site Kit Earthrise_Fansitekit.zip – Masthead Studios has released the fan site kit for Earthrise, a post-apocalyptic science fiction MMO game.
• TGLEdit .NET (1.0) tgledit.exe – Simple CLI/GUI program for modders, designed primarily for use with windows setups, to update the BC TGL files, during install.
• Bridge Commander Ship Menu Creator (5.5) bcsmc_v5.5.rar – This program is the intended replacement of the BCMP’s ship plugin tool and it now has several modes.
• Mattman’s America’s Army Script Generator (1.0.3.6) script_generator_1036.exe – This is a Admin Forceclass script generator for America’s Army. It will generate scripts of 2000 of any weapon, or combo of weapons.
• Rumblepad 2 Config (V1) rumblepad_2_config.zip - This is a Utility for anyone using a Rumblepad 2 Controller with Quake 4.
• Easy Saber Editing Script (2.0) eses_2.0.zip – This script is very very limited in its capacity on its own, but is actually probably more useful than you would think it is, if you knew how it worked.
• Standard Input Server (RCon chat etc) (0.1) standardinputserver.zip – Ever wondered why one can communicate with a server via RCON, but the clients playing on the server can’t communicate back? Now they can! ….well, in a manner of speaking.
• Jedi Saber Style jedi_saber_style.zip – This is a simple Script MODification born to add on Single Saber Mode the combat animations of the Dual and the Staff Mode.
• Crazy Virs Trainer (last) crazytrainer.rar – Here is a trainer that will allow you to change what is in your garage at any time, as well as give you the ability to teleport, although there are better versions out there there which included other features as well.
• FreeTastic (2.5) freetastic.zip Here is a modfication that will change all of the prices within GTA San Andreas to make them all free. This will also set all of the ammunition so that it will have enough ammo to last for hours without reloading.
• GAMI Installer (German and English) (1.8.2) 4303_gami_installer1_8_2.rar GAMI is a mod installer for GTA San Andreas created by GTA Action.com. There are two languages included German and English. This installer is able to choose every part of mods before you install them.
• IPL Adjuster (3.0) ipl_adjuster_v.3.0.rar This tool will be very useful when a map needs to be moved.
• Trickster Online Fansite Kit Fansite_Kit.zip – Inside you will find official game and production images for Backgrounds, Pets, Characters, Monsters and official trickster Logos!

Have fun and play nice. Check out Gaming Today’s associated File sites for more mods and tools geared towards specific games. Just go to FileFront and click on Network Game Sites on the side bar under our logo to find your favorite game.

It’s an age old question: are the guns in games really all that accurate? Oftentimes in the process of reviewing a game, reviewers will praise a game for its realistic weapons – but realistically, the average game reviewer doesn’t know the difference between a Walther PPK and 5″/38 caliber guns. (The former is the gun James Bond has made famous, while the latter is something you’d find on a battleship.)

Popular Mechanics takes a look at this subject by diving in and taking a look at the way various games handle weapons, including Rainbow Six Vegas 2, Call of Duty 4, and even America’s Army.

[A]ccording to Philippe Theiren, an RSV2 designer at Ubisoft Montreal and the team’s self-described “gun guy,” bullet penetration now takes into account incredibly fine details, like whether the target is wearing leather or cloth. “It’s actually an excessively complex formula,” Theiren says. “If someone shoots through a plant, then a car door, then it hits Level 3 body armor, all of that effects the force of the round.” Actual ballistic data associated with the guns in RSV2, then, determine whether you can fire a burst through a wooden table and take someone out.

Except, of course, when the developers feel the need to cheat. All of the guns in RSV2 start out extremely accurate, based on factory stats and more, before game balance and player expectations come into play. A shotgun firing buckshot, for example, has significantly more penetration in RSV2 than it should. Why? “People associate shotguns with powerful, close-range weapons,” Theiren says. So a shotgun blast will punch through walls and armor just fine, even though buckshot is known for its lack of penetration in the real world.

“I take these weapons, and look at what defines them, or what people think defines them,” Theiren explains. “For an Uzi, people think it fires lots of bullets, and it’s really inaccurate.” That, he knows, has nothing to do with reality—if anything, Uzis are considered some of the most reliable and accurate submachine guns around. But the 80s (and Miami Vice in particular) offered us the Uzi as a low-life villain’s weapon, spit-fire and out-of-control. “So I make it fire faster than it should. It’s about taking the personality of a weapon, and making it shine in the game,” Theiren says.

It’s a pretty interesting feature and might go a long way in explaining why the same weapon is so dramatically different from one game to the next, even when they’re all giving off the vibe of a realistic shooter.

Now, I need to go back out to my yard so I can keep practicing with my Phalanx CIWS.

America’s Army: Special Forces (Overmatch) has been updated to v2.8.3.1. Based on feedback from players; account, game play and server administration issues are taken care of in this update. Their are also quite a few bugs zapped as well. Detailed patch notes are listed after the break.

You can grab America’s Army: Special Forces (Overmatch) v2.8.3.1 from the downloads section of the official America’s Army website. Read the full article »

Are you in the mood to plunder and pillage in an open world environment that allows you to step into the shoes of a resurrected battle weary Viking? You now have the opportunity to do so because Viking: Battle For Asgard from Creative Assembly and SEGA has finally hit stores for the PS3 and Xbox 360.We have been bombarding you with information on the game for months now, but just in case you missed it, here is some background information for you:

Viking: Battle For Asgard thrusts players into a mythological world overrun with demonic warriors unleashed by Hel, the Norse goddess of the underworld. As Skarin, a rage-fueled Viking hero, players will wage all-out war to free mankind from the grip of evil and ultimate annihilation. Players can command dragons and wield fire, ice, and lightning, laying waste to enemies in either small skirmishes or epic battles featuring hundreds of warriors. Enemies will suffer graphic dismemberment with disturbing realism from an array of Skarin’s melee, range, and magic attacks. Upgradable combat skills and Skarin’s otherworldly abilities create an ever-changing landscape of epic violence and heroic victory.

Woo Whoo! Hopefully this will be a fun and bloody action game for to drive away the Winter chills. For more information on the game along with tons of screenshots and trailers look no further than our previous posts.

Via: Press Release

An Islamic Blog, Empowered Muslim Youth is calling the US Department of Defense’s  America’s Army videogame a brainwashing and recruiting tool for the global war on terrorism.

Computer War-games have increased tenfolds (sic) since the global war on terrorism invaded our minds and ears in 2001, with most of the games targeted towards a young audience…

These visual games are a perfect opportunity to psychologically prepare and even mentally train children to fight in battle…

There is no doubt that this well-thought tactic, issued by high-ranking govermental officials, and it is not very surprising. The global war on terrorism is running out of soldiers, as US officials have said…

Brainwashing the youth to fight in almost real-life situations which a solider would face if fighting in Iraq for instance, is most definitely a way to recruit more soldiers for the future…

There has been a lot of controversy in the US over the America’s Army series’ use as a military recruitment tool, so it’s not entirely surprising that a site aimed at Islamic youth would label the game as a brainwashing tool. To some extent I would agree. The games are meant to simulate extreme environments, testing gamers’ mettle in the face of crisis. The game could certainly help to identify those people who may adapt to a military mind set.

However playing the game shouldn’t take away an individual’s ability to reason for themselves, providing they were stable to begin with, which is often associated with true brainwashing. Therefore, I would say the game is an indoctrination tool rather than a brainwashing device.

via GamePolitics

As a United States Army combat veteran, I thought that I might find ‘America’s Army: True Soldiers’ for the Xbox 360 to be an enjoyable experience. I thought wrong. Every once in a while I play a game that is so bad that I wish I could just throw it out the window and pretend like I never played it. If we were permitted to drop expletives in our articles, I’d break out some old Army terms to describe how terrible this game was. Reviewing games is typically an extremely fun job, but this time around it felt like work.

There’s really not much that can be said about this game other than the fact that it’s a lousy …(insert 50 f-bombs and other random curse words here) game! I’ll start with a few positive aspects of the game, but the positive section will be a quick read.
Read the full article »