Recent reviews by X-root

This is one amazing game!

The story:
it is simply incredible, the amount of bullsh*t is being poured on a cubic meter of your brain would be a real successful comedy if it would be delivered with the sense of humor of such titles Serious Sam, but it keeps coming at you with such confidence and seriousness, then you just feel like whoever has written this scenario managed to convince you that you are a complete idiot.

Gameplay:
- weapons, I just don't know why there are 4 kinds of firearms, as the automatic rifle is the only weapon that is usable and if there were no special ammo for a specific weapon, there would be no point in having them at all.
- melee combat is done OK, but too basic in my opinion, block-hit several times, block again and repeat till the target is dead.
- special powers and moves are ineffective and useless in most cases.
- boss fights are more annoying than fun as they keep doing the same thing over and over.
- the difficulty again is more annoying than challenging, as when you don't know the pattern you die a lot as you can't really see what is more dangerous at the moment, the enemy can shoot at you and don't hit or do much damage, but then for some reason will kill you very fast, and when you know the pattern of the attack, it's only matter of time when you will defeat the boss and not even their special attacks and tricks make any difference.
- graphics are very good, the picture is pleasing to the eye
- sounds are OK

Overall:
I was disappointed in this game and can't really recommend it to others, but that doesn't mean you will not like it.

I was a big fan of AA series, was playing America's Army since the firs version of 1.1+, then stick almost till the end of it, through AA:Operations and so on. I was playing America's Army III a lot too, al though it was far away from a good game in terms of implementation and quality.
America's Army: Proving Grounds was really good in closed beta, how ever it did looked like another cheep free to play game at first glance, but that impresion was only at the beginning. The game mechanics were mooth and there were no problems or major bugs, witch was really surprising knowing the long history of rusty and bugy frame of it's predesessors.
The open beta and launch was also fun, but there was a problem that developers, in my opinion, didn't know where to go with the meta of the game and were trying to pick from devided community of "new players" and the "old veterans" of AA:O. Again in my opinion, the game in the end had shifted to fast paced CS like environment and lost it's charm and originality in the process, witch I find a real shame.

I played this game over 1000 raw hours, cince I am a fan of AA and am still the opinion that America's Army (the 1st game) was the best online tactical team shooter of all times. I played the firs game over 2000 hours.

The main issue for me, that AA:PB lost is it's tactical element, since maps begant to be more crampt and big open maps were not considered animore. Allowing rapid movement and fire, it all was redused to a fast paced duels instead of a planning and tactical aproach that it had in the beginning. The operation time had reduesed segnificantly in the process instead of 10-8 minutes it became 6-4 or even less.

Another interesting and unique thing witch I and a lot of other players found really cool was lost in a process. Earlier when planting a bomb was introduesed to the game, the team that had to prevent the plant could recover the bomb from an eliminated solgier and disarm it on spot. In other words there was a lot of thing you had to keep in mind. The location of the bomb carrier, and seroundings along the plant zone. The assault team with the bomb needed to split in two teams, one would safe keep the bomb and another would try to prob the plant zones for resistence. The deffending team also could split in to several teams in order to form a deffence and prepare flanking manuvers. Spotting and reporting a bomb carier to your team was a big help. This was almost like VIP mission, where VIP was a bomb and if you lost it and enemy team destroyed it or disarmed it in the process you lose.

I still hope that the good old AA will reemerged some day in a new tytle, but for now, if you are in a favore of tactical team play shooter, sadly this game is not for you.

I only play this game in Simulator Mode (SB) and mostly Tank&Plane mixed battles. So all of my comments below will be referring to this fact.

This game is one of it's kind. Not only does it looks amazing and feels if you on the battlefield, but it also provides a good teamwork experience.
You drive your tank among other friendly units and somewhere ahead are your enemies waiting for you or trying to flank your position. After a few minutes of the battle the only way to tell a friend from a foe is to memories and learn to identify friendly and enemy vehicles, as there are no markers on the any of the tanks or planes you see.
If you are playing with your friends you need to place some decals on your tank for them to identify you from the rest of the crowd. This is actually the best way to use different options available to you of customizing your tank.

There are no HP (hit points) bar on your thank. The tank model is somewhat more complex and it allows to one-shot your opponent or be shotted on several times and still be able to fight. You have modules like engine, transmission, gun parts, fuel tanks and other parts accompanied by your crew members. All of this is packed inside an armor. On different vehicles the armor is different in thickness its position and angel. So in order to take out an enemy tank fast you need to aim at the right spots, where you will be able to take out all of the crew members or detonate a fuel tank or its ammo. If the target lack in armor it is easier to penetrate, but it doesn't mean that it is easier to destroy since if you will be footing randomly your shells can just go through it without inflicting any damage to the crew or modules.

You can also take a plane and drop a bomb on the enemy tank if you have the skill to do it, flying is not easy, but it is so rewarding. But the best part is playing as a team as air and ground units. Tanks dominate the battlefield and planes support them by reconnaissance and taking out hard to get targets on the ground or other planes in the air. Tanks also have capacity to assist planes with their MGs if there are no anti-air units in your team.

Everything counts in this game, aim, positioning, reading the battlefield and communication in the team. I used to play the good old Americas Army and this game reminds me of the good days.

If you like a good shooting game with a team play potential you should try this one as it's free and there is no Pay to play or Pay to Win factor..