Americans have two things to be happy about today - the coronation of King Obama and the announcement that their tax dollars are going to fund another recruiting tool for the US Army, who have announced that America's Army 3 will be coming for the PC in 2009:

AA3 highlights different aspects of the Army from Army Values and the Warrior Ethos to Army career opportunities and lifestyles both on and off duty. Through their in-game characters, AA3 players will be able to experience the way Soldiers train, live, and advance in the Army. AA3 players will also experience different types of technologies and equipment used by the Army's high-tech Soldier. Players are bound by Rules of Engagement (ROE) and gain experience as they navigate challenges in team-based, multiplayer, force on force operations. In the game, as in the Army, accomplishing missions requires teamwork and adherence to the seven Army Core Values. In the game, a player's actions and demonstrated Army values will have consequences that are integral to success in gameplay and will affect a player's career progression.

The press release has more information. Jokes aside, America's Army is a realistic FPS that is a surprisingly solid multiplayer action title and is well worth a look if you haven't played it before (even if their new distribution system sucks). You can download the deploy client and check it out (it'll download another ~3gb of data).

I played a fair bit of the original america's army and it was a solid game.

3gb holy f***.

Yeah, AA was a great game until the deploy crap came out.

one thing this game missed most was the ability to frag your commanding officer

and the ability to watch your best friend die, get hooked on drugs and return to a country that hates you