Rise of a Soldier also puts a great deal of focus on combat tactics. If you try to power through the game using basic run-and-gun techniques, you'll end up with little more than a ride home in a body bag. Strategy is the key here. You'll need to coordinate your efforts to survive each mission, and work as a part of a unit with the rest of your Fire Team. Admittedly, the AI on both sides of the firefight isn't always the greatest. Sometimes troops will make some boneheaded maneuvers, like rushing out of cover too soon or not provided the much needed cover fire. However, these AI quirks never get to the point where they detract from the overall experience. In fact, in some cases, it actually makes the game feel more human.

As far as presentation goes, Rise is a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, the graphics don't seem quite as polished as many other games on the market. Some of the textures could stand to be cleaned up a bit, and some of the animations feel a bit forced. On the other hand, watching the characters work in battle, from the way they hold their guns to the way they execute their attacks, it's easy to see that the Army put a lot of effort into faithfully recreating the soldiers. The sounds in the game are a lot more straightforward, realistically representing exactly what you'd expect to hear as a soldier in the Army.


The game offers up a solid multiplayer component over Xbox Live. Up to 16 players can participate in a single game, divided into two Fire Teams of up to eight players each. One unique aspect is that, much like in the real world, there are no extra lives. Once you're killed, you're dead. The rest of your team will have to make due without you. If you're killed early on, this can make for a long wait in some matches, but it adds another level of realism to the game. The games all run at a respectable pace and in all my games online, I never once hit any latency issues.

Considering America's Army started off as little more than a clever recruitment tool, it's surprising that so much effort has gone into creating a quality game. And while the gaming public will have to pay for the console version (as opposed to the PC's free download), the experience is well worth shelling out the money. If you're in the market for a realistic take on the military shooter genre, Rise of a Soldier deserves a good look.