Born On The 4th Of July

American gamers will be able to celebrate independence day in style this year by joining the army and shooting terrorists. Yes, the Unreal-engined Operations portion of America's Army is getting a suitably patriotic send-off, with a July 4th release on the cards. To quote the Army's website, "what better way to celebrate America's freedom then [sic] by downloading and playing Operations: Defend Freedom". As reported previously, this half of the cunningly disguised recruitment drive is a Counter-Strike style teamplay game where up to 32 players battle it out online with realistic weapons, each side believing that they are the good guys thanks to some technical tomfoolery. Reactions to the game when it was demonstrated at the E3 trade show in Los Angeles last month were apparently very positive, and with the backing of the US Army it's sure to score highly on authenticity. Could this be the new Counter-Strike? Will there be a way to switch off friendly fire? And will the Army release the dedicated server code so we aren't all stuck playing on the official US servers? All should become clear soon, and as the game will be free to download it won't cost you anything except time and phone bills to find out the answers... Related Feature - Operation Patriotic Video Game