A new version of the America’s Army videogame is now available for the Macintosh. Version 2.3 is now available for download. The release of America’s Army v2.3 for Macintosh was delayed as the programmer found a suitable replacement for GameSpy, the game matching technology found in earlier versions.
America’s Army is an online, squad-based tactical shooter made by the U.S. Army, and it’s available as a free download. Built on the same game engine as recent Unreal Tournament games, America’s Army puts you in the role of one of several army specialists as you learn about the real-life tactics and techniques used by the modern soldier.
Previous releases of America’s Army relied on a game matching technology called GameSpy in order to put gamers in touch with each other over the Internet. But recent licensing changes made by GameSpy made further use of the software untenable for the Macintosh version. Ryan Gordon — a freelance game programmer responsible for the Mac conversion of America’s Army and a number of other titles in recent years — delayed releasing this update until a replacement was found. Of the replacement, the developer notes:
” This version of ArmyOps doesn’t use GameSpy; it’s got a simple replacement system in place, but it’s not very robust. We are aware of the issues with it. If the in-game browser can’t find pings for any servers, please make sure UDP port 14200 is open on your firewall. Bug reports can be submitted to https://bugzilla.icculus.org/.”
Beyond the GameSpy replacement, changes in the 2.3 release include two new multiplayer missions called Urban Assault and Woodland Outpost; a new Tournament Mode for competitive gaming, and new security enhancements and protections.
System requirements for America’s Army 2.3 include a G4/700MHz or faster, 256MB RAM, 1GB hard disk space and ATI Radeon 7500 or Nvidia GeForce2 MX or better 3D graphics.