Game: "America's Army."

Platform: Windows 98/ME/2000/XP, Macintosh OS X, Linux.

Developer/publisher: U.S. Army.

Genre: Multiplayer first-person shooter.

Number of players: One to 26.

ESRB: T for teen.

The premise: This game is a free download from the Army that "ships" with the full production values of a big-budget retail title and is the fifth most popular online PC game. There's some controversy as to whether it's a recruitment device, but "America's Army" is more accurately described as a public-relations tool targeting the new online generation, with the core values of integrity and teamwork emphasized at every turn.

Gameplay: Before playing online, you must complete training missions that simulate a new soldier's visit to basic training and the firing range. Your results are saved to your account, and you can then "deploy" via online gaming. Further training includes medical and paratrooper abilities, and good game play is rewarded by "honor points" that qualify you for special forces training, entitling you to use additional weapons and play in special maps.

The maps are objective-based, and realism is emphasized. Your weapon must be reloaded when empty, and it will even occasionally jam. The damage modeling is complex, and only a few well-placed bullets will bring your character down, causing you to ponder your mistakes as you wait up to 10 minutes (usually less) for the scenario to come to an end so you can play again. The result is a game that penalizes solo rushing and rewards cooperative squad play and strategic camping.

The good/bad: Epic's Unreal engine is under the hood, and this game is one of its best implementations — you're getting the power of "Unreal Tournament 2004" for free. You're also getting developer support that no retail title can match. Launched in 2002, "America's Army" has been continually upgraded with conscientious monitoring of users' feedback. Better yet, the future looks bright as "America's Army" looks to leap to the next-generation Unreal Engine 3, with vast improvements in lighting, physics and other effects — and yes, this, too, will be free.

Tips: Enjoy training as part of the game play. After you get a feel for the essential controls, read the PDF manual to learn how to qualify for different abilities and weapons, as well as how to use teamwork functions such as voice binds and hand signals.

My take: You can't go wrong with a free product that is every bit as good as a big-budget retail game, although the action may seem somewhat slow for players of other shooters. The current version is 2.40 for Windows. Download it (855Mb) or learn more at www.americasarmy.com. Mac and Linux releases lag by a few months, and now stand at version 2.30, temporarily splitting the online community — downloads for these platforms are also available at the developer's site at www.icculus.org.

Robert Uyeyama, a University of Hawai'i-Manoa graduate student, is the founder of the Macintosh game site Macologist.org.