Went to an air show this past weekend, and they had this setup there. We waited in line for about an hour to get in.
It was pretty cool. We were playing AA3 (America's Army 3). But, instead of mice and keyboards or even X-Box type controlers, you got inside mock-ups of Hum-V's (sp?), Black Hawks and a troop transport vehicle (Striker, I think). They have M4 rifles mounted on swing arms and large screens surrounding your field of vision. You are given a mission breifing about how you have to get your convoy up to the medical facility that is being over ran by hostile forces. You are of course instructed to not fire on civilian and freindly units and briefed on what you can expect to run in to. Naturally, lots of enemy contact was expected. My son and I were assigned to the blackhawk to provide air support to the vehicles on the ground. We were the only two in the Black Hawk. All other players were put in the ground vehicles.
When the game started, we were already airborn with the convoy down below. An NPC voice would sometimes warn us of enemy units. Kind of like the pilot or co-pilot calling out what they see. We focused on the higher targets, like guys on the roofs and hill sides. Then we'd hit targets ahead of the convoy. We were very careful to not hit civilian targets. You could see the troops in the vehicles trying to kill them though. They shot at anything that would move. They were too far away for us to yell out corrections to them. We'd just laugh and call them morons. The game continues with arial targets (enemy helecopters), SAM sites and things like that. The ground troops getting hit from inside building and stuff like that. I think we were doing a pretty darn good job at arial support being that most targets were eliminated before the convoy was in the hostile's view. The convoy makes it to the medical facility and the NPC voice announces that the medical teams were heading to the convoy for extraction. A few moments later, a line of people came out of the building with a big Red Cross on the side of it. All of the ground vehicles opened fire. Friggin' duh. I pointed out what was happening and my son indicated that he saw it and was shaking his head. Then, from high left a helicopter roared into view. I immediately identified it as another Black Hawk. So, I held my fire. Then it fired!! Missles were away. So I'm like "What the hell?!?" So, I open fire thinking I had made a mistake with my identification. Missles were exploding on the ground and I keep firing. My son asks me "What are you doing?" And that's when I see that the Black Hawk had taken out the bridge keeping the hostiles from coming in. Oops. Oh well.
Over all, it was pretty damn cool. The guns used compressed air to simulate recoil and sound. The swing arms were somewhat restrictive, but not too bad.
I highly recommend that those with the means get this game. Honestly, this would probably trump a home theater at my house. Meaning, instead of spending 10k on a mini theater, I would so install this system.
After playing, they gave you a free CD of AA3 (granted, it's free for everyone, but I have a CD!). I was disappointed that all the CD had on it was an installer that downloads the game. . . . 3.25GB. I'm downloading it though. Now, to just find some cheap M4 controllers and 3 large screen projection systems.