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First Person Shooters (Games) PC Games (Games) Entertainment Games

Danish Psychiatrists To Use Counter-Strike 54

Posted by simoniker from the subjects-get-lost-on-way-to-computer? dept.
Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to a Boomtown.net article discussing a Danish hospital's use of Counter-Strike in tests regarding long-term depression. According to the article, experts "..will develop a special version of Counter-Strike for the [Aarhus psychiatric] hospital, which is ripped of all violent content, but still retains its unique 3D design.. Senior doctor Poul Videbech wants to use the maps for testing the navigational skills of patients, who have suffered from severe depression over a long time." Fraggin' awesome.
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Danish Psychiatrists To Use Counter-Strike More

Danish Psychiatrists To Use Counter-Strike

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  • hmmmm (Score:5, Funny)

    by pizza_milkshake ( 580452 ) on Tuesday July 22, 2003 @01:53PM (#6501612)
    a Danish hospital's use of Counter-Strike in tests regarding long-term depression.

    whenever i play CS i get more depressed (i suck)

  • interesting (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I spent the better part of my life severely depressed, roughly from 1st or 2nd grade all the way through HS. I'm now 24.

    No, I'm not a pathetic web surfer pouring my heart out to slapdash :)

    The interesting thing is, I have _extremely_ poor navigation skills, both IRL and in *FPSes.

    BTW, happy, happily married, etc. these days.

    posted as AC because I don't talk about my personal life on teh Interweb.

    * it is my only weakness! Once I overcome it, I will 0wnX0r j00!

  • What about using Serious Sam on depressed people? The lame humor in those games should resonate on the depressed.

  • Might be useful in mental institutions and prisons (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mnmn ( 145599 ) on Tuesday July 22, 2003 @02:02PM (#6501706) Homepage
    CS gives a kind of virtual freedom that captivates the person and time passes by fast. The sames true with MMORPGs but in a different way. I could see CS kiosks in mental institutions with patients fragging the hell online players and being regular clanmembers. Much better than staring at the blank walls and flat nurses anyway.

    CS also makes for an excellent relief of anger and control, and it takes mental energy to really own a good team. Such exercises, if not portrayed too violent, could improve the quality of life for the casterated ones among us.

  • Why Counter-Strike? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by breon.halling ( 235909 ) on Tuesday July 22, 2003 @02:07PM (#6501757)

    From the article: The game engine that Counter-Strike is based upon is extremely good for modelling buildings and visualising architecture compared to the alternatives on the market, Christian Güttler told the news-bureau Ritzau.

    I'm just wondering why he's using Counter-Strike in particular. Why not just the plain vanilla Half-Life engine? Or even still, the Quake or Quake II engine, which are open-source and can be changed to meet one's needs.

    Has Counter-Strike changed the Half-Life engine dramatically?

    • Counterstrike is just a mod for half-life. I don't think they changed it at all. When you buy it, I believe your just buying a retarded copy of Half-Life, and a CD-Key.
      • There have been some modifications to the engine done for CS, especially in texture-resolution, model skinning and a few physics enhancements IIRC. But nothing that could affect the way it works well to model or depict architecture in any way. I just guess they took the CS engine because it's probably easier to modify (more documentation perhaps?).
    • I'm just wondering why he's using Counter-Strike in particular. Why not just the plain vanilla Half-Life engine?

      I believe it may have something to do with Mr. Güttler's Master's Thesis [private.dk]. He's probably a bit biased towards CS after that.

  • Virtual environments can help... (Score:5, Informative)

    by jordanda ( 160179 ) on Tuesday July 22, 2003 @02:11PM (#6501783) Homepage
    ...with psychological disorders. Virtual treatment for phobias [washington.edu] has been shown to have a positive effect.

    • Perhaps... but (Score:3, Interesting)

      by nortcele ( 186941 )

      ...with psychological disorders. Virtual treatment for phobias has been shown to have a positive effect.

      With weapons, Counter-Strike would be a major downer for these guys. I remember my newbie experience. Went online and got my butt shot off by some guy called "The Pope". Now I'm not Catholic, but... being killed repeatedly by "The Pope"!? Yes, it left a scar.

      Without weapons, it will still cause depression. These guys will get stuck in some level and unable to get out, will wrap the mouse cord

      • Without weapons, it will still cause depression. These guys will get stuck in some level and unable to get out, will wrap the mouse cord around their neck.
        That's why they use cordless mice (and keyboards).
      • Could be worse. Upon starting to play Medieval: Total war, the Pope sent assassins after me for 20 turns straight.

        I mean, geez! What kind of a Pope uses assassins?

  • Nice to see it catching on (Score:3, Interesting)

    by kyz ( 225372 ) on Tuesday July 22, 2003 @02:13PM (#6501808) Homepage
    When I was in university, one of the things I worked on was the Psychology department's computer visualisation system. They had made a 3D map of the department and got people who lose spacial awareness and forget where they are to perform tasks like "fetch something from room 21B and return to the coffee area".

    They used SGI's Inventor system on an Onyx machine at that time, not a PC game engine.

  • Reading the article didn't help (Score:3, Funny)

    by M3wThr33 ( 310489 ) on Tuesday July 22, 2003 @02:14PM (#6501821) Homepage
    I guess this guy is lazy. Rather than use ANY raycasting engine with ANY other game, he just took the source to CS, stripped out the guns, and wants to watch retards amble around De_dust and Cs_cock.
  • I think being constantly pwnage by l33t awpwhores using aimbots through walls would cause these mental patients to be even more depressed!
  • I try real hard to see value in any project, but wow...this is pretty nuts (no pun intended). Why not research how depressed people socially interact on the internet, or how they react in relationships? I am sure any of us could come up with a number of much more interesting and beneficial studies. Let's assume he finds people with depression have significantly worse navigational skills. Then what? You haven't improved their lives at all. What do you tell them? I am sorry you are depressed, but don't

  • Noooo (Score:4, Funny)

    by Scooter ( 8281 ) <owen@ann[ ]ova.force9.net ['icn' in gap]> on Tuesday July 22, 2003 @02:24PM (#6501915)
    Whenever I play Half Speed, Camperstrike, or is it Quiet Life? I get more depressed!! You spend 10 minutes hiding behind a box and then someone snipes the 1 pixel that's showing using 1 of the 10 types of er.. railgun that the game has (sure it has chainguns etc, but you ever see anyone frag anything with it? - It's an A team special chaingun - the bullets don't do any damage..) All the damn guns that work are sniper efforts - railguns. It's bloomin Half Speed Instagib I tell ya!

    All that creeping about and hiding - and when you do try and run, your man moves like his pants are round his ankles. CS is the only game I've found I can play whilst having a smoke, eating me dinner or reading a book - and it makes very little difference to the outcome.

    If you take out the violence - how will you kill off those annoying hostage thingies that constantly get in your way?

    That was the problem with Half a Life single player - I played it for 5 minutes: it involved endless scientists and they had neglected to issue me with a firearm! (some excuse about them being on my side or something).

    Give them 3Wave Capturestrike - pure full on carnage with no tedious camping behind crates.

    I must go now - I have a rocket launcher to strip down and clean :-]]
  • If a patient discovers wall-hacking will they think he's The One?
  • a special version of Counter-Strike for the [Aarhus psychiatric] hospital, which is ripped of all violent content

    So you're just gonna walk around de_dust all day?
  • I'm thinking that if they used Postal 2 right out of the box then the depressed might feel better after playing. Give someone who's depressed a chance to walk freely around a virtual community, killing innocent civilians, causing mayhem within a parade, flame torching elephants, and pissing on all those previously mentioned could be the equivalent of virtual prozac. The obvious plus is lower health care costs as passed on to the consumer...you.

    Maybe they should test this with US Postal employees first?
  • Yeah, just wait until one of the patients gets a hold of a wall-hack:

    "Yes, we know that you killed 47 people on your axe-murdering rampage, but you are certifiably SANE. Your Counter-strike scores prove it. What's that you say? Redrum? Ahh, hmmm. Well, anyway, you're free to go."
  • [quote]
    "...will develop a special version of Counter-Strike [...] which is ripped of all violent content,...
    [/quote]

    How do they expect to do that? The whole point of CS is to overcome violence with violence. Is this some new expression of quantum computing? "If we don't look at CS, it's not violent!"
  • The ceering up part comes from blowing stuff away!

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