PLA Develops First Person Shooter With US Troops as Targets 395
An anonymous reader tipped us to a People's Daily story about the (Chinese) People's Liberation Army's new shoot-em-up game with US soldiers as targets, and that story led us to a more complete description of the Glorious Revolution game at the Daily Mail, which includes a nice video (in Chinese, of course) toward the bottom of the article that shows how the game looks in action.
Lots of other games (Score:3, Informative)
have done this. You can shoot US soldiers in Battlefield if you play the other team. In fact, I prefer playing the MEC in BF2 because the sniper weapon is just better. Not sure why this is news, other than getting censorship blowhards and right-wing nuts agitated. I'm sure we'll see this on Fox News tonight wrapped in a typical "Are liberals to blame" bullshit.
Is it Really US Troops? (Score:5, Informative)
I can't quite listen to the Chinese audio since I'm at work, but based on the video alone, is it really against American troops? I only saw very generic urban warfare tactics in a very generic Chinese city and a very generic set of bunkers and pillboxes. The only "indication" that it was against American troops was a very fuzzy helicopter that might be an Apache or might be something else entirely.
In any case, so what? We in the US has been playing games where the Chinese Army was the antagonist for ages. Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising and Battlefield 2 are two that I can name off the top of my head.
Re:Not convinced... (Score:2, Informative)
Nowhere in that video did I hear anything about the US being the enemies. Actually it sounds like this is a PLA developed game for PLA soldiers (for training... or however military forces justify making video games these days).
I would assume that the enemies are 'OPFOR'. There is a scene with an Apache(?) going down, but frankly that could be an allied aircraft; what are the chances you will ever hear that spin in the west.
That is how the Chinese view us. (Score:2, Informative)
It's just a game people - time to teach the imperial dogs a lesson! ;)
Yes, the Chinese people do believe that we're imperialists - and I can't really blame them. We do, after all, have military bases all over the World, two wars and military support in the Middle East, control of NATO, and pretty much a military that rivals several countries put together.
Bad summary: No US troops, only a drill (Score:5, Informative)
The game is named Glorious Mission, or sometimes Mission of Honor, not Glorious Revolution, and the plot follows a soldier's life through military camp and cumulates in the eponymous large-scale drill, as reported by China Daily [chinadaily.com.cn]. No US Troops anywhere.
It also supports 32 person multiplayer. You can watch footages of the game on YouTube here [youtube.com].
Re:Not surprising (Score:2, Informative)
Can they make us pay it all in one sitting if they wanted to? Bonds can't be redeemed until the maturity date, can they? Kind of like a bank can't make you pay off your mortgage all at once. The agreed terms have defined pay back times.
Re:Not surprising (Score:4, Informative)
...And you don't think *that* would lead to a major war?
Not when we need to borrow money to pay for it.
Re:Is it Really US Troops? (Score:4, Informative)
Well, technically, after all we're talking about a communist country, whether it's a company or government doesn't matter since they are the same.
Re:Not surprising (Score:3, Informative)
Not Chinese, but American Army is pretty damn close as it's made by US Army. You're always playing US soldier and shooting down some middle east guys. And always meaning it doesn't mean which side you play with, you always see yourself as US Army and the other ones as middle east guys.
Re:Not surprising (Score:3, Informative)
While I agree with you on the economic front, China would have difficulties if they tried something like getting Kim to invade the South. North Korea's military is something of a joke technologically speaking, relying on numbers. Their most advanced aircraft are a few dozen MiG-29s, and the remainder are 1970s and older aircraft. Their armor is even older than what the allied forces faced in Desert Storm. Besides, it's not in China's economic interest. Remember that message that was released by Wikileaks about China's thoughts on North Korea? While they see an advantage in having North Korea as a barrier between China and US forces, they're OK with South Korea running the entire peninsula, too, provided it comes about by peaceful means in large part because they don't want to deal with the refugee influx.
A Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be similarly disastrous. China does not have the landing capacity required to perform an invasion of the island. About eight or nine years ago, there was a paper published in China talking about how it could commandeer fishing boats, ferries, and other civilian vessels to cross enough soldiers for an invasion. The losses, however, would be extraordinarily high, and it's not at all certain that China could obtain air superiority over the island, or if it did, that it could retain it, particularly once US forces get involved. Maybe in 15 years they could (and that may be what the slow build-up of a blue-water navy is about), but not right in the immediate future.
Re:Not surprising (Score:4, Informative)
There used to be a lot of races in China, most have been "ethnically cleansed" by the Han. The Han race is China is the Peoples Communist Party. Maybe things will go well, but they are pretty close to the Nazi party in the late 20's, so my hopes are definitely not up.
Re:Not surprising (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Not surprising (Score:5, Informative)
The recently released FPS game Home Front features the PLA as the enemy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homefront_(video_game) [wikipedia.org]
In fact, I would hazard a guess that this new game pitching the US as the enemy is a direct response to Home Front.
Re:Not surprising (Score:4, Informative)
Per your link, the enemy in Home Front is not China, it's North Korea.
"The antagonists in Homefront were originally intended to be Chinese, but were later replaced by a unified Korea for two reasons: a possible backlash by the Chinese Ministry of Culture and the reality of economic interdependence between America and China that made the Chinese "not that scary"[8] said Tae Kim, a former CIA field agent and consultant on the game's backstory."