UK Ministry of Defense Improves War Games For Console Generation 102
hypnosec writes "The UK Ministry of Defense (MoD) has begun updating its Battlespace2 and other simulations to bring them in line with commercial wargames like Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3. Andrew Poulter heads up the technical team behind the war-game and said that while back in the '80s and '90s, military simulations were state of the art, today they have fallen far behind commercial alternatives in terms of graphics and plot. With that in mind, the MoD has been investing heavily in what's known as 'Project Kite' (knowledge information test environment), designed to bring the training software to the forefront of military shooters. Some of this is down to the current generation of new recruits having been raised on shooter titles from both the Call of Duty and Battlefield series. This means they've gotten used to high-quality first-person shooter games. Taking a step down in graphics and immersion is hardly a way to train a soldier how to react in certain situations."
realistic training (Score:2, Informative)
If you want to see some of the training being conducted with Virtual Battlespace2, check out: http://www.youtube.com/tbocsims
America's Army: Operations (Score:2, Informative)
AA:O completely took me by surprise many years ago. Who thought that the US Army of all things would produce a tactical shooter that was ACTUALLY good!?
Of course, being the geniuses they are, they managed to fuck it up, though it did take a little while. The Special Forces patch is where, after that, it started to really go downhill. It stopped being a 'video game' and became just a 'promotional tool'. Which it always was, but that's still not an excuse to let quality bottom out...
The problem: They hired an actual game dev studio, then fired them as soon as the game was done. They have done this many times. This is NOT how you make and support a video game.
A shame all in all. I still look fondly back on those days. They really had something special. Getting to shoot(and shoot beside) real military personnel was also greatness. =D