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Games Entertainment

Army Funds Game Development 176

Posted by timothy from the army-of-at-least-one dept.
winter@ES writes: "The U.S. Army is teaming up with Sony, Pandemic Studios, and Quicksilver software to develop a pair of squad-level combat games. Through the Institute for Creative Technologies (jointly operated by the U.S. Army and the University of SOCAL) the Army will be funding and developing "C-Force", targetted for next-gen consoles, and "CS-12" for PCs. The project is headed up by Mech Warrior veteran, Rob Sears."
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Army Funds Game Development More

Army Funds Game Development

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  • dear god (Score:5, Funny)

    by motherhead ( 344331 ) on Friday October 26, 2001 @03:54AM (#2482434)
    I hope the kinder dosent try rocket-jumping with LAWS portable rocket launchers...
  • They aren't trying to train people. They just want to get people interested in joining the army. The army funds and helps several movies which make them look good too. Not a new practice. Top gun for example.
  • Why not use DeltaForce Landwarrior?
    It has the most realistic Voxel-engine for 3d terrains. The scenario editor could be used to create their own missions.

    • Why not use Delta Force Landwarrior?

      The only reason I can think of is that Delta Force is probably not quite what they are looking for. The article mentions the ability to command a squad of people, Delta Force doesn't have this ability. Yes you can play in a team but with no good system for orders. For that you need to look at games like Rouge Spear, or SWAT3. Both of these have floors but at least they try to include an element of planning and group work with the computer

      Yes the ballistics and terrain in Delta Force are great, long range fire is effected by wind, and the bullets have fairly realistic flight paths but... People can run up stupidly steep hills, snipers can run for ages, drop to prone and instantly have a steady scope (hardly realistic). There is no team command and some things are sacrificed for playability, primarily the enemy AI. Those guys are sooooo easy to kill (unless you are playing on fog when they seem to be able to see about twice as far as you can which is very anoying), you can walk into a building and they just sit there watch you kill them, and they don't run away! I mean come on if you had killed all but one of a team of 8 people from a distance with a sniper's rife, would you really expect the 8th guy just to sit there and get killed?

      If they want people to learn real world lessons from these games then they need serious AI, take a lesson from Shogun, in real life people can get scared, people can question orders that they don't think are reasonable.. and you can change those orders once the mission has started (unlike Rogue Spear). Enemy sqauds need to break and seek cover when they are attacked rather than just kneeling down.

      Delta Force is a wonderfull game with a good balance between the real world and playability, it is great fun to play. But having said that it doesn't really fullfil the critiria of squad command etc. You can't perform any mission planning before starting the game, you can't plan your own attack, and you can't decide what time of day to attack. These are all things that need to be included in a game which teaches commanders not just foot soldiers

    • The problems with delta force are many. They would not be good 'training'. If you consider training to consist of 'spot the moving pixel' and 'save and retry' then maybe. It's too easy to spot soldiers moving. In real life, you might not see them. Also, the map shows which way everyone is facing. don't think you have that luxury in the field. Then you have your grenades that go straight out and land just wherever, with very little planning on your part. Also, the ability to pick up whole guns and not just the clip...

      Anyway, there are lots of problems with Delta Force (even Landwarrior) but the most significant one is the fact that it doesn't support squads. Hell, half the missions you're just trying to catch up to your 'support'. The guy runs to the edge of the camp, shoots one person, then everyone in the camp is aware of his position and start laying the smack down. we're only lucky they don't require your team to live!

      Anyway, i don't think it'd work well. besides, the game is fun but very pixelated. those single pixels you end up shooting... not good combat training. 'oh crap, someone is shooting at me, i'll stand stock still and will only move if they hit me.'

  • Why just squad-level combat games? (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Train solders with Tuxracer also. Could be useful if Bin Laden is hiding in the Himalayas.
  • They will sell those combatgames to your kids, let the console call home to the US Army and then hire the kids who have greatest score's.

    Quazion.... paranoid like hell... ;)

  • WarGames? (Score:4, Funny)

    by tonywestonuk ( 261622 ) on Friday October 26, 2001 @04:04AM (#2482454)

    Shall we play a game?

    Global Thermo-Nuclear War

    Would you not prefer a game of Chess?

    No, Lets play Global Thermo-Nuclear War

    OK.... Please select primary targets....

    etc etc etc....

  • Hmm.... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by mberman ( 93546 )
    Interesting that one day the government is blaming violent games for every problem the youth of today ever have, and, the next, they're paying for the most realistic killing game ever...

    I wonder who'll get blamed next time there's a Columbine-like incident...
    • I wonder who'll get blamed next time there's a Columbine-like incident...

      The chinese-taliban*-hacker-OSS-communist-marilyn-mans on-maffia!

      * new category!

      Cheers...

  • Given how long military pilots have been using flight simulators, it makes sense that there would be a similar type of computerized Risk game for commanders. It will be interesting to see the crossover between the military use of it, and the commercial / retail aspect of it. Where Hollywood fits into this, other than through its ownership of the software firm in question, is a bit sketchy to me - that article is pretty hokey IMHO.

    Of course, the whole thing kinda reminds me of when the Marine Corps used DOOM II to train 4-man fire teams. [army.mil]
    • Such a game and crossover already exists in Decisive Action [hpssims.com]. The game is used by the Army's Command and General Staff College [army.mil]. It was developed there first and was then published for the retail market. It's serious wargaming so don't expect flashy graphics.

      It's reviewed in further detail in the November 2001 issue of PC Gamer. Sorry, no online copy. Like I said, it's a serious wargame so they didn't put up an online copy of the review.

    • There is. =)

      It's called 'Battle Command Staff Training'. There's several systems involved, playing various things including logistics, combat, etc, but on the HQ level they actually just have to do the maps and radio the commands to their subordinates, who are 'players' in the scenario.

      http://www.usarc.army.mil/91div/ (currently down) is the of the units that does this kind of stuff, especially 1st brigade.

      =)

      As for tactical training? I'm playing way too much return to castle wolfenstein. *grin* Fun squad level fragfest!
      • Hate replying to myself... but here's a few more links.

        This is the staff level sim overview - lots of links here, of course.
        http://www-leav.army.mil/nsc/famsim/

        I'll highlight a few we use. *grin*

        'BBS'(Battalion/Brigade Battle Simulation) is one of the systems used. This is mostly a 'battle' sim.
        http://www-leav.army.mil/nsc/famsim/bbs/index.ht m

        'SPECTRUM' concentrates on missions other than war, as well as supply problems.
        http://www-leav.army.mil/nsc/famsim/spectrum/ind ex .htm

        These systems can also bring training to remote sites, so the exercised headquarters can actually be conducting other field training as they conduct their exercise. (Think leased lines, etc, to a 'sim center' located elsewhere)

    • That site is a spec on the game, here is a site where you can download the Marine Doom add-on:

      http://www.cybernetic.co.uk/marine.htm [cybernetic.co.uk]
  • Except it's not, I forget the name of the movie, you know the one. (Where the kid plays in a space invaders stylie game only to win and be taken off to a galaxy far far away to do it for real.)

    Art mirrors life mirroring art.
  • Get every army troop to train with counter-strike for a few months, and the US could comb Afghanistan for bin Laden with bunny hoppers armed with just desert eagles - problem solved!

  • That game also allows players to engage in broadbased direct combat situations, with the underlying theme being a battle against insurgents in the Middle East.
    Riiiight, I wonder how long before our Islamic friends are airling screen cams of digital Americans storming into a room and shooting cardboard cut-outs of people with crecents painted on their chests.

  • oh lord (Score:4, Funny)

    by jbarket ( 530468 ) on Friday October 26, 2001 @04:20AM (#2482480)
    just what we need.. half of the army running around screaming 'w00t'

    • just what we need.. half of the army running around screaming 'w00t'

      Or 'Shazbot!' depending on whatever your particular flavor of game is.

      Is it just me, or am I strongly reminded of the Robin Williams movie Toys?

  • While modern games and gaming consoles can definitely increase your heartrate, I guess it's not quite the same as crawling around in a 2-foot tunnel looking for a guy who's gonna blow himself if you find him.
  • I hope the computers wont have names like... WOPR
  • Are we talking THE Quicksilver, the makers of the classic 3D Ant Attack ?

    I shudder to think how far their 3D engine had improved in 15 years time.....wow Ant Attack was the Tomb Raider of its day (and on a SInclair/Timex ZX Spectrum).

    All they need is Rare (Ultimate Play the Game) on board and i'll be in retro heaven

  • As long as it's not by the company that just released Real War [real-war.com], which loudly proclaims on both its box art and in every other form of media that it is a "commercial version of the official military Joint Forces game being used to train the US armed forces."

    In reality,as this Gamespot review [gamespot.com] notes, it's a "throwback to the days of those horrible real-time strategy clones that followed the success of Westwood's Command & Conquer series.".

    A definite waste of my $39.99 USD and a solid contender for 'Meh' game of the year.
  • Sadly those games will only be propaganda on how U.S. are the best and how lame are others.
    It happened to Counter-strike with M4A1 vs AK-47. AK47 used to be much more powerful but inaccurare and M4A1 quite accurate but not so powerful. Now they "fixed" (i say screwed) this so M4A1 is superaccurate and more powerful.. and made AK47 less powerful.
    The only reason they did this is american propaganda... it does not make gameplay any better... it makes it worse.
    • ROFL. That's one of the funniest things I've ever heard. I mean everything in CS is _so_ closely modelled on reality, of course they bowed to pressure. I mean don't you know, bunnyhopping was only used by the Taliban, so they bowed to American propaganda and removed it as well.

      And that networking code as well. They knew that all those terrorist loving middle easters with their cable connections were just trouncing the poor old yanks on their 56K modems, so they threw in predictive network code. Damn that propaganda! :)
  • "Greetings starfighter! You have been chosen by the Star League to defend the frontier against XUR and the Kodan Armada!"

  • Good PR (Score:1, Insightful)

    by TheLOTR ( 526987 )
    Teach kids that war is good

    Teach them that killing ppl for the government is patriotism

    and when all is said and done, tell them that video games are bad 'cause they give kids the wrong idea'

    Sounds like business as usual

  • Lower Price (Score:2, Funny)

    by Jayman2 ( 150729 )
    So does that mean that we'll be getting a cheap game interrupted by "Join Uncle Sam" screens every 10 minutes....
  • But... any game like this is going to be a HUGE compromise with the salesmen wanting realism, and the army wanting propoganda and secrecy.

    I don't imagine I know 2% of whats actually going on in afgahnistan right now. So I don't suppose the Army will divulge much of anything to a public release. They may share technology in simulation terms, but thats not the interesting stuff - the interesteing stuff is knowing all the new tech they actually have on the ground.

    But yeah, if you want a driving game you involve McLaren, if you want a golf game you involve Tiger, and if you want a war game you involve the army.
  • there's nothing better now, than playing some infiltration. and then try it out in real life. trust me.

  • From the Article:
    The Army reviewed and approved the game ... with the underlying theme being a battle against insurgents in the Middle East.

    Remember this story in the Onion [theonion.com] from back in the days of Clinton? Looks like the Mideast won those Enemy Tryouts.

    <sarcasm> Looks like we can now relax in the firm and comfortable knowledge that America has an ENEMY again. How we ever got by for over a decade without a looming nemesis, I'll never be able to understand! </sarcasm>

  • ...exclusively on the Xbox. Doh! Does Microsoft have to own everything???

  • YARSS (Score:4, Informative)

    by Rogerborg ( 306625 ) on Friday October 26, 2001 @05:54AM (#2482608) Homepage

    Yet Another Realistic Soldier Sim?

    The trouble with RSS's is that they're helluva frustrating. Ever played Hidden And Dangerous? And I'm not talking about the irritating crash bugs, the actual gameplay is so realistic that it can send you into screaming fits. You're crawling along in cover for ten minutes, then there's a crack and one of your men goes "Urgh" and curls up. You can't even see the enemy; in some missions, you can be shot from beyond the far clip plane. The solution is often to charge your 4 men forwards until you spot the sniper (getting cut down as you go), then reload the level, creep forwards, and saturate the far clip plane at that point with machine gun fire. A small tweak to the engine, to randomly place the enemy, would remove even this cheat, and make the game so "realistic" as to be unplayable.

    So realism and gameplay don't necessarily go hand in hand. You have to allow some "cheats", like static enemy placement, which then ruins the value of the application as a training tool.

    On the other hand, I'd rather see something like Hidden and Dangerous than Solider of Fortune. "Realism" in Soldier of Fortune means that you can blow your enemies into screaming, writhing piles of organs and detatched limbs (the ostensible message being that "Guns are no joke, kids!"), but the effect on enemy fire on you is to whittle a little off your health bar, and a medikit will fix that right back up and let you get back on with breaking the 1000 kill barrier. Just like in real life! Hmmm.

    • Have you tried Operation Flashpoint? IMHO the best soldier-sim of the year. If the Civ3 wasn't out in a week I'd say it's the best game of the year.
    • So realism and gameplay don't necessarily go hand in hand. You have to allow some "cheats", like static enemy placement, which then ruins the value of the application as a training tool.

      I think it's fair to say that this is because fundamentally war isn't fun at all. I agree that to create a game it shouldn't be to realistic: nobody who's sane would actually like to be in a war.

      It's one of the most precious things of living in Western Europe or the States: the fact that there's been (hardly) any war in our countries for many years. Let's have our thoughts sometimes with the people who are not so lucky, and always realize that the (fun) games we play have nothing to do with the real life in some places.
    • Realistic sims were never easy. I remember dozens of frustrating hours when I tried to put my Su-27 safely on an carrier's deck and many hours of studying various plane sims manuals. Man, it seems you needed a pilot license to play some of those sims.

      And it is just the same with realistic soldiers sims. Some people want to feel "real" war, this means this feeling that it is not just your skills, you need also a lot of luck not to win, but to survive. That each bullet can bring death.

      I remember playing AvP for the first time and the total surprise when _one_ headshot was enough to send my Powerful Xenomorph to oblivion. And I kinda liked it. Finaly I had to _think_ instead of just runrunrunjumpfirechangeweaponstrafe like in any quakeish game.

      But I agree that sometimes it kills gameplay though there are a lot of people who like it this way.

      Someone has mentioned here the old "War games" movie. I think he/she was right: RSS _can_ do the same. As in the movie the game showed that there is no way to win a global nuclear conflict, so RSS show that a war has very poor "gameplay": war is about dying in pain, that one bullet is sometimes enough, that there is no room there for one-against-all kind of stuff. And I think it's a good lecture for youngsters who want to be soldiers. Give him one mission to play _once_. And then say: there is no restart button. You're dead man. Do you still want to join the Army?

      And they mean to use these games in an actual training. I think it is better when squad leaders will face such situation in a sim first than in the battlefield.

      So, soon we may have such officers as in "Aliens": dozens of missions in sims and none in RL.

      Rav
    • The great thing about the use of computer games as training tools for the military is that they avoid the following costly training expenses:
      Field Exercises
      Food, Fuel & Ammo
      Potential accidents

      Now I will say that the real thing is much different than the game, but by trying the game first, you can get used to some things, so that when you go to the real event, you make less mistakes. For example, while I was in ROTC I got to go to Ft. Knox for Armor training. While there, I got to train on the simulators for the M1 tank. Rather than running out in the real thing right away, and possibly crashing the tank or burning up a lot of fuel (M1 tank gets 0.5 mpg, no, I'm not kidding), you get to make all your mistakes in a simulator. The inside of the simulator is EXACTLY like the inside of the real tank, to closely simulute the real thing. All the vision ports are computer screens, sized appropriately to be realistic. When I used the simulator, it was full color, but 1993 geometric color graphics. So while it didn't look realistic, the effect of the training was. Further, in the simulators you can practice gunnery, gun loading, etc., so that when you go to the real thing, you're better prepared. Overall its a great system and its been a major success for the US army.

      For infantry and combat simulators, the idea is the same. You're in full fatigues/battle gear, and the full-size screen changes with terrain and targets. I think they may start moving to VR setups to give a more immersive experience before they actually send you out on training exercises. The current problem is that the whole thing is pretty static, so by giving the enemy some AI, you will increase the value of the training tool. For the above mentioned M1 simulator, the enemy infantry and tank A1 is run by the instructors, so you're working against actual human soldiers.

      To comment on the games though, when you get hit in the simulator, the game's over. You don't have health bars or the ability to save the game and reload. Its kill or be killed in the game. I think the tools are great, and I'm glad to see that the military is pairing up with those who can make the tools better. While these simulators and games will never be able to replace the real training exercise, they greatly improve the effectiveness of the training exercise. The whole value system behind on all this training is to make the common soldier better than cannon fodder. Quality over quantity.

  • The Army and Marines has been using first-person shoot-up games for training for a while now. I believe the Marines using Doom were the first. It's a cheap way to train for squad-level tactics now that training budgets are squeezed.

    Why not sponsor development of a game that you can use to train your people with later?

    The Army has even taken this to a higher level, in that many of the major command & control exercises that were accomplished with thousands of troops and vehicles in the past are now done entirely on comptuer.

  • In other news... (Score:4, Funny)

    by t_allardyce ( 48447 ) on Friday October 26, 2001 @06:36AM (#2482675) Journal
    Osama Bin Laden is currently working in association with software company al-Qaedasoft to produce a new line of action games. Included in the series will be a game called:

    "The Yanks Are Coming" inwhich you control taliban children with AK-47s, and must mow down as many american solders as possible.

    "Attah's Fun Time" is a game aimed at a younger audience, inwhich the late mohammed attah (pilot of hijacked plane) will teach school children how to count "12-Degrees-North-15-Minutes" do arithmetic "5000ft -4000ft = 1000ft" and learn about shapes "Which tower looks like that tower?"

    And finally, to replace the numbers of expensive training camps "Afgans Over the Line" or 'AOL' will be given away free to teach basic training, how to clean your AK-47, Piloting modern airliners, and how to get past passport control in 4 easy steps.
  • ... is hard in that fact that you're so disadvantaged by the terrain (urban, buildings, limited LoS). Groups like SAS train extensively and I would wonder seriously about the sanity of any general sending in a bunch of grunts based on these games. Not that I doubt the army are lacking at simulation (they do excellent distributed interactive simulations with thousands of vehicles) but fundamentally because the retail gaming market is selling entertainment which is a direct conflict with building survival skills (paranoia rules!). Sure you can have semi-fun things like counter-strike but the kill-at-a-click mentality is not something I would want to see in the military ... it's bad enough having police rough up civilians but asking army people to desensitise themselves to the point of being trigger happy is not my idea of peace mission which is what modern warfare is about ... low-intensity pacification/de-arming missions (e.g. Timor).

    ObJoke ... a few years ago when the US visited Australia for military exercise, they did some flight combat simulations and thought it would be a fun thing to buzz the local kangaroos. Imagine their surprise when after disappearing around the hills, they popped up and let loose a bunch of Stinger missiles! Apparently the developers reused the objects for human soldiers and just modified their movement parameters to emulate wildlife. I know Australia has the reputation have having crocodiles and the most poisonous snakes in the world but when wombats start shooting back, then I'll really start to worry.

    LL
    • no no,

      they really do shoot....
    • but the kill-at-a-click mentality is not something I would want to see in the military

      Do you think the current real-life training teaches soldiers to reflect deeply upon what they're doing before they pull the trigger? Morality of War arguments don't come up in a firefight. It's kill or be killed. Recruits spend the first few months learning to aim for the center of mass (middle of the torso) and squeeze the trigger until they can do it without hesitation. Sounds like "robot school", but a soldier who can't shoot without thinking first is dead meat.

      Far from desensitizing me, I found that my army training actually made me think about the reality of violent conflict. That's because we were also trained to give combat first aid, which dealt a lot with how to treat gunshot wounds, burns, and fractures. Even the dry, by-the-numbers methods we learned were pretty horrifying. Checking for exit wounds, sucking chest wounds, etc. It made me want to do whatever was necessary to avoid getting shot and gave me the utmost respect for the power of weaponry. I haven't been in so much as a fistfight since then. How much does a gang-banger think about what it means to shoot someone? TV and movies are the biggest problem. Not that they desensitize so much, but that they portray gunfighting so unrealistically. I worry less about the army turning out mindless killing machines than I do about getting shot by some wiener kid who thinks a gun will get him respect, 'cause he can shoot anyone who "disses" him.
  • This is kinda odd, considering Powerful Dumb People's usually fruity reactions to violence in videogames.

    Since the media loves blaming games for bad behaviour, will this be touted as a "government-sponsored murder simulator" by Lieutenant Colonel David Grossman [killology.com] and his ilk?

    Then there's the kneejerk reaction that creating a game that teaches people effective command of groups of soldiers might be assisting terrorism...

    All complete rubbish of course, but dont be surprised to see people frothing about it sometime soon.

    shut up man
  • Upcoming titles

    "Bomb the Chinese Embassy by mistake"

    "Ooops we hit another residential area"

    "Oh no we hit a tourist boat"

    Most games at the moment penalise when you fuck up, I guess these ones will reward you with promotion.

  • As all things in America(TM), the US Army(TM) is just trying to work their brand into some cross-marketing..

    man, I cant imagine who could have a problem with that, except maybe some godless-commie.

    Maybe they can even work in some 'Enemy Pack Expansion System(TM)' where the latest evil-du-jour can be plugged in and Americans everywhere can have the thrill of bloodily slaughtering them, JUST LIKE THE REAL THING!

    I for one welcome this development in the war against %whoever-we-please-at-the-moment%, it will help communicate to the American People(TM) and it will help keep you solidly behind the President, who in times of trouble should not hear any dissenting voices, but a chorus of approval.

    What a terrific idea.

  • During my last tour in the Marine Corps, I worked with some Marines from the Marine Corps Modeling and Simulation Management Office (this was about two years ago). They were evaluating Close Combat III, and were talking to the developers about partnering to create a more realistic version. The Marines would privide advice about tactics, actual weapon performance under various conditions, etc. The developers would provide a commercial-quality training aid to the Corps.

    I tried out the version of Close Combat they were starting from. As someone who spent time not only learning the basics of infantry tactics, but actually teaching those tactics to young officers, I can honjestly say that properly used, these games can be invaluable. It is not the shooting that needs to be taught, it is the ability to plan an attack and make decisions in the absence of perfect information about the enemy's location that is difficult to teach. Normally, this is taught with sand tables exercises, and then progresses to field exercises. For a major field exercise, the actual troops are often just training aids for the staff. It costs time and money to organize these exercises. But with a good simulation, I can do a week's worth of field training in an afternoon.

    Even more important is the ability to play these games in multiplayer mode. When a more senior officer plays the part of the enemy, you now have something infinetely better than the finest AI system -- the human mind. What makes tactics difficult is this clash of independent wills. No matter how many times two people play against each other, it is unlikely either will ever be able to predict the other's actions.

    Games like Doom, Soldier of Fortune, etc. are a lot of fun, and I play them regularly. But they bear no resemblance to reality. On the other hand, I found Close Combat III relatively realistic and challenging, while at the same time playable. I think the direction the Army and Marine Corps are going has a lot to commend it. It provides better training to our troops (which equates to fewer friendly casualties during war, as well as less collateral damage). And it saves a lot of money for the taxpayer. For the cost of a single, one-week, comany-level field exercise involving a single scenario, I could proably equip a computer lab with enough machines and software to train the company staff on a dozen different scenarios during that same week. And those resources can be re-used for every company in the battalion (and more).

    The taxpayers save money, the troops get good training, and the gaming community gets more realistic games. Everybody wins!

  • From the article:leverage human resources and information -- skills that will benefit them enormously in their professional lives

    Was anyone else chilled by this statement? I read it as:

    leverage human resources and information -- skills that will benefit them enormously in combat situation."

    I guess their take, with "professional lives", holds true for professional killers - which they are.

    This idea makes my stomach turn. Does the Army, which purpose is to defend from attack (plus all the other things they seem to be 'supposed' to be doing..those things really are another discussion), do they really need to be involved in making and marketing a video game . Training people to kill one another is a very serious proposition, maintaing 'armed forces' for international combat is a inditement in-and-of-itself of all humanity... do we *REALLY* want these idiots making a business out of it? Are we really comfortable with the idea of them selling (through marketing, branding and advertising) their 'product'?

    • and?

      While I was in high school I was in the reserves, (Canadian). While most of the rest of my class was flipping burgers or selling Nike's at the mall, myself and couple other classmates spent weekends working for the Queen, learning how to kill people.

      Just what is it that you thing the military does?

      If large corporations are allowed to sponsor all kinds of events (sporting or or other types of entertainment) in order to attract workers, why can't the military use video games (popular for of entertainment) to recruit?

    • I think you're making a fundamental mistake here: war is a glorious, righteous and honorable thing. Killing starving peasants is a great way to show patriotism to one's country and to stand up for one's ideals. I know that this is true, because I saw it on tv.
    • In as much as there are people in the world that want to take away the liberies that you enjoy as a Canadian, and make you think, play, and pray, in their prescribed manner, it is necessary to train professionals to defend the rest of us against the malcontents. When there are no longer any malcontents then the need for professional soldiers will dissapear. Until that day it appears that professional soldiers will remain a necesity. That they be trained in the best manner possible is inherently self explanitory, and that they use the talents that exist in the game industry to help devlop tools to better train their people also seems self explanitory.

      In memory of our God, our religion, and freedom, and our peace, our wives, and our children.

      • In as much as there are people in the world that want to take away the liberies that you enjoy as a Canadian

        That is bullshit. The people of China dont want me to be less free. The people of Brazil want the same thing I do, to be peacfull, happy, make love to my wife, have children etc. Is there someone in Vietnam plotting to *DENY* me libert? No, they have none - THEY *WANT* more!

        Why arent we helping them GET MORE LIBERTY - Instead we allow ourselves to be manipulated, like scared children into believing that as long as we 'run with the heard' (where plutocrats are directing us) that we can defend ourselves from these boogie-men.

        In memory of our God, our religion, and freedom, and our peace, our wives, and our children.


        Wow, how do i respond to that kind of conditioning... hmmm how about I tell you I was a Communist. I bet I would really sound crazy.

        I cant possibly break through rhetoric like that.

  • Hmmm didn't I see this in a movie, ??? Oh yes that's right in Toys, when the general * attempted to take over the factory and recruited all the kids to play fighter pilot sims as training for the upcoming war,,,,hmmm. This is a rather interestng can of worms, if it's only used for raising interest in the armed forces then wwhoo hoo but it could go another way...although if sony startted developing decent sims for training purposes it may not necessarily be a bad thing....maybe just more expenisve for the army. I fing it a little interesting though that the US Army is contracting with a japanese based corporation for possible training purposes....
  • Learning how to deal on the front lines from a war game is like learning kung-fu from playing Mortal Kombat. A flight simulator is a good learning tool because it's about a machine with known parameters and behavior : a plane. In a war game, you can't accurately simulate the enemy's strategic wizardry and occasionally rash decisions. If that were possible, we wouldn't need army generals because we could write a handbook that describes exactly what to do in any situation, because that's how you'll have to code the A.I. anyway.
  • ... that would mean that *finally* someone in the Pentagon thinks that problems can be solved in Battle.Net, as the rest of the civilized people do! Think about it, to nuke some nasty loser's command center is far more rewarding and FUN than getting all muddy dirty and bruised after a fight in the alley next to school. Cheaper too...

    Would that be called virtual reality wars, or real virtuality wars??

    In our not-so-perfect world sounds like aBigNonsense, unless thay plan to use AI bots + sensors + a linux box running quake3 (or whatever they develop now) + armored crash dummies, in some next-generation-wars...

    Can't wait to see that!!
  • soldiers get confused on the battle field because they don't hear updates like "you've take/lost/are tied for the lead" from an announcer.

    Or accuse the "enemy" of cheating because they don't make grunts and sounds when they jump around or hit the ground.

    I can see it now: legions of new recruits in boot camp taught to "bunny hop" while firing their weapons.

    You know you've been playing quake too long when you fall off the roof of your house and are instantly comforted by the fact you will only take 5 points of damage.

  • About where the military produces console and arcade games to acclimate some kids to military style violence. Then they weed out the crop so they can get the good ones... Wait, they 'already' made that movie!

  • Ender's Game (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Syris ( 129850 ) on Friday October 26, 2001 @09:16AM (#2482987)
    Has no one made the obligatory Ender's Game reference yet?

    It's that "it's training, but it's not, but it is" sort of story.
  • ... how long it will take until they ban first-person-shooters and flight-simulators alltogether when they finally find out that Bin Laden's lackeys train using MS FlightSimulator 2000 and CounterStrike (naturally, always playing T :o). Anyone risking a bet if we are allowed to use PC's in ten years time? Telephone? Breathe?
    Slashdot 2011, What-once-was-our-rights-online-section:

    lcs writes: "US Government passed a law today that forbids unsupervised breathing activities, trying to distinguish between real terrorists and normal suspects (formerly called citizens). Persons breathing unaccounted for will be prosecuted by the newly introduced Blitzgericht for terrorism automatically, indepent of the fact if they are present or not. If found guilty by those powers that be - who do not have to disclose the information leading to that decision - the terrorists house will be bombed by USAF within one week."

    Yeah, right. Maybe I see to dark these days... It's just games after all... Somehow, I seem to Trust No One since 2001-09-11. Why? Lars
  • What would be really cool was if all the "games" could talk to each other so you could have a huge central server which people conneted to. So both from the fighter pilots to the cannon fodder was connected in the same virtual world.
    That would be great, and perhaps what we need to extend the life of online action games today. Combine different types of games, you would have groundtroops, like in Counter-Strike but you would also have heli support where the heli-sim is just as advanced as any other sim.
    Yummy, oh well, now I know how I should spend the weekend, designing a protocol/server for a game like that..
  • This article by Michael Zyda [nap.edu] is a remarkable document, and well worth reading. It is the single document from which this Insititute of Creative Technologies was created from.


    I was part of the pitch that UCLA made to attempt to get this institute located at their campus. The idea was that UCLA's contacts with the visual effects community would be helpful in building these simulation games. Unfortunately for UCLA, their perennial cross-town rival USC made a better presentation.


    It was weird to see a group of relatively high-level military people sitting around the conference table talking about writing next-generation video games; in dead earnest.


    thad

  • The U.S. Army, in an unprecedented alliance with Hollywood and a major university, is providing funding and technical advice for video games that aim to hone the skills of the next-generation of military field commanders.

    So I guess we weren't satisfied with merely teaching terrorists to fly...

  • A friend of mine has it; it is the only flight simulator to simulate every aspect of combat flight, AFAIK. It actually has a full control panel, which can make it extremely difficult to play, unless you happen to have a pilot's license. The manual that comes with it looks like a novel. Anyway, the combat missions are extremely realistic, and can change depending on whether you screw up. It is definitely not for the casual game player.
  • Since it's being funded by the government, it should use the cross-platform OpenGL standard, not Direct3D.
  • And in a related story: the NYPD and LAPD have decided to start using Max Payne as a virtual reality training tool for rookie cops...

  • Considering that Real war sucks [gamespot.com] I wonder where my tax dollars are going.
  • First persons shooters did not gain popularity because of the cutting edge graphics they use, it's all a secret .gov plot to turn little kids into killing machines.

    I was watching discovery channel last week, they had a special about miniature spy planes (so small they would fit in your pocket) They all had CCTV on them but due to the bandwidth requirements for video, I doubt when these grenades with wings go into full production they will utilize video. I'm predicting now that future iterations of these machines will include a combination of GPS and sonar imaging, which will scan a 30 foot perimiter around itself and create a 3D enviroment, rather than video.

    Uncle sam is going to build millions of these things and drop them over Afghanistan. Kids here will be told "It's the latest greatest game!!" When in reality they will be piloting these grenades with wings into enemy strongholds to kill off terrorist threats.

    It just totally makes sense, remember a few years back when Carmack was approached by the army about doom? See he's in on it too. I doubt he actually created the formula's for rendering curves in real time ala quake3, I think we got that math from a UFO that was shot down over Rosswell over 50 years ago. The whole alien thing can be proven by looking at alien references in quake itself. Look at that eyeball alien with 2 legs, if that isn't proof of extra terrestrial influence in a game I don't know what is.

    Future wars are all going to be fought remotely via killer war robots that use a mouse and keyboard as a control interface. Lets face it, economically it's cheaper in the long run than feeding your army a bunch of krank to keep them up tears their body down pretty good, meaning more post war veterans cost. Also the engaging nature of the FPS acts like a natural krank keeping a soldier up for 2 or 3 days at a time (provided with enough caffiene maybe a week)

    Just open your eyes people, the truth is out there.
  • I found a book written in the 70s or the 80s. It warned of the computer era from a leftist viewpoint. Mass unemployment and such.

    One of the points was that the surge of computer games (Atari,...) was a plan of the DoD to cast the kids into future combat pilots with superb eye-hand coordination. It was the time when electronics was still passing from military applications to the civilian mass-market.

    I laughed at that.
    • I believe that later studies showed no useful increase in eye-hand coordination. So you were right to laugh at that!

      What I think is interesting are ways in which video games are being used socially and professionally. This is just the opposite of predictions that video games would isolate and marginalize players.

      One thing the games miss, though, is cardiovascular conditioning, risk of hypothermia, etc. Maybe that's why we're pusing robotic technology so hard.

      -Paul Komarek
  • Maybe it'll be made like the game in that move "The Last Starfighter" [imdb.com] and if you score really high, big black suburbans will swoop down on your home
    and they'll whisk you away to become the next virtual war commander. I can see it now, some 15 year old behind a monitor barking orders to our military.

  • Now all we have to do is get the armies of the world to agree to fight all future wars in these realistic simulated realities.

    NO MORE LOSS OF LIFE and destruction of property!!

    • There was a Star Trek (original) episode about this. Strangely, the societies voluntarily killed their own citizens in accordance with the simulation. But at least there was no property destruction! This didn't make any sense. Thank goodness Captain Kirk was there to point that out!

      -Paul Komarek
  • "The institute was formed in 1999 with a $45 million grant from the Army as a partnership among academics, video game makers and creative talent in Hollywood to design advanced ''virtual reality'' and simulation training systems for the military."

    So because this project is being developed with public funds, they're going to release all the source code as public domain right? Or maybe that would make too much sense and that's just wishful thinking. Seriously.. think about it! How far could $45 mil go towards an Open Source project with the same goal? Imagine say.. a team of 150 quality programmers, mostly telecommuting, being paid $100,000/yr. for 2 years to work on such a project. And that leaves 15 million to buy some special hardware and rent an office building floor for meetings and coordinating activities. (and housing the CVS server of course. :-)

    The only thing slowing the adoption of Open Source is bureaucracy.
  • Here's how the games will play out:


    The first will be a tactics game. After your country is attacked, you can either immediately bombard them with cruise missiles until their society reaches the level of prehistory, or you can use diplomacy to try and resolve the situation, and then bombard them anyway.

    The second will be an arial combat sim, where you have to correctly identify, target, and destroy hostile emplacements, like hospitals and Red Cross/UN buildings, with the last level being an assault on a refugee camp.

    Osama bin-Laden is said to be funding similar games. The first is reportedly also a tactics sim, in which you sit in a cave and send money to the government to keep you safe, and you pay people to blow things up.

    The second is a modern combat sim, where you play the part of a Taliban soldier, and must fight Northern Alliance troops and US commandos. You must also dodge air attacks by hiding in such places as fields, mountaintops, and military installations that aren't hospitals.


    Maybe I'll stick with The Sims.

    --Dan
  • Back in te day, they made a special version of Battlezone to be used as an "official" tank simulator. it was eventually canned, but there was a decent amount of effort put into it. Then again, it's not like they made a game WITH the army to sell to kids, but hey, game company-DOD collaboration isn't new.

    Unles "Missile Command" was early propaganda for the "Star Wars" program... ;)

    One (of many) URLs featuring the Battlezone trainer:
    http://markn.users.netlink.co.uk/Arcade/battz.ht ml

    And a fun conspiracy-theory on this subject:
    http://www.disinfo.com/pages/dossier/id390/pg1/

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