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E3: Epic, US Army Develop Games as Recruitment Tool
securitas writes "Reuters and AP tell us that Epic Games and the US Army have announced the America's Army series of games, jointly developed by the Department of Defense and Epic. The first two-part game in the five-year project includes an RPG called Soldier and a first-person shooter called Operations. The game will be free of charge and available for download in July or August, with 1.2 million CDs simultaneously released, attached to gaming magazines. Does this remind anyone else of the war-room scene from Toys or Ender's Game?" Future installments will include Sim Mess Duty, Sim Standing Guard in the Rain, Sim Blister, and Sim Invading Iraq to Keep Approval Ratings High.
Speaking as a hardcore gamer myself, I could care less about who makes a game. I couldn't care less about how it's distributed. I couldn't care less about how it's "brainwashing people" or how it's "like Toys!". It all comes down to one thing: Is the game fun? From what Penny Arcade tells me, it is going to be fun. That's all I care about.
This is what separates the average geek crowd from the true gamers among us. The average geeks don't understand what it really means to be a hardcore gamer. All they care about is how many polys a model has, how good it looks, or how the breasts are modeled ("She kicks high"). Hell, I'm 23 and I'll be playing Mario, Zelda, and dozens of other "kiddie" games the day they're released, and I don't care.
This is why I hate mainstream media coverage of games. Leave it to the professionals, please.
Future installments will include Sim Mess Duty, Sim Standing Guard in the Rain, Sim Blister, and Sim Invading Iraq to Keep Approval Ratings High.
Don't forget the final game in the series: "Risking Their Lives to Protect Your Right to Make Stupid Jokes."
It's an attempt to stamp out the perception of a soldier being a mindless automaton, a concept well overdue. I know a number of military people, and aside from being generally more disciplined and more respectful, they're not all that different. Once they get into other, more elite units like the Rangers, Airborne, Special Forces, etc, they *have* to be able to think for themselves, particularly because their missions require flexibility and since command may well fall on them in an emergency.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
"No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country." --George S. Patton
Yes, I am replying to a troll, but I feel the need to.
I only hope this comment was done in sarcasm, but this elitist attitude I so often see from people who served in the military that bothers me. You tell me that I don't understand the meaning of the military or service, yet every day I drive by dozens of memorials to those who have died in the past, and am reminded of their sacrifice. I am thankful that there were people like them to protect our nation.
Then I drive by lots of real tall buildings, and I am reminding of the what they were fighting to protect. Which is more important, the fight, or that which is being protected? I am grateful forpeople serve our military; my grandfather was in Korea, and my father served during the Vietnam Era.
Still, that which is protected bears greater significance than the protectors. Our freedoms, liberties, our constitution, all are much more important than the soldier that died in an attempt to preserve them.
The fight to preserve our liberties is no longer being fought on foreign battlefields, but in our legal system. I think we had a better chance when it had to do with who lasted the longest out there than we do putting faith in judges, juries, and politicians.
But please, do not ever tell me I don't understand the military, or have no right to make light of it. If it really was protecting my rights, then I can say anything I want to about them, now can't I? =]
What?
I don't seem to recall there being any "Save often, Reload when you are Killed" workaround during my time in the Army.
Nor were power-ups of any sort available, unless you count caffiene.
It was certainly real-time, though much of the real-time was spent waiting.
The only thing that we learn from history is that nobody learns anything from history.
I think the idea is that they are trying to get away from the whole 'cannon fodder' stereotype -- where any individual soldier is merely one more target in a wall of human targets, and nothing more.
That, and trying to convince a generation that at least *thinks * they are individualistic that they really want to join up.
what /. has against military service? In many countries the average /. reader's military service is *mandatory*. Also, as a US citizen myself,I volunteered and served in the U.S. Navy and cannot complain one bit about the experience. Was it harder than sitting on my ass playing Mortal Kombat(which was new at the time >:)? Yes it was. Did it help me pay for college and make me a better person? You bet your ass it did. Maybe I don't come from as privileged a background as the rest if you but military service helped me out substantially. I guess it is just fashionable to spend your late teens and twenties doing drugs and being a bored, sullen, and directionless loser nowadays.
I don't think you get it. This isn't a news site. They don't have reporters, they don't write stories. They link to other news stories, it's a meta-site it's about opinion and commentary, that is the value added. There is nothing here other than opinion and commentary that couldn't be found at the various sites they link to.
This idea to use games to convince impressionable kids to join the army is a good one.
Looking around, all the people of my generation have one of a few careers:
* Alien-attacker, particularly where you have three bases to hide behind
* Ever-hungry giant mouth eating never-ending supply of pellets
* Race car driver on tracks with a lot of popup
* Professional princess rescuer, particularly when you can jump on a lot of mushrooms
* Cubical worker
That last one is the least suprising. I remember as a kid, me and my friends would never stop playing "Cubical Worker!" It was the most popular game in America at the time, which is why everyone seems to have grown up to do it for a living.
> The Army expects by September to spent about $7.5 million on the program
Whew! I'm glad we're spending $7.5 million on this project. With this new Republican leadership manning the purse strings, we've got so much money, I was worried there was no way we'd be able to spend it all. This is a great example of how to get rid of it.
What was that? A $100 billion dollar deficit ?
Wait... which party was for big government and likes to waste money?
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
I think it's very classy of you to make jokes about people who have died for your freedom. Sure, it sucks that the US get stuck policing the world, but as we've been shown, it's not going to do it on its own, and it doesn't look like anyone else is jumping up to do the job. Your attitude is disgusting.
Get off your high horse. Yes, they died for our freedom but that also includes the freedom to say what we want about them and criticize the government when we feel it's necessary. Pull your head out of your ass and smell reality for a change.
If Bush invades Iraq it certainly won't be the first time that a politician has picked a fight to boost his approval ratings. What I find to be truly disgusting is the way that the Bush-Cheney gang have used and are still using the events of September 11th as an excuse to grab more power for themselves and then keep the American people and congress in the dark by claiming "national security". This also isn't the first time that a politician has done this either.
I thought the fundamental rule of game design is to balance Realism with Fun. Ask any famous game designer about it. Sometimes you gotta reach out away from the real to make the game flow well, or to balance out what you can do.
Lets look at some popular games:
CounterStrike: Most people would say this is as "real" as it gets, when you die, your gone. But you can get hit in the leg, stamper for a second, then are back running full speed again. You can get shot in the arm, but still fire back. This game has a lot of realism, but it still balances it out with a 'fun factor.'
Age Of Empires: The designers of AoE always talk about how stuff like Catapults had to be changed. Originally, you needed someone to fire and move them, but it lead to too many problems, so they just made them self useable, and movable. Upon doing this, they felt the game flowed better, and the testers had more fun with the game.
I could go on, but I think "true realism" isn't what the gaming community wants. Games are a time when you can do stuff you normally wouldn't do...
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
It's frightening that people think this is funny. Not only are you pissing all over the dead Canadians' graves, but you're also taking a high moral ground that I doubt you can defend. When's the last time you did anything perfectly? Poster and mods: Get some perspective.
I think the better statement is "Not Invading Iraq to Keep Cheap Oil."
/. PT Crusier.
Iraq has a murderous dictator in charge who has waged genocide against his own people and is developing weapons of mass destruction. If we really were a country that believed in freedom and good will towards men, we would have bombed the shit out of Iraq years ago instead of letting millions die at the hands of Sadam.
Since people tend to believe in hollywood so much, just look back to Spider-man and the message that everyone was touting as being so grand, "Great power comes with great responsibility." We sure as hell have the power but we're just sitting around on our lazy asses so that we only have to pay $1.25 a galloon to drive the
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And then of course there are those of us who don't hate the _existance_ of a military, but do hate it's self perpetuating nature and do hate it's use to kill innocents in countries far away simply to boost the ratings of a brain-dead president. If I thought any of the recent operations would actually do anything to protect the interests of the US population (or any other part of the West, as I'm not american) then maybe I'd support them, but history will show them to be little short of expensive, pointless, wastes of time and lives.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
Personally, I don't know of any power grab that the Bush-Cheney gang have done that I don't agree with. Perhaps the most controversial, arresting and/or detaining ILLEGAL immigrants, is even acceptable. After all, that's what the government is SUPPOSED to do. If you ask me, they should step up the INS enforcement division and go after ALL illegal immigrants -- and either immediately kick them out of the country or detain them for up to two years if they have any interesting ties to fundamental islamic extreamist terrorists, which I believe is the legal length of time they can detain someone before kicking them out of the country (and was well before 9/11). I have nothing against LEGAL immigrants, and would have a problem if they started kicking out legal immigrants for no reason, but I believe even legal immigrants can be held for up to two years if there is some charge / belief that they may have broken the law and forfited their privelage of being a legal immigrant.
You could have written the exact same post in 1998. Why do we have to go to war now? Because approval ratings are down and without a war going on, people might notice that Bush's fiscal policy is a complete mess.
And why just attack Iraq? Iran and North Korea both have nuke programs. They're the Axis of Evil you know.
-B