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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.
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
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 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!
Well, that's your opinion and you're entitled to it, of course, but I disagree. Anyone who joins into a branch of the military expecting to be all action and intrigue and excitement is going to be disappointed, if what my friends in the service have told me is true. Sure, there certainly is some more "glamorous" things that happen, but unless I'm mistaken, you can also expect a hell of a lot of boredom. Again, if you feel that he was belittling the armed services, that's your perogative, but it's also my right to disagree with you. I didn't find anything at all insulting in the jokes, and I stand by that opinion.
As to your dig at moderation, does that mean that you have absolute control over what other people consider insightful, or interesting? If I find a post interesting and moderate it so, but you disagree, does that mean that the system doesn't work? If you're going to get pissed off about it, just wait until you've got some mod points of your own and then mod it down. That's the beauty of it - YOU control moderation as much as the next guy, so what are you complaining about?
Al Qaeda has ninjas!
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
int func(int a);
func((b += 3, b));
I think for a living. I do not find the idea of being told I can't think for myself at all appealing. So I don't do it.
Not that I'm particularly knocking the Army's training methods. I just think I'm very poorly suited to being a soldier.
--
E_NOSIG
Keep in mind that few soldiers are given the option of deciding whether or not they agree with the current war enough to fight in it. In order for someone to be both intelligent and noble, under your definition, they'd have to stay a civilian until an appropriate conflict came up and then join up. Unfortunately, if that was what people did we'd be completely unprepared when the conflict did come up.
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