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Linux Games WIth Guns
ZaMoose writes: "Not to beat on the poor America's Army servers any further, but their sitrep for today featured the following interesting tidbit: "That's not all. We're also working on an in-game browser, linux port, and host of other features. Yes, we've been busy the past week!" (emphasis mine). For those not familiar with AA:Operations, it is a free (as in beer) first person shooter developed under the watchful eye of the US Army. It received mounds of praise at this year's E3 and was released to Windows users July 4th." Well, it says Linux server port, anyhow. And JD writes: "Apex Designs have announced that their GTA-style game Payback is coming to Linux. The port appears to already be fully playable as there is a status report here which includes some early screenshots.
(And their website doesn't require IE. :)"
Actually, the US Army is doing a hell of a lot more with Linux then this. I had a job interview a couple of years ago with a private org that is doing research in the war games area and they are using Linux. I assume that they would not give me anything that is secret in an interview so I will repeat what I understood...
The "game" is under development because they cannot afford to have all the troops training all of the time in the field. So what they are doing is having the people in the field shoot at and kill imaginary targets that the computer is tracking and showing on their screens or whatever. Some of those targets would be controled by troops on computers that are training in maneuvers or something.
I was being interviewed because of my knowledge in Linux and because much of the system would be running on it. I would have been in the field installing these systems and all that shit. I certainly could have had the job, and it sounded interesting and probably fun. But I decided my contribution to the world was not going to be propigating what I believe to be the worst mistake of mankind.
Anyway, yeah...the US army is playing with Linux...a lot.
NR
You raise a really good question. My guess is that this game will never get the blame though.
Ever since 9/11, every news outlet has bent over backwards to avoid casting the military in a bad light. There was the small furor over "could this have been prevented?", but hardly a peep of criticism over what's going on has leaked out of the major news outlets. Nope, we can plan to invade Iraq and whatnot without any questions.
Everyone knows this game is a blatant piece of propaganda. Not that this makes it a bad thing (I liken it to "Black Hawk Down" in a way), but the fact that it comes straight out of the military means that it'll be dodged in favor of Doom 3 or GTA 3 or the like (most likely the latter, I'd guess).
The news media is so consolidated and conservative, there's no way they'd risk offending viewers or advertisers (the Army spends a lot on ads every year) when there are plenty of other easy targets should another school shooting spree occur. What, with the Internet and pornography and movies and music and other video games and drugs and parents and peer preassure aren't there enough things to blame for some kid's behavior?
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
"Sweeden? Is that a state? No, it's a country in that place called Europe.
Well, since research has shown that videogames can decrease intelligence, I guess it's perfect for the army.. dont want the recruits to think for themselves.. let's give'em games. //rdj
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I wonder how come no one has created a FPS where you go kill terrorists? With the quake source code out under the GPL it should be easy to create one. I've heard that there is some kind of Nazi/KKK racist game out there. That makes me wonder why, if the white trash and inbreds in this country can have their own game where they can act out their dim-witted vendetta against racial and ethnic minorities, why can't there be a game were the rest of us can fantasize about killing terrorists?
I for one would love to exorcise some of the anger I feel about everything that's happened by pumping some lead into some Al Queda knuckle-draggers. I even have a title for the game: "Operation Kill'em all," under which could be the sub-title "Give the enemy a first hand lesson in what a real Jihad looks like."
In truth I'm kind of concerned as to why we haven't heard much from the news lately. Six months ago all you heard was who we were killing in Afghanistan. Is there no one left that needs killing? I doubt it. Oh well, the way I see it if there are more terrorist attacks then that will be fine. Cockroaches are easier to step on when they're where you can see them. Maybe we're just gearing up for an operation to invade Iraq and hang old Saddam from a street light. I personally think that would be a very good thing to do. Even if Saddam himself is not much of a threat, our willingness to use overwhelming force in order to get rid of him will be a very effective demonstration of power to the rest of the world, and more importantly it would instill fear, which is often the most effective weapon of all. We wouldn't be in this mess if it weren't for the fact that the american people voted for Bill Clinton twice in a row. Our war on terrorism is nothing but us having to play catch up after nearly a decade of extremely bad foreign policy. If Clinton had handled the situation in its infancy back in 93, none of this would be necessary. But instead he tried to apply european style pussy politics to a region of the world where force and power are the only languages that are understood. Oh well, like I said, Cockroaches are easier to kill when you can see them. In the long run it might be for the best since we're now killing off the fuckers instead of just trying to contain them. In the long term offensive strategies are almost always better than ones based upon the idea of perpetual defense. Defenses can fail, but that doesn't matter when your enemy is dead and his friends piss their pants in terror at the mere mention of your name. Too bad Clinton didn't have a modern day Machiavelli as a foreign policy adviser.
In any case I think a good game would be one in which you get to kill terrorists, the more graphic and gory the better.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
When I first heard about the game i was surprised to think that any of the games main audience (14-25 year old males) would want to join the army. People that want to join the army are probably out playing football, or getting into fights. Not sitting at home re-compiling their Linux Kernel :p.
Everything sucks except musicandstuff
Well... I'm talking about asymetrical warfare, i.e. small bands of armed rebels/freedom fighters/terrorists against a larger, established power. Think the IRA, PLO, Al-Quaeda, heck even the Boston Tea Party.
But in a way, yes, the Nazi's were fighting for freedom. Hitler worked the population into a fervor by appealing to germanic values and traditions, claiming that their historical rights had been imposed upon. Germany had a somewhat legitimate claim to Poland. Sure the invasion of France and the events of and following krystalnacht were obviously about totalitarian dominance, but by that point the ball had already been rolling for quite some time.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
Were the US refunded when the coup against Chavez failed?
And where they when the bomb falled on helpless villagers?
Get informed, your taxes dollars are much more mispent elsewhere than on a simple videogame that you can't get to work.
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