US Spies Use Custom Video Games for Training

Wired reports that the US Defense Intelligence Agency has just acquired three PC-based video games which they will use to train the next wave of analysts. The games are short, but they have branching story lines that change depending on how a trainee reacts to various problems. Quoting: "'It is clear that our new workforce is very comfortable with this approach,' says Bruce Bennett, chief of the analysis-training branch at the DIA's Joint Military Intelligence Training Center. Wired.com had an opportunity to play all three games, Rapid Onset, Vital Passage and Sudden Thrust. The titles may conjure images of blitzkrieg, but the games themselves are actually a surprisingly clever and occasionally surreal blend of education, humor and intellectual challenge, aimed at teaching the player how to think."

Comments

Re:Branching storylines? Can we have some?

[Rob T Firefly]

Planescape: Torment. It's a PC game, but it's old enough where I believe you should be able to run it on a modern Linux box in WINE without too much trouble. If you're into games with stories you can actually affect the narrative itself in dramatic ways with your decisions, this is it.

Re:Post-Literary World

[FurtiveGlancer]

That would explain the general decline in US literacy all right.

I doubt that independent studies would confirm your hypothesis regarding changing styles of learning. I've not seen or heard of any accepted study which demonstrated any fundamental shift other than a decline in literacy. I would welcome any valid input in that regard.

Educators have taken up the mantra that we must change our assessments to meet new types of learning. However valid or invalid that arguement, "old" or "standard" types of learning appear to be declining.

Re:thinking about it...

[querist]

That should be: Cogito cogitare, ergo cogito esse. You need to use the infinitive (cogitare, esse) in those cases, not the present active indicative.

Re:Branching storylines? Can we have some?

[Kamots]

PS2 game... Way of the Samurai

You can beat the game in a couple hours. The fun comes from playing it over and over again making different choices. Played that game a lot... and never did find all the endings. Storyline differs drastically based on your choices. Although the base plot of government army coming to take over the village and kill the non-peons doesn't change... what happens in the days leading up to that climatic event does.

Re:Spies?

[oodaloop]

Jack Bauer is right out. And don't even get me started on Jason Bourne.