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PLA Develops First Person Shooter With US Troops as Targets
An anonymous reader tipped us to a People's Daily story about the (Chinese) People's Liberation Army's new shoot-em-up game with US soldiers as targets, and that story led us to a more complete description of the Glorious Revolution game at the Daily Mail, which includes a nice video (in Chinese, of course) toward the bottom of the article that shows how the game looks in action.
and best customer all at once.
Perhaps the vast reserves of crude oil that happen, inconveniently, to lie beneath their land?
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
There are games where China is the enemy. Why is it suddenly a bad thing when the US are the bad guys?
have done this. You can shoot US soldiers in Battlefield if you play the other team. In fact, I prefer playing the MEC in BF2 because the sniper weapon is just better. Not sure why this is news, other than getting censorship blowhards and right-wing nuts agitated. I'm sure we'll see this on Fox News tonight wrapped in a typical "Are liberals to blame" bullshit.
So?
Are americans unable to accept that not everyone sees them as the good guys all the time?
Where are the screenshots of US soldiers as the enemy? I.E., American flag on uniform, American flag or markings on the Apaches? Apaches are heavily exported, the "enemy" could be one of many nations the US has sold them to.
I can't quite listen to the Chinese audio since I'm at work, but based on the video alone, is it really against American troops? I only saw very generic urban warfare tactics in a very generic Chinese city and a very generic set of bunkers and pillboxes. The only "indication" that it was against American troops was a very fuzzy helicopter that might be an Apache or might be something else entirely.
In any case, so what? We in the US has been playing games where the Chinese Army was the antagonist for ages. Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising and Battlefield 2 are two that I can name off the top of my head.
My postings are informational and does not constitute legal advice. Act on it at your risk.
We could have a head-to-head be that darn firewire..where's my shoes.
When will it be available for the XBox?
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
Most likely not. And why do you have Muslims in you?
Every "great" nation has to have its own enemy. For years in USA had the URSS (and viceversa), then URSS dissapeared and three years later it was Irak, then dissapeared. Later was taliban, Irak again, and the difuse Al-Qaeda. Just like every fascist against every comunist. It's a must to prevent people to think too much in what the goberment is doing.
It's just a game people - time to teach the imperial dogs a lesson! ;)
The enemies in FPS games are always whoever the US doesn't like at a given time (this includes most titles produced outside of the US as well), be they russians, germans, vaguely-middle-eastern-something, vietnamese, chinese, the list goes on. Now we finally get a game where the roles are changed. I can see why some Americans are upset, but frankly it's about time.
It's a great game but I keep getting stuck on the level where you kill capitalist American president
I'm impressed. Graphics look good. Movement is smooth. This doesn't look like it was developed by a first time game studio.
i always complain about false equivalency morons posting on slashdot and elsewhere. you know, the morons who say "but the u.s.a..." whenever the issue of chinese internet censorship or human rights violations comes up. even though chinese internet censorship and human rights violations are genuinely orders of magnitude worse than in the west. not that the false equivalency morons can see that. whether out of intellectual dishonesty or genuine stupidity, who knows
but this is entertainment, not government policy
as such, it is innocuous and without consequence. frankly: who fucking cares if the chinese shoot westerners in their video games. no, really, who fucking cares?
why is this fact important or even surprising to you? the west makes plenty of games and movies with the red chinese as fair game for military adventurism. therefore, it is entirely fair for the red chinese to make video games and movies with westerners as fair game for military adventurism. no big fucking deal. a big yawn
in other words, true equivalency
don't be hypocritical, westerners, by expecting those you demonize not to demonize you in turn. turnaround is fair play
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
But a shoot 'em up (shmup) is not a first person shooter (fps). Shoot 'em ups are vertical or side-scrolling games (such as Raiden), and often involve piloting an aircraft.
It to be honest this is well overdue. The USA people are stupid if they think it is OK to have games shooting other nations army or terrorist groups but not those from the US. This whole US controls and censors the world concept that Americans have is pathetic. Now let me drop nukes on Washington DC and anywhere else I like.
If China wants their soldiers to be better at video games who are we to stop them. Now our soldiers will take them on with actual battlefield training and us here on /. will beat them on the video game front.
On a serious note, I seem to remember not to long ago when I was playing call of duty and it had me mowing down a bunch of civilians. I don't think we should be should be wagging the finger at China.
Everyone in the video, sitting in uniform at the internet cafe makes me think of Attack of the Clones. - www.awkwardengineer.com
I'm pretty sure that since Battlefield 1942, if I didn't get on the US team, my targets were US troops...
How the fuck is this news?
where are the chain's protesters or is that in tank sim game?
Many commenters here are missing the point. If the U.S. Federal Government were producing games such as BF2 where China was the enemy, this would be an argument of equivalence. This game is said to have been produced BY the PLA (China's army). As in, requisitioned by the government of China. If this would have been created exclusively by the Chinese equivalent of EA, then this would likely not be such an issue.
I don't want to give away spoilers, but CoD:MW2's story mode definitely didn't paint the US military in a very positive light. In fact, I was surprised there wasn't a MASSIVE bitch fest in the media over the events in that game, as it's probably the most anti-American FPS I have ever played. I actually loved the single-player mode because it was a pretty good story that really pushed the boundaries while remaining mostly believable.
Games like Homefront or other similar games that has a sort of "USA vs them" feel to it is not an appropriate comparison for the game discussed by the article. These games are designed, developed, sold, and used independently of the US government.
The better comparison would be to America's Army per the article's suggestion. In these games the enemy combatants are generic pseudo middle eastern/central asian insurgents and terror groups. People who are universally decided by security council nations and most of the world to be "the bad guys". You aren't able to fight virtual simulations of a real life standing army as these articles suggest a facilitate of the US army is depicted.
Naturally this is going on the article's suggestion as I have not played or watched extensive footage of the game in question.
If you cannot make a connection between the Hollywood films of military daring do and the recruitment process to the US army you are not looking hard enough. All those shoot em up games with the US army as heroes and the Russians/Chinese/Muslims as the enemy framed the thoughts and aspirations of western male attitudes and prepared them for war.
You ought to be worried that the Chinese are now playing the same game except with the Americans as the enemy. There are five times as many Chinese as there are US Americans.
At the moment, while the US still has a considerable lead in technology it seems unthinkable that China could force you from the map but in a few years time things will have changed. Their navy will be larger and better equipped than yours and so will their army. They will also be prepared to use their military because the soldiers of tomorrow will have been playing the military games of today. They will know who their enemy is and what to do about it.
It's just a game people - time to teach the imperial dogs a lesson! ;)
Yes, the Chinese people do believe that we're imperialists - and I can't really blame them. We do, after all, have military bases all over the World, two wars and military support in the Middle East, control of NATO, and pretty much a military that rivals several countries put together.
The game is named Glorious Mission, or sometimes Mission of Honor, not Glorious Revolution, and the plot follows a soldier's life through military camp and cumulates in the eponymous large-scale drill, as reported by China Daily. No US Troops anywhere.
It also supports 32 person multiplayer. You can watch footages of the game on YouTube here.
Where is the free download link?
If it's not free and FOSS, it's COMMUNISM.
Its coming folks. Some companies are already buying game assets from China.
The biggest problem for our country is not that China has a videogame with US targets, but that China itself is out to destroy our economy.... and we willfully help them do it.
So lets keep selling ourselves out boys!
Every "great" nation has to have its own enemy. For years in USA had the URSS (and viceversa), then URSS dissapeared and three years later it was Irak, then dissapeared. Later was taliban, Irak again, and the difuse Al-Qaeda. Just like every fascist against every comunist. It's a must to prevent people to think too much in what the goberment is doing.
I take it you are engaged in a war on spelling?
I'm not surprised either. EA's Battlefield 2 featured soldiers who were very obviously Chinese and generic "arab".
Please help metamoderate.
Don't worry, we'll be fine.
The Mexicans would never let this happen to us...
From TFA:
"Admiral Patrick Walsh said Washington is seeking to improve its relationship with the Chiese military, and an officer exchange program would provide a better understanding of Chinese culture, goals and thoughts".
The Native Americans tried the same approach. The US Gov't was happy to let them think that there was some chance at reconciliation as it simply made killing them all a lot easier.
br China won't be so foolish as to Pearl Harbor us. We can't wait for that kind of defining event. We need to treat this like another Cold War, or we will be speaking Chinese in 50 years.
--
$tar -xvf
This is total nonsense. We are the ones starting wars all over the world and trying to force our will on other. The Chinese are using our debt to finance many admirable projects. I think you may have it backwards. Do a little research and you will find that the US defense budget is way out of whack and 10X all other countries combines, inclusive of China.
This is the type of rhetoric and fear mongering that created more ill will towards America. If China wants to bury us all they have to do is call in the loans that finances 40% of our national budget each year, or simply stop loaning us money.
was actually Scottish, and Cobra Commander, well, turns out he was an evil snake man from the land that time forgot.
....has had vaguely arabic people as terrorist enemies. Umm, turnabout is fair play, people.
Does it run on Linux?
This is a good time for Activision to edit their next Call of Duty game to make China the enemy.
If you are going to train your troops wouldn't you prepare them for the worst case scenario against the most powerful opponent?
How many of you are US military personnel? Are there any training games, etc. where the US practices against a potential Chinese opponent? Doesn't the US routinely engage in real fire war games with Japan and other countries to counter a potential Chinese threat?
I don't see the player taking cover very often -- how will this teach people to be effective soldiers? Is it just meant to be a propaganda piece (like the America's Army game was)?
So what's the big effin' deal? US companies making video games with other nationalities as the enemy is the norm. I have problem with this nor do I see it as news worthy.
Seems pretty arrogant to do the exact same thing in our games then cry foul when other countries do it to us.
Cool, where can I download it ?
Yes, and in games produced by US citizens I can play as a terrorist where I can shoot hostages and SWAT officers.
Though, I do have a somewhat difficult time referring to software that mimics the and glorifies the act of killing humans as a game. It's just easier than coming up with a new term, and it's not quite a simulator.
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
China has a significant imbalance in its female to male population. Which is a source of unrest. So their government will need to keep them busy, distracted, etc.
Now this would be more troublesome to local adversaries than remote ones, simply because moving that many men is a logistical nightmare. So I would think that should they need to be aggressive Taiwan is toast of course quickly followed by Korea. Will they? Not while they have relatively stable finances, but if it implodes like a house of cards that some suspect they will need an outside bogeyman to keep those in power safe.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Why are they playing videogames when they should be working thier butts off to make my cheap washing machine, or 'generic' drugs, motherboards, etc and 99% of all consumer products???
What? The Chinese made a virtual combat simulation? I guess this means war!
Thanks for the writeup, guys, but really, I have nothing to do with this.
More of an RPG and puzzle game fan, anyway.
But the game developers commented that their game development was way behind ours, and their virtual army guys were way inferior to our virtual army guys, so nothing to worry about ...heh...
http://www.military.com/news/article/chinese-general-says-his-military-is-no-match-for-us.html?ESRC=dod.nl
...we're also one of their largest investments.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
The US Army HAS created a game. It is called America's Army and is free for all to play. You play as US forces, of course. So who is the enemy OPFOR, basically the generic professional opposing force the Army itself has. Whatever side you play on always appears as US Army, the other side always appears as OPFOR. No country is the "bad guys" in their game.
The Army game doesn't make a political statement, and indeed is based off of the Army's own training idea and methods.
The people who act like that are just people who don't understand the world economy. They see it on a narrow, personal, level and think it is like a loanshark situation: China gave the US money and can call it due any time. That is wrong, what actually happened is China chose to invest in US securities and bought them. They pay defined rates at defined times and there is no ability to "call in the loan."
Also important to understand is that US securities pay in US dollars. So if the government chooses to inflate their way out of it, you are SOL. A note pays a fixed dollar amount and unless it is a TIPS or inflation protected one, and long term bonds are not, then it isn't paid in adjusted dollars. If you have a note that pays $1 million then that's what you get, doesn't matter if that $1 million has 1% of the buying power as when you purchased the note. Means there's a reason for holders of these to not want the US economy to tank.
Now what China could do it sell the securities on the open market. While the government doesn't pay the balance on a note until it is due, you can sell it to other investors. Ok, but if they unloaded all their securities at once, it would cause a massive price depression which would mean a massive loss of money for China. If they tried to unload securities with a face value totaling a trillion, but could only get people to pay ten billion because of oversupply and people being worried, they'd take a massive financial hit.
There's more to this (like the fact that default is an option for the US, or that the notes are all just accounting entries managed by the treasury, not physical notes) but what it comes down to is it is not a situation of "They loaned a lot of money and can hold it over your head." It is rather a situation of "They have invested a ton of money in your securities and need those securities to do well so they don't lose their investment."
w/ scenarios involving fighting w/ both EU and US factions, based on conflict over natural resources
If they try to invade Alaska again, my level Fallout character has a a whole chest full of alien blasters and Nuka-grenades!
Now this would be a good open source project! A virtual war - America's Army on one side and Glorious Revolution on the other side and if you don't belong to either country, you get to select which country you want to fight on. Wahoo!
This here aint about no germans butthole.
The glorious People's Army does **NOT** take cover!!1!!2! They charge! And charge! and charge again until the dishonorable barbarian enemy lies trampled with lamentations and impotent penises!
Cover taking is for weak, pampered Western pig dogs with their silly chain saw guns and thermal clips.
Unlike the US armed forces, which actually go out and kill REAL people.
All over the world.
I'd hate to see anyone develop an FPS with bank and oil company execs as the targets. That would be so wrong. Bankster gibs all over the place; oil exec, headshot, horrible. Just horrible. [cough]
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Wait, crude oil forms underneath all land owned by muslims? I'm gonna be fucking rich once I tunnel under my neighbors back yard.
I wonder what the ESRB rating is, mom won't buy me violent games. She's such a commie.
The real Sig captains the Northwestern. This one captains
Would they rather the Chinese practice on actual Americans?
...because the Jews told you so...
Remember: Germans are bad, because they didn't allow the Jews to completely take over their country. Well, at least not in the 1940s. Germay is, of course, a Zionist occupied state now, and the German people have been working to pay taxes to the Jewish parasites all over the world, for fifty years...
What about a game where people shoot Jews? Oh no! Thought crime alert! To even criticise a Jew should warrant the death penalty... just like in Stalin's Russia...f
Running dogs of capitalistic imperialist lackey aggressors against the glorious peoples revolutionary freedom fighters!
We win evely time you buy cheep sneakaa!
You go War Malt, we belly you cheep stuff!
You balo munny flum us we charge rotsa intlest!
We smataa than you!
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
What noob modded the grandparent as insightful, anyway? Christ. The problem isn't that US soldiers are the 'bad guys'; the problem is that development is being funded by a national government.
The headline takes on a totally different meaning if you read "PLA" as "NASDAQ:PLA", the symbol for Playboy Enterprises stock.
We should expect this from the Chinese regime. Reminds me of when Lang Lang played a song praising the killing of US troops at the White House when the Chinese leader was in town. If you read Chinese military doctrine also, it's loaded with plans on how they can try to fight the U.S. - one of the better known reports was "Unrestricted Warfare" written by two Chinese colonels. The thing is that most of their strategy is based around unconventional warfare - using espionage to undercut foreign businesses like they were doing with Operation Night Dragon, using propaganda and soft power in what they call "the Three Warfares," and using cyberwarfare in what they refer to as "non-contact warfare." http://joshuaphilipp.com/2011/05/china-fights-a-war-without-firing-a-gun/ Hopefully this latest game will serve as a wake-up call.
This is disgusting! Brave US troops fight every day for freedom and democracy, and those stupid Chinese don't know what that is so they make games where they must be killed. Should be illegal.
Nah, just kidding. Considering the civilian death toll in Iraq, it's about time someone calls out the USA for what it is: the bad guy. There should be as many games featuring US troops as the bad guys as there are games featuring the Nazis.
Maybe they just wanted to make it realistic and exciting? I mean let's face it, the US is the most exciting and realistic enemy they could put in there. Because we're the best. We have the strongest military in the world. We're also quite willing to use it. All the time. What, are they going to have themselves attacking the Swiss? For a good military game you need a strong and war-oriented opponent. To keep it realistic, they really have to use the US. Short of some kind of massive atrocity, the only nation that's going to war with China (and isn't getting flattened) is the USA. It was either that or terrorist groups. But it's China. Of course they're going to go with a structured enemy. Terrorists are too decentralized.
U.S.A. government, http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000033404&year=2009
Or we can look up BSA or other "not for profit" orgs they use to buy the government with.
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive
China has already destroyed America. Look around.
Seems a bit revealing to me.
The following book (written by university profs and heavily documented with references) contains numerous references to high ranking PLA officers referring to the US as the enemy, well at least in internal chinese language publications.
http://www.amazon.com/Death-China-Confronting-Dragon-Global/dp/0132180235
I bet its bug free with the PLA as bug tester and their anti cheat is a actually trip to the stockade/prison, unlike america army's in game one
I wouldn't mind playing that game in engrish, the beach assault @1min in this video looks fun.
Why can't they simulate Russians or Germans like we civilized Americans?
We often attribute erroneously to a country characteristics as if it was one person. But it is not. In a country there are different people, there are social conflicts. It is not something homogenous.
I am sure in China there are a lot of people who would not kill American people, but would rather try to save them if a necessity arisen.
In Nazi Germany there were people who hated the fascism. German antifascists informed Red Army leadership about the exact location of the main attack on Moscow in 1941. Marshal Zhukov himself mentioned it in his video interview. He gambled on this information and won.
So, some people in China made this video game, but I am sure from all Chinese people would approve shooting Americans.
Slashdot Headline from 1938:
Japanese naval academy requires cadets to plan an attack on Pearl Harbor. I'm sure those capitalistic, conservative Americans watching Fox News will think this means the peaceful Japanese Empire intends to wage war on us someday.
The problem is that development is being funded by a national government.
So it is OK for a national government to kill people of middle eastern appearance in a game. Before you play the "but they are terrorists" card, remember, the middle east, and possibly China Consider America as the real terrorist's.
And are you saying that you would be fine if a company did it, and not the government.....I didn't think so.
The government (including the military) mainly exists to do the bidding of wealthy corporate interests, and those corporations habitually portray China as 'bad guys' within their media.
Not coincidentally the governments and media from all major and emerging powers from Brazil to China now routinely portray the US as a plutocracy, with the government as a junior partner to Wall Street.
The distinction as to whether the US govt or a US corp made an anti-China video game hardly matters.
Perhaps I'm the only one who remembers that you spend the last 1/3rd of Modern Warfare 2 butchering hapless American troops? This article is stupid.
But, we saw that back in the 50,60,70's, in which Americans thought that USSR was NOT out to destroy USA.
American, and actually western, leadership MUST CONSIDER WHAT THEY ARE DOING.
China is not here to be allies. They are here to conqueror via economic first and then military later.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
They do not care if they lost their entire investment in America. Not ONE BIT. The fact is, that they had no choice BUT TO BUY AMERICAN BONDS. WHy? Because they have been manipulating their money against the dollar. If they had not invested the dollars back into America, their money would suffer 1000's of % inflation. As it is, they are thought to be at 50% inflation and rising. But Chinese' leaders would gladly suffer 2000% inflation AND give up their investment, if they could destroy the west.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The Chinese have some ICBMs too. Not as many as the US, but enough to do some nasty damage to the US. Unless you get all of those with the first strike, they can shoot back and make a more nasty backlash than some economic warfare.
C - the footgun of programming languages
AC wrote: "Exactly, the best excuse to refuse to honor treasuries while saving face is warfare and the Chinese know it. That's why they are investing in supersonic cruise missiles, generation 5 fighters, submarines, uavs, and anti-satelite warfare. If push comes to shove, they will need to neutralize our GPS, artillery, & air superiority. This is also why the US is working on SCRAM-jets & rail guns. You can bet we've spent most of the past 10 years surveying the ocean floor in the region so we can cut the fiber backbone & have an advantage with sonar. There will be nuclear subs parked off the coasts of both countries ready to launch a nuclear bombardment if the other side flinches. Glad I don't live in DC."
The concern about honoring treasuries is a non-issue, since as long as they are denominated in dollars the USA can just print the money. Still, "war is a racket", so you may well be right in the end, AC, but if so, it is too bad both the Chinese and the US Americans are both caught up in a deep irony. As I talk about here: ..."
http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html
"Military robots like drones are ironic because they are created essentially to force humans to work like robots in an industrialized social order. Why not just create industrial robots to do the work instead?
Nuclear weapons are ironic because they are about using space age systems to fight over oil and land. Why not just use advanced materials as found in nuclear missiles to make renewable energy sources (like windmills or solar panels) to replace oil, or why not use rocketry to move into space by building space habitats for more land?
Biological weapons like genetically-engineered plagues are ironic because they are about using advanced life-altering biotechnology to fight over which old-fashioned humans get to occupy the planet. Why not just use advanced biotech to let people pick their skin color, or to create living arkologies and agricultural abundance for everyone everywhere?
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
and all that implies about their technological capacity to use cheap computing to create endless new resources, than what are they worried about fight over? Naturally, I could, and have, said much the same about the USA:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html
"Likewise, even United States three-letter agencies like the NSA and the CIA, as well as their foreign counterparts, are becoming ironic institutions in many ways. Despite probably having more computing power per square foot than any other place in the world, they seem not to have thought much about the implications of all that computer power and organized information to transform the world into a place of abundance for all. Cheap computing makes possible just about cheap everything else, as does the ability to make better designs through shared computing. I discuss that at length here: http://www.pdfernhout.net/post-scarcity-princeton.html
There is a fundamental mismatch between 21st century reality and 20th century security thinking. Those "security" agencies are using those tools of abundance, cooperation, and sharing mainly from a mindset of scarcity, competition, and secrecy. Given the power of 21st century technology as an amplifier (including as weapons of mass destruction), a scarcity-based approach to using such technology ultimately is just making us all insecure. Such powerful technologies of abundance, designed, organized, and used from a mindset of scarcity could well ironically doom us all whether through military robots, nukes, plagues, propaganda, or whatever else... Or alternatively, as Bucky Fuller and others have suggested, we could use such technologies to build a world that is abundant and secure for all. "
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
We'd need to add factions for Russians and for al-Qaeda (Caliphate?), and then everyone will be happy.
Or not, if both sides start to tweak parameters of their weaponry to give a little edge to their troops... ~
All this shows is that the United States is still seen as the world's last military superpower. What better way to motivate than to be presented with what is commonly believed to be the world's best fighters? It is *possible* that somebody had motives that many here keep assuming, but chinese people have a different thought process than people in the west. To them, this game probably isn't about indoctrinating hatred or dehumanizing the "enemy"!!! We are the ones who see these things lurking in the shadows at all times. In the end, it amazes me, that here on slashdot, posters can be so worked up whenever there is an article about how "Video Games Caused Columbine, Censorship Now!", defending the beliefe that games alone don't make people into killers. This is just China's attempt at America's Army, and they probably programmed textures of us because they were thinking about us as they copied our ideas. They imitate us and we ridicule them. Yes, it has been pointed out already that America's Army depicts the enemy as a nationless terrorists, but that still doesn't allow us slashdotters be hypocrites and claim video games are able to manipulate. (Unless you are only implying that it was the PLA's intent to manipulate with the game, regardless of rationality.)
Shooting at whales is way too easy, it's much more challenging to be the whale.