Posted on 03/05/2010 12:54:52 PM PST by hennie pennie
The country of Ghanzia is embroiled in a civil war. As a soldier in America's Army, your job is to do everything from protect U.S. military convoys against AK-47-wielding attackers to sneak up on a mountain observatory where arms dealers are hiding out. It is a tough and dangerous tour of duty that requires dedication, focus, and a bit of luck. Fortunately, if you get hit by a bullet and bleed to death, you can reboot your computer and sign on under a new name.
America's Army is a video game -- a "tactical multiplayer first-person shooter" in gaming lingo -- that was originally developed by the U.S. military to aid in its recruiting and training, but is now available for anyone to play. Among the most downloaded Internet games of all time, it is perhaps the best known of a vast array of video game-based military training programs and combat simulations whose scope and importance are rapidly changing not just the video-game marketplace, but also the way the U.S. military finds and trains its future warriors and even how the American public interfaces with the wars carried out in its name. For all the attention to the strategic debates of the post-9/11 era, a different sort of transformation has taken place over the last decade -- largely escaping public scrutiny, at modest cost relative to the enormous sums spent elsewhere in the Pentagon budget, and with little planning but enormous consequences.
War Games
The war games the army plays.
These "games" range from the deadly serious, like programs designed to train soldiers in cultural sensitivity or help veterans overcome the trauma of combat, to the truly outlandish, like a human-sized hamster wheel that makes...........
(Excerpt) Read more at foreignpolicy.com ...
*ping*
This is a disturbingly incorrect “revision?” of the history of the development of the America’s Army franchise.
Also, I’ve read a properly written article posted on FR years ago, that is much better at explaining the game and the recruitment concepts involved...
It is clear the author has never played the AA3 game.
I’m not interested in computer gaming, but make the Sims Muzzies living in Mecca...
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