full text of a newspaper article I wrote:
US Army designs "shoot 'em up" VIDEO GAME.
by greg vanderlaan gregvan@yahoo.com
I was outraged to see that the Taxpayers paid the US Army to create a Video
Game that teaches teenagers about war and gives them an opportunity to
explore careers in the military. www.americasarmy.com is the home of a game
that lets people experience virtually the art of war using a military simulator
that teaches tactics and strategies to civilians. Blow stuff up too. This game
is rated "T" for teen by the Entertainment Software Ratings Board.
Players may join virtual teams to compete online with others across the internet.
A headset microphone is recommended for shouting orders to your teammates.
The marketing strategy is brilliant. A teenager might make the intellectual leap
from "Gee, It's a lot of FUN to blow up people in this Video Game " to
"Gee, if I enlist, I can blow up people FOR REAL". A player may get a copy
of the game on CD by visiting their US ARMY recruiter. The talents of a Video
Game player would be very useful to an army that uses complex computer
controlled weapons. I remember that the CNN broadcast of the bombing of
Baghdad looked eerily familiar. The surrealistic green color scheme of the
night-vision cameras and the trails left by the bombs seemed to be identical
to the Video Game "Missile Command". However, unlike a game, when a
player kills a person in reality they stay dead, no replays. The graphics in
this game are superb, a typical scene shows oil wells and a "Escher-like"
tile floor. The action appears to take place in a Middle Eastern city.
A link to shopping lets you purchase dolls to play with offline. Handy to have
when your kid sister wants to serve tea to her dollies. You can have your
action figures shoot up the tea room and blast all the bad guys. One doll is an
Indigenous Soldier. "Special Forces teams have a proud history of training
indigenous forces to fight to liberate their countrymen from oppression".
Another doll is a Special Forces Intelligence Sergeant. "The Special Forces
Intelligence Sergeant is responsible for collecting and providing essential
intelligence during missions, conducting and handling agent reports,
analyzing risks associated with friendly and enemy courses of action, and
acts to counter or neutralize identified intelligence threats". Of course, the
intelligent Sergeant needs a machine gun to fill out those reports. OOPS,
I typed intelligent when I meant Intellegence... A slip that anyone could
make... Assuming the Sergeant to BE SMART, not collect rumors.
A basic concept in mind-control is to saturate the subject with virtual blood
and gore to allow them to become used to seeing horrible sights. When faced
with actual blood and gore, the subject is not offended due to familiarity.
The actual US Military has been using motion pictures to train soldiers for
years. The first time a new recruit sees a "sucking chest wound" they are
disgusted and often vomit. Upon repeated exposure, the new recruit becomes
comfortable with the images. Training soldiers often uses the concepts of
Pavlov and B.F. Skinner. This style of training is effective, a soldier should
not question a command but execute it instantly for the Army to function
properly. If a soldier has lingering doubts about the wisdom of invading a
foreign country that has no WMDs, no ties to Al-Qaeda and nothing at all
to do with the mass murder on 9/11/2001, then they will hesitate when the
time comes to pull the trigger. Just like practicing flying an airplane using
a flight simulator, a "shoot 'em up" Video Game can be used to speed up
reaction times. This opportunity to program your own mind is now available
to any teenager with a computer and an Internet connection. Playstation
and XBOX versions are available too. SEE, they learned a lot from project
MKULTRA.
www.riseofasoldier.com is the website for the new version of the game
created by UBISOFT. Epic Games designed the underlying architecture
for these games. The U.S. Army announced that it has licensed Unreal
Engine 3 for the next generation versions of America's Army. In addition
to serving over 5 million registered users playing more than 1.34 billion
missions "a wide variety of agencies from the U.S. Navy to national
laboratories have repurposed America’s Army for applications ranging
from appended training devices for weapon systems to adaptive thinking
and leadership training simulations".
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wow, what a lot of heavy words... here is some art to cleanse the palette.
This airplane has been recycled to become a playground toy...
