I need to get me one of those.

Come on kiddies, remember combat is fun and chicks dig guys with prosthetic limbs!

I wonder if there is any consequence for killing civilians... or do they leave that part out?

No surprise here.. I wonder if the game comes equipped with Virtual Brain Trauma and virtual amputations?

A friend of mine who works as a game designer and I were talking about games like this. An idea I had was to humanize every individual that you kill in the game. That is, when you're about the kill "the enemy," you have to sit through a five minute biography of that individual, including their family history, the children s/he leaves behind, and the charity work he did (before you blew off his head with a M16).

"Cool scars" and "let's get our stories straight."

Wonder if those gems are included in the game?

>> ^Trancecoach:
An idea I had was to humanize every individual that you kill in the game. That is, when you're about the kill "the enemy," you have to sit through a five minute biography of that individual, including their family history, the children s/he leaves behind, and the charity work he did (before you blew off his head with a M16).


I'm sure the guys shooting at our troops are deeply concerned about our family lives as well. Yea, the "video game" aspect of it does tend to trivialize things, but at the same time it is a little different when the person you are talking about IS trying to kill you.

I'm not really sure how I feel about this kinda stuff being used for marketing. I'm in the Army and we use stuff like this for training all the time, but making war seem like "fun" is a little misleading. I'd really have to take a run through this simulator before I could pass judgment on whether I think it is a good thing or a bad thing.

^As a psychotherapist, I'm in communication with individuals who are using the Virtual Iraq software to treat Iraq veterans who are returning home with symptoms of PTSD. Soldiers' clinical exposure to the program has been limited, but so far, the results have been promising. In the future, I think it will be even better to have soldiers make use of the VR software BEFORE entering an actual battlefield, because so much of the disorder seems to emerge as a result of the shock that the novelty of such experiences bring about. And who knows, perhaps such exposure to a more realistic battlefield will deter potential soldiers from ever joining up in the first place.

But I know that this marketing tactic--which essentially fictionalizes and romanticizes the military--is BAD NEWS and can only hinder potential soldiers' free choice in the matter.

That's fucking disturbing.

Not glorifying war? Bullshit! Hells bells, it's like one step away from telling Timmy or Tina to join up and have fun doing the real thing.

God how fucking fat and lazy and stupid America has become.

They, "our enemies", are not over here, in our streets, kicking down our doors, hauling off our men. They do not have an air force. They do not have satellite analysis. They have not established bases.

WE are doing that to THEM.

The fucking truth is that we, Americans, have no business being there.

We are committing war crimes on a daily basis and that game is promoting that activity as if it were entertainment.

>> ^Trancecoach:
^As a psychotherapist, I'm in communication with individuals who are using the Virtual Iraq software to treat Iraq veterans who are returning home with symptoms of PTSD. Soldiers' clinical exposure to the program has been limited, but so far, the results have been promising. In the future, I think it will be even better to have soldiers make use of the VR software BEFORE entering an actual battlefield, because so much of the disorder seems to emerge as a result of the shock that the novelty of such experiences bring about. And who knows, perhaps such exposure to a more realistic battlefield will deter potential soldiers from ever joining up in the first place.
But I know that this marketing tactic--which essentially fictionalizes and romanticizes the military--is BAD NEWS and can only hinder potential soldiers' free choice in the matter.

Well isn't that nice, doing our best to preemptively treat victims of PTSD rather than eliminating the events that cause it in the first place.

Funny how politicians cry about violent video games teaching kids how to kill but you don't hear a word about this war similator, with actual replica humvees and assualt rifles. I enjoy the Grand Theft Auto games and all, but at least GTA doesn't hand me a Uzi, a 180 degree view, surround sound and the potential to make what I just played a reality.