The US military has a long history of creating games as both training tools and propaganda, but sometimes they aren’t entirely accurate.
A new game from the US Army called Future Force Company Commander (worst title EVAR), depicts a near future version of US forces as unstoppable killing machines on par with DOOM‘s IDDT-code-addled space marines.
Wired is running an interview with one of the CEO’s of Zombie, the developers behind the game, and he states pretty plainly that the military head brass wouldn’t allow them to program in actual deficiencies in the US forces. While the kind of high-tech gizmos employed in the game do have real world countermeasures, the Army wanted to depict itself as a perfect fighting force unhindered by both reality and the ingenuity of man.
While I’m sure there will be some toothless folks (probably clad in Dale Jr caps and Megadeth shirts) who will be suckered into this kind of jingoistic gaming, the reality that this game demonstrates is less than accurate to say the least. I’m sure the Army doesn’t want to fund a game that depicts them as baby-rapers and church-defilers, but to depict themselves as AIMbots just to win over a few dumb kids seems kinda low.
Published: Nov 27, 2006 02:46 pm