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war and computer war games

M

Melf

Gone But Not Forgotten
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Nov 6, 2002
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does anyone think that there is a connection between the producing of war games and the 2nd war (sorry...invasion) of iraq?

ever since the "1st war in iraq" there has been a perlethera(sp?) of war games on sale eg. vietnam, the battle of britain, etc.

so where these (american?) games houses asked/ordered to produce these games for the "wellbeing/feelgood factor" of the nation/world?

is it "just" coincidence? :hmm:

or am i seeing conspirecies where there is none? :madeyes: :gaga:
 
Very possibly... what really worries me is the militarys sudden expansion corperate arm, especialy the US armed forces.

Americas Army - free download, shoot-em-up game. Made using US Army Training program technology.

And also the other day I downloaded a music player/mixer software apparently licenced by USAF.

Army Inc. is quite a scary thought for me...
 
didnt the us military ask the company who made "tank"? the 3d wire frame computer game, a version for themselves?
and the question is did they?
 
melf said:
ever since the "1st war in iraq" there has been a perlethera(sp?) of war games on sale eg. vietnam, the battle of britain, etc.
Click to expand...
I think that there were a lot, prior to GW I. The main difference is that 3D "sims" have really taken off with the advent of 3D graphics cards (as well as post-Wolfenstein/Doom). I think that's the real thing to correlate this with. :)
 
I agree with what Fortis has said above. I used to work in the games industry, and this sort of arguement came up alot post-GW1. But war games per se, in their various different forms, have been pretty much a constant in computer games ever since they became widespread.
 
I make custom maps for Medal of Honor for PC.

I dont think theres any connection with wars and gaming.

It would be fantastic if someone could build a little terminator type thing that I could control the same as a character ingame.

I imagine that is the future of soldiering.

I also read a while back that playing Mohaa makes you more intelligent. When I get home from work I will post a link to the report.

I love playing online, it does give you an adrenalin rush in certain situations and sometimes your game playing skills become sublime, I guess thats the Zone you hear about ?

Great stuff.
 
I know several people involved in the games industry and they would be the last to be involved in such a thing. Too bohemian.
 
Heres the link to the report I mentioned, its a page I saved to my machine from CNN, the graphics seem to have got broken but the text is all there:

http://www.cheapflightspakistan.com/stuff/mohaa_makes_you_clever.htm

An excerpt: In a separate test, a group of 17 who never played video games were trained to play the military game "Medal of Honor" and the puzzle game "Tetris." After playing for 10 days, those who learned "Medal of Honor" scored better on the performance tests than those who didn't.
 
I don't think there's any real connection between war-based computer games and actual wars, based on the fact that the games have been around for about as long as computer games in general have been, like for the ZX Spectrum (I vaguely recall a game with a tank I liked, but can't remember much about it). And Risk, while not being a computer game, I assume has been around for a long time. It's based on war, isn't it? :) I often think it's just a reflection of what people are like. Can't beat a good game of Tetris, though.
 
computer /war games

i'm sure the military use some of the technologies developed by games programmers for their own purposes.

however, computer war games grew out of (way back) table top wargaming (a la featherstone) and then the avalon hill style paper versions.

i happily published a version of D-Day for the sinclair QL and did other wargaming progs and to this day happily play computer war games.

But in real life i've no connection with real warfare (even refused to join the Corpse when at school) and have been an ardent anti-militarist since those days.

wargaming has been part of the miltary since the 19th century and they use whatever technology thay can to provide the most realistic training aids and scenarion planning possible.

me, i just enjoy the challenge of something more realistic than chess. but i've never wanted to take part in the real thing!

ra
 
Can't remember where I saw it but there is a War Game created by the US armed farces to recruit new soldiers - it is targetted at kids who go through virtual boot camp and then progress through the ranks all the time being mentored by US Army staff.
 
Originally posted by rjm
Americas Army - free download, shoot-em-up game. Made using US Army Training program technology.
Click to expand...

This is that game.
 
And since the US army is a bunch of sissies, the good stuff (ie the gory bits) has been left out.
 
Give the american army a 100 x100 mile battlefield with no trees, hills or buildings and they'll be fine.
 
and no ailies to get in the way ;)
 
I doubt there would be a cheat to unlock the US armed forces version, as its a complete remake. The engine is the same, but they had to change most of it for it to be suitable for civvies.

I think Fortis put it right... 3D graphics capabilities, and the proliferation of technology has produced the boom.

I mean, what did we have around the Gulf War? Strider, R-Type, Final Fight... hardly a simulation :)

You must also take into account the appeal of the medium... after all, we can see from the amount of war movies in the history of cinema that there is a market for it, and I think you could argue it directly translates to the games industry.

Sorry Melf, but I see coincidence...

However, America's Army (both versions, the FPS and the 'Sims' type one) are interesting as a recruiting tool, but games are hardly going to turn us into better killers... I mean moving a mouse is nothing compared to holding a rifle :)
 
Re Gulf war and simulation

Bruce Sterling did a brilliant piece in Wired a few years ago about the US military use of computer simulation in the first gulf war.

I'll go see if i can find it.

ra

IT's called War is Virtual Hell at:

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1.01/virthell_pr.html

(hopefully enough of that addy will survive)

otherwise do a googlge on bruce Sterling.
go to the online index website
look for his wired articles and it's the one at the bottom of the page.

lots of other goodies there too!

ra
 
Simulations are becoming integral to modern western forces. We Brits use a simulated rifle range among other things... (there's one at Swinerton and a few other places).

The US has been ploughing money into this area for over a decade. Games such as Real War, Full Spectrum Warrior, and Delta Force evolved from combat simulators.

With digital feedback assets in the field too, the resources for commanders is becoming akin to strategy games, and certainly running through games-like simulations helps immerse the serviceman/woman into the world they could see themselves in...

Incredible age we live in, although I don't think there will be a time when games are designed specifically to get us to go to war, after all, what your citizens have, your enemy can get. That is why games like FSW are cut-down, as well as in order to make them easy to play for civvies.
 
The recent increase in conflict-based games seems to have been sparked by the original Medal of Honor title which in turn was developed after Saving Private Ryan. I seem to recall that Spielberg put forward the concept of the game and had a hand in funding it. When this hit the charts in a big way publishers world-wide were screaming for (initially) WWII based games and thus the flood began.
 
I mentioned earlier in the thread I make custom maps for Medal Of Honor, heres a link to some screenshots of my latest creation, its based on The Raid on Saint Nazaire, I used aerial recon shots for the basic ground plan and photos for the main buidlings, its a pretty accurate representation cept much smaller of course to enable you to find someone to shoot:

http://www.project313.co.uk/nazaire/screens

I dont quite agree the craze started with Mohaa, I seem to remember it kicked off with Wolfenstein 3D then onto Quake....

EDIT: BIG GRIN :D it made it to MAP OF THE WEEK on http://www.planetmedalofhonor.com
 
I'd agree, although I'd say the current trend took off with the release of Medal of Honor: Allied Assault on the PC (and its PS version too). The original two on the PS had some success, but the marvellous D-Day set-piece really got the WWII juices flowing. However, one cannot dismiss the large market prior to that... ever since gaming began, war inspired games have arrived, its just that the technology to fully realise them has only really come about recently. But I think the cinematics of MOH:AA could definitely be seen as a breaking point for a flood of WWII games. Although from the credits in the game, Spielberg wasn't even given a thank you, so I wouldn't be too sure about the link (although Shaving Ryan's Privates were certainly an inspiration).

I think if you want to draw in a good tie between war and games, you have to look at the simulators of vehicles as opposed to first-person shooters. Flight simulators and tank simulators and the likes could arguably be considered more technically realistic and closer to reality (although detached for obvious reasons) than keyboard-mouse shooters (or worse, gamepad shooters). I think it would be interesting to examine whether flight simulator experience helps one be trained quicker as a pilot, perhaps there could be some study into that? Then you could raise the question of whether there is some element of civil training that would benefit the military in a WWII-esque invasion scenario. But that of course would be tentative links ;)
 
Very cool, Rube... it's like a highly extended version of the U-Boat map in the single-player game, but looks excellent.

Just to reiterate my point in line with Jack Ruby's, I too don't believe that FPS or indeed war-games kicked off with MOH, but rather the spate of WWII really took hold at that point. Wolfenstein 3D really kicked the first-person shooter genre into touch, and Doom really completed that... and certainly other games were around prior to MOH which dealt with war-like topics... Rainbow Six immediately springs to mind, Operation Flashpoint was incredibly detailed in this regard (though I think that was similar timing to MOH). And of course, the seminal Half-Life was released before this, as well as the Delta Force series (which made me a deft shot ;) ). As well as Quake and Unreal (especially Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament which brought both games to a more detailed whole).

Of course, we can trace back strategic/tactical war-games way back to Dune II as a breaking point, bringing forth the RTS genre, and turn-based games even further. The market for war is just huge, I mean there is no better way to wind down than to blow someone away... like a punchbag with your boss' face on it :)

But before I hog this too much (I don't mean to, but games are my passion), here's a few war-games (modern-based) that have my hopes up in coming months and years:

1. Full Spectrum Warrior
2. Joint Operations
3. Battlefield 2 (interesting as I would have thought Vietnam was number 2)
4. Splinter Cell 3 (not specifically a war game, but very accurately portrayed)
5. Ghost Recon 2
6. Operation Flashpoint 2

There are no doubt plenty missing (including the new MOH game, but I don't hold out much hope if the PC version is as atrocious as the console versions).

Oh and finally... on looking over the thread, I was reminded of America's Army (the recruiting game) and downloaded the latest version. I used to play and used to love it. The new version brings in First Aid training (a socially responsible thing you could argue) and Vehicle, Aircraft and Weapons Recognition (nothing definitive, but a nice beginners guide). Orginally there was to be another America's Army game which would be more akin to the Sims than Quake. You would train your soldier Pokemon style and send him through boot-camp and his career... in fact, I was looking forward to that, but looks like it was canned. :mad: More info at America's Army site .

Peace out...
 
the first computer game was space war so surely that is the where all computer games have followed from. plus i found this which is the genealogy of computer war games technology.
 
Tool, I only make multiplayer maps for online rucking.

If your into this maybe you should hook up with us sometime and join the battle.

Playing live players is a different league to playing against a games AI.

Yeah my map was a similar in parts to the single player uboat level but I didnt look to that for inspiration I worked from photos of the actual site, I guess you seen one uboat pen you seen them all :)

Tool, you will love the next generation 3d games, heres a link to some screenshots of some new stuff in the pipeline http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?threadid=91628&perpage=10&pagenumber=1 I nearly wet my pants when I saw what is coming :)

I cant wait for:

MohPA: ( nothing like the console version heres a vid for you http://www.eagames.com/official/moh/pacificassault/us/videos.jsp )
Halflife 2
Doom 3
 
Very cool link fLeebLe... Real gets to the heart of it.

Rube... I love MP MOH, largely played it on LAN, but I'm always up for online MOH :)

The next-gen 3D cards are creating some very impressive effects... month by month we crawl towards playable-photorealism... The Far Cry screenies at the top of that page are really a shining example of beautiful texturing and realism.

HL2, MOH:pA, and Doom 3 all have incredible textures, that will look gorgeous (or hideous in Doom 3's case)...

Perhaps (returning to the topic at hand) one could see the greater photorealism as a means to lower inhibitions to fire that first shot... not that armies haven't spent centuries perfecting this. (See me trying to claw some things for Melf... like a good little n00b... I mean newbie).

Peace out wargamers!
 
As someone who plays computer wargames like the Combat Mission games and various sims quite a lot i'm not sure you can really say there is a correlation. If anything computer technology has reached a point where the large amount of complex AI routines and so on are now possible the rest is coincidence.

There is most likely a link though between the gulf war BOOSTING sales of wargames - in fact i would go as far to say that it is a definate fact. Any visit to a wargames forum will show this. There seems to be a lot of people who play these games because they are not able to go and fight in a real war themselves. I have also noticed a worrying trend in right wing thinking (ranging from good old fashioned rampant republicanism to borderline Nazi thinking) from people involved - but that is beside the point (although its something that i'm finding increasingly difficult to deal with sensibly. :) )
 
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