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".