Just like the Army, the U.S. Air Force uses games to help potential recruits connect with their organisation. Just not quite as well.
By the title alone, you knew Six Days in Fallujah, Konami’s planned “documentary-style” combat game about Iraq, would create an uproar. Unlike historical or generic conflict, this covers recent and real, about a polarising war.
Well, militaries across the world may soon have a new war game to their arsenal, and it could have a trickle down effect to retail games — British researchers have come up with a game system that incorporates a ‘smell box,’ in an attempt to see if they can make training stick better. In what sounds like an unpleasant experience, various smells are triggered as users ‘take an authentic walk’ around hostile areas. If it’s determined this is making training more useful, it could be rolled out next year and be used in training actual soldiers:
U.S. Major General Jeffery Hammond, delivering a press briefing on the progress of the 4th Infantry’s efforts in Iraq, revealed the inspiration behind their current strategy for dealing with Al Qaeda operatives and Shiite extremists. “I believe they have been degraded, we continue to PacMan, like the video game, away at their efforts, at their different levels,” Major General Hammond said.
While it’s nice to see a video game reference made by high-ranking military officers, I have to wonder exactly what this means. I get this bizarre mental image of an overhead view of the streets of Baghdad, fruit carts spilling into the streets and the military struggling to pick up the produce for extra points. Are we the ghosts, or are we Pac-Man himself? Are power pellets sanctioned under the Geneva Conventions? With so many questions, one thing remains quite clear – we need to air drop Billy Mitchell into the war zone immediately, hot sauce and all.