The Virtual Army Experience
One of the more interesting exhibits (depending on how you look at it, we guess) is hosted by the United States Army here at Digital Life. It’s actually called the Virtual Army Experience and it’s a full scale setup. It even has a tour bus, flashing lights, and the works. The basis for the Virtual Army Experience is to take a virtual test drive of the Army. Makes sense, right? The whole thing is based around an Army-produced video game entitled, America’s Army: Special Forces (Overmatch). and the exhibit has a high number of computer stations that allow attendees to participate in sort of a U.S. Army LAN party. A little strange, but what’s more strange is that the experience itself is hidden from view. We had to practically seek it out which is weird given the nature of a convention like this. Regardless of that, more than a few people seemed interested, and there are Army personnel on hand to answer any questions about the game and / or the real Army experience. Besides the moral issues of trying to groom kids into soldiers, the whole gaming aspect was incredibly thought out, and the networked environment ran seemlesly. That’s more than we can say for some of the Sony Playstation 3 units on display here. After all, the Army likes to get their Xbox 360 on! More photo snaps after the breakage!
Man! Screw the Army! The setup at digital life does seem a little gangsta though…
Can’t they give it a break? I mean they do enough on their commercials, do they have to ruin a whole convention?
Whay would you hide the display if your on a recruiting tour dosn’t make any sense. Unliess it’s the precing on booth space.
Yeah, I can’t believe that crap…training people to protect us. What we really need is more games like Grand Theft Auto and some more zombie killing games. We need more moral ambiguity in this day and age.
Recruiters at a digital convention, lol
What “moral issues” related to a potential career in the US military are you, a writer on a gadget blog, daring to refer to? You would be wise to remember that (1) you’re selling gadget news, not political or moral commentary and (2) you’ll alienate your readers by continuing to toss thoughtless, intellectually flacid comments like that into an otherwise decent article. If you’re not careful to stay on-task, you might find your readership devoid of the many folks who respect our servicemen and women.
Man you people need to chill out, I thought this was america where we could have opinions but I guess its just where we have to have opinions that conform to what the government says we should think
The army? They get paid to do a job, take away the pay and benefits and let’s see how patriotic they are
Well anyway…. I believe the game is running the GRAW(ghost recon) physics engine, which should mean the game will look pretty darn good graphically..
“The Army? They get paid to do a job. Take away their pay…”
Zac, have you really looked at what a soldier gets paid? They certainly don’t risk their lives for the money. Do you even have a job? Ok, let’s say you do. If your boss tells you you aren’t going to get paid, would you still bag those groceries? It is not uncommon for our soldiers who are 10,000 miles away wondering if they will live to see tomorrow, to have the little pay they get not show up in the wife’s bank account. Now how is she going to feed the kids? Before all of you go ragging on the military and how you thought this was a free country, have you ever stopped to think WHY it is a free country?
One problem with the Internet is FBI plants like Nate Lee trying to intimidate people who use humor to communicate political ideas that are clearly necessary, due to ambiguous and disgusting exhibits like this one. Besides, video games are only good for training soldiers to do one thing: to kill! We need to support a military tradition of developing soldiers who can THINK, too!
I think its cute that because I don’t want to suck off every soldier I obviously “bag groceries” or don’t have a job at all, that really is cute….what do soldiers get paid? Uh…their college loans get paid off, 5000$ sign on bonuses…most soldiers are dumb kids looking to make a quick buck, face it that’s the truth, I’m sorry if you disagree but you will have to deal with it
How will the wives feed the kids? Try getting a job!
If you can’t support your kids you shouldn’t have put on your big boy pants and jumped into the real world, go back home to mommy and daddy and play house there for a while before you think you can take it, just because your a marine you should be felt sorry for that’s pathetic
Oh and uh…yeah, they do it for the money
Poll the average recruit in a real world situation
“Its great money”
“I like to shoot stuff”
“The rush”
“Action and adventure”
“Uh…the money”
Go give it a shot and quit your bitching when you see I’m right
“most soldiers are dumb kids looking to make a quick buck, face it that’s the truth”
“just because your a marine you should be felt sorry for that’s pathetic”
“Oh and uh…yeah, they do it for the money”
Wow zac. The more anti-supportive, anti-military ranting you do, the more you’re confirming how much of a douch-bag you are.
Do some research. The GI bill is full of restrictions. And it doesn’t simply “pay off” a college loan. A military career is not the path to a “quick buck”. Most “bonus” incentives are not paid until a soldier completes his/her duties. Please get your facts straight before you make more of an ass of yourself. A quick tour of the army website spells it all out pretty comprehensively.
Oh yeah… another thing. Learn how to spell and use punctuation marks correctly. Re-read your posts and quit your ranting. You know its true. Haha.
You sound like an idiot… probably because you are. I’m sorry if you disagree, but you’ll have to deal with it.
And a punctuation nazi, your right, typing your post out in word and letting a spell checker fix it for me like you did would show how smart I am
Thanks for pointing that out
I don’t see how not jumping up and down and crying because someone chose a career, read: made a decision to run around shooting things, makes me a bad person
I don’t see people throwing parades when ever doctors walk down the road and the people curing diseases don’t get nearly as much respect
I’m not saying the armed forces isn’t a honorable and noble field of work but just because someone chooses it dosnt mean they should be respected more than anyone else
Ok…ok…before this gets out of hand….who that wants to bitch and complain to me actually is in the military…or was at one point? Those of you who aren’t or have never been…why not? If its such a marvelous thing and your so superior to me why aren’t you in the army right now?
Is there no one else?
your all silly the army protects you with out it you would be all slave go out get a life u computer geeks
grow some balls killa, respect the army, without them, you wouldn’t be here today
listen you little pricks. you wanna trash talk the army why dont you step up and prove you got what it takes to protect yourself and this country. thats what we do and just cause we come out with some vidio game you want to disrespt the people that keep your freedom intact, the people that make it possible for you to sleep at night and not have to worry about some RPG coming thru your window while you sleep at night and blowing your butt all over your room. Besides your probably 30 living in your moms basement sitting on your ass watching tv and surfing the web all day.
Regarding the exhibit being “hidden from view”, the targeting systems in the mission simulator are sensitive to light pollution. The darker the environment, the more accurate they are. If the VAE mission simulator were out in the open, it wouldn’t operate properly. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find a system which provided the interactivity we were seeking on a scale involving that many players, which wouldn’t suffer from light pollution.
Thanks Frank, that answered the main question and shut up the rant that was ongoing.
Go Army
Support Your Troops, Fly a Flag
small minded is he who refuses to question his civil servants when need be. you imply and we infer that you hold blind allegiance for ideals- ideals that don’t exist in reality.
The “moral issues” of grooming kids into soldiers? I fail to see anything wrong with recruitment. If you have no desire to defend your rights and freedoms, that is fine. But the military does not need your criticism when all they are trying to do is find more willing people to fight for this nation.
I was at the Indiana State Fair on Sat 8/9/08 and did the Virtual experience. I thought it was pretty cool. I was only disappointed that Drill Sargent Hardy wouldn’t give me a Go Army T-shirt. : ( I give 110%+ at work everyday for you guys in the Army, the least I could do was get a T-shirt!! (without having to do pushups)
Tina