US Army funds Future Combat
Clueless American military turns to gaming industry for help - oh boy
Since the September 11th terrorist attacks the US military seems to have come to the sudden realisation that it really doesn't have a clue what's going on out there, and bizarrely turned to Hollywood directors and scriptwriters to brainstorm possible scenarios earlier this month. Now they have gone a step further in their insanity by commissioning the Institute for Creative Technologies to team up with Battlezone 2 developers Pandemic and Sony Pictures to form a partnership called Future Combat. Together they are working on a game called C-Force which will be released on next-generation consoles in about two years, while a special version of the game will also be used to train officer candidates in the US Army. C-Force's executive producer will be Rob Sears, the man behind MechWarrior 3 and MechCommander, but given that the project is based on the army's "Military Operations in Urban Terrain" manual and set in the near future, we sadly doubt that there will be any large stompy robots involved. The focus will be on light infantry tactics, and ICT director Richard Lindheim believes that "while offering unique training aids for potential squad leaders or captains, these products will also teach game players everywhere about how to leverage human resources and information - skills that will benefit them enormously in their professional lives". "There are huge questions that must be answered both in developing and playing these games beyond simply asking how much more advanced will weaponry become, and how will it affect battlefield strategy and tactics", according to creative director James Korris. "In twenty years, for example, will soldiers wear computers? Will they be networked? What kind of information will troops receive and send? How will it impact split-second decisions made in the field?" It sounds like the US army doesn't know the answers to these questions, and the thought of game developers and movie producers designing the soldier of tomorrow is truly a terrifying one...