LibriumArcana.Games

PC gamer wrote: When real life and virtual reality collide
Military and sports professionals improve their real world skills by playing PC games

The next time you settle in for an extended session of NASCAR SimRacing, Flight Simulator 2004 or Half Life 2, you can take some comfort that you're not just playing a game, you're getting on the job training. Now, if you aren't a pilot, race driver or soldier, this argument probably won't fly with too many of you. But for military and sports professionals, these games can save thousands of dollars in simulators and training costs. Don't belive us? Check out some of these real world examples.

Speedway studies
When NASCAR superstars like Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Carl Edwards aren't rubbing fenders at Charlotte and Daytona, you'll often find them behind the wheel of the latest PC racing sims from Papyrus and EA sports.
Though they do this primarily for relaxation and entertainment, they;ve also discovered a significent training benefit from the activity.
In face, Roush Racing's Carl Edwards credits his PC sim racing with helping him win the 2005 Nextel Cup at Pocono, a track he'd never seen before. "I've got the computer game inside my RV and I kind of wore that thing out," he recounts.
Earnhardt Jr. also uses PC sims(Papyrus' defunct NASCAR Racing series in particular) to hone his driving skills esspecially on road circuits. Prior to making his Busch Series debut at Watkins Glen in 1998, he practiced diligently on his PC. "Before I drove that 31 car at Watkins Glen, I spent two hours a night for a week on that game, and between that and the Bondurant school, I improved my lap time by four or five seconds." (He wound up 8th in the 43 car race.)
Though NASCAR's current deal with EA sports prevents most sponsor concious drivers from endoring non-EA games, it's a poorly kept secret that Papy's ultra realistic NASCAR racing 2003 is still the preferred PC "training" platform for NASCAR's elite. That said, EA's much improved NASCAR SimRacing is carinv out some respect of its own.
"Over the last couple of years, the things EA has added, those things happen in real life,"says Earnhardt Jr. "For them to be able to incorporate that element into the human aspect of the AI is pretty amazing. They just keep bringing all these new things to the table and it makes [the experiance] a lot more real."

Flight school
The U.S Military owns a lot of flight simulators. Hell, they've practically got the market cornered on multimillion dollar motion platforms that simulate everything from negeative g-loading to barf bags. These simulators are extreamely expensive to operate, however almost as pricey as the real training flights so a cheaper alternative was clearly on the Pentagon's wishlist.
It came courtesy of Lt. Herb Lacey and Microsoft Flight Simulator. When this Navel pilot in training chalked up perfect marks in his first flight in a T-34 trainer back in 119(despite never having set foot in an airplane cockpit before), his superiors were curious. After investigating, they discovered Lacey had been using MS Flight Sim so extensively in his spare time that when it came time to fly around the Corpus Christi, Texas, Naval Air station for real, he could practicly do it blindfolded.
Before you could say "Get me Bill Gates on the phone," the Chief of Naval Education and training promptly installed modified Flight Simulator software on PC workstations at the Naval Air Station in Corpus Christi and at two other bases in Florida. These MS Flight Sim labs have expanded each year, and student pilots are now expected to complete 27 hours of instruction running cheklists, following ATC clearances, preforming basic flight maneuvers, and polishing IFR flying skills under the direct supervision of Flight Safety Instructors.

No Half Measures

The U.S military jumped into the gaming business a few years ago with America's Army, and though that title is primarily a recruitment device, Uncle Sam also understands the value of PC games as atraining tool. The Pentagon has used modified builds of Operation Flashpoint, Ghost Recon, Real War and even Doom to supplement its troops' urban warfare tutelage since the late Nineties, and the concept works so well that the Brits now want a piece of the action.
So much that a UK technology company called QinetiQ(pronounced Ki-net-tic) is currently developing a customised version of Valve's Half Life 2 for the British Army. Why HL2? "Half Life 2 provides a stable, very capable platform; has an excellent physics engine; and enables the modeling of building internals more effectively then [alternatives like] Far Cry." explains program head David Williams.
QinetiQ's DIVE2(Dismounted Infantry Virtual Enviorment) mod replaces HL2 sci-fi weapons with current UK weapony, reskins the characters in British Army uniforms, and adds real world scenary from the Army's Copehill Down training Facility.
Major George Kohler from the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers is pleased with the results. "Experiance has shown us that more and more fighting is taking place in buildings and built up areas. [and] this has produced specific training needs," he says. "The DIVE2 concept can help inform the solution. We've already tried out the house clearance scenario on a number of experianced units, and the Royal Scots have particularly embraced it. The guys not only used it as part of their formal training, but in their own time too."

So, all of those 18 to 25 year old British Soldiers get to play HL2 during their off hours and on the goverment's time? Sounds like a sweet deal to us. Where do we sign up?

Andy Mahood