The truth behind FPS- Are they really military trainers?

[Exocet]

One major point why no:respawning in games and the fear of dying in rea life.

In a game,you don't really care about dying;your k/d ratio lowers and you have to wait.That means you take take dumb and unnecessary risks such as entering buildings alone with barely a glance.

In real life,such carelessness will probably end with you dying.
Besides,games only show you the firefights,not the patrolling,guarding,etc...

 

[Magical Hans]

I'm pretty sure in the army they try to teach NOT to T-Bag someone's dead corpse.

However in a real life combat situation, i would if i could

 

[Vrex360]

If they are than they are doing a shit job at it, years of playing Halo games have taught me that yes, you can totally charge right up into enemy fire and run and jump and kill them all while laughing with joy.
If I applied that logic to real world firefighting then they'd have to scrape what was left of me into a garbage bag with a spade.

 

[Bob_F_It]

All that a game links to actual use of a firearm is "bullet goes there", nothing about where you hold the gun, grouping and windage, misfires and jamming, various swithes on the gun for safety, releasing the clip, and when you take the clip out, the rounds don't magic themselves into another clip. I read a thread where someone thought the loose vibrater in their controller made it feel like firing an actual gun, but a wieght on a motor will be nothing like the recoil of a .357 magnum round.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

NO!! Being good at an fps does not grant you any skill or even basic knowledge of a real firearm, nor does it teach any real world combat tactics.

While your first point is correct, you second is not. One CAN use an FPS as a training aid for military tactics. Most of the problems you face in combat are met with incredibly simple solutions. For example, the "correct" (per US Doctrine) response to an abush is to quickly lay a base of fire and assault through the ambush. The most common small group maneuver is the flanking attack. There are dozens of scenarios where you'll find that one can easily use an FPS to demonstrate the concept.

That doesn't substitute for real life training but that doesn't mean it can't help.

 

[Hexadecimal16]

I'm pretty sure in the army they try to teach NOT to T-Bag someone's dead corpse.

5 bucks says someone in the military has done this.

But really, comparing playing an FPS to actual combat is stupid for so many reasons. It requires no firearm knowledge, there is no fear of death, no real strength or endurance is required, etc.

That said, I do know a bit more about guns than I did before I played Counterstrike.

 

[ssgt splatter]

sure, if you want to believe that bulls***

 

[Syntax Error]

FPS's aren't military trainers, oh no. They're murder simulators for the would-be gunslinging (and melee weapon wielding) serial killer.

 

[Danny Ocean]

*cough*ARMA*cough*

Seriously you can't learn physical skills, but you sure as hell can learn mental ones.

 

[Spawn_Of_Kyuss]

http://virtualbattlespace.vbs2.com/

It isn't commercially available to civilians, but here's your military trainer.

The vast majority of FPS games don't have any semblance to military tactics, though.

Commecially available in the form of ARMA. Or at least ARMA uses the same engine for just about everything and was developed by the same people.

EDIT: Someone beat me to it. =_=

 

[SmartIdiot]

Nope, using a real gun requires a much MUCH steadier hand. There's no auto-aim in real life and it takes a little while to get used to the kick of some guns. However FPS's can improve your co-ordination, but you need more than that for the military so I'm told.

 

[TheMushroomClub]

I <3 Light guns. Probably better training then Halo or L4D. (Or anything like that).

 

[Cylem]

Shooter gameplay strikes me more as Capture the Flag than military training. =\

 

[nohorsetown]

I'd love to see some of the people I've known who play FPSes get into the military.
They'd be dead in seconds, my problems would be over.

Yeah, there's this kid at my work who just turned 20, and he's shipping out to Iraq in.. a matter of weeks now, I guess. He's a huge FPS guy, very red-blooded American type, strippers and hot rods and very racist ("I'ma shoot me some towelheads!" - literally). It's weird because I don't entirely hate him.. I mean, I work with him and it's hard to wish this on someone you kinda know.. but yeah, I sorta hope he gets killed over there. Like, seriously. It's a creepy feeling to have, I mean, he's just a kid, yeah?.. I dunno. I guess instead of wishing him dead, I should wish him seriously traumatized and utterly changed by the experience.. but that can go a couple of different ways, yeah? Hmm.

I like FPS games, but I suck at them. The "tactics" stuff is my only strong point. I've never fired a real gun, but I bet I'd be laughably shitty at it. I just can't do that twitch-aim-to-instant-headshot stuff that apparently EVERYONE ELSE can do. And finally on-topic, nah.. I don't think they're military trainers. Assholes like the kid I mentioned above would get their bloodlust somewhere else if they didn't get it from video games. And a lot of army types are actually pretty reasonable people - something that surprised me when I got off my high horse a few years back and actually talked to some of them. Though I'm sure there are a lot of that-kid-at-my-work types all around, I still think most people, and even most dumbasses, can tell the difference between FPS and war.

 

[Zersy]

NO!! Being good at an fps does not grant you any skill or even basic knowledge of a real firearm, nor does it teach any real world combat tactics.

Yep this guy got it

i doubt i will be able to aim with a gun and aim it
and kill for fun is just a dum idea you should kill for money or revenge (JOKES LOL)

the only thing i leared is that if you pull the trigger then a bullet comes out

but i already knew that it's common sense

plus games didn't teach me about the Safety switch experaince did

and i found out that aiming is more reliable then firing from the hip again simply thoreugh common sense


so do games train me ?

well they train me the name of guns and thats it really .....

 

[sqwalnoc]

I've fired a small variety of guns in my life, mostly .22 rimfire target rifles. and i've learnt something, guns are HEAVY.. they don't seem it at first but after you've been standing there holding one for 20 minutes they start to become hard to aim, and this is at a stationary target!! in an fps I'm jogging around shooting people with a massive machinegun or rifle that probably ways about 5-10 kilos (11-22 pounds), reloading with the touch of a button and deliberately holding grenades after i've pulled the pin to suicide bomb people.. fps's cannot train you for real combat, the army would be a laughing stock!

 

[Terror_666]

The only FPS games that have any value as training tools for the military are games like Operation Flashpoint and ArmA (seeing as that their engine was used to create VBS1 (Virtual Battle Space 1)) and then only to teach soldiers how to deal with situations that are difficult to simulate and run drills on.
Secondly games don't physically train your body in instinctual reactions, they do NOT create the necessary "Killer Instinct" and they do NOT prepare you emotionally for the riggers of combat.

 

[Hookman]

Are you serious? In real life you have to deal with kick-back and impact as well as the realisation that you could be taking someones life! Its nothing like in a game!

 

[blindey]

I play plenty of shooters, but I doubt I even have the strength to even hold an assault rifle for very long, or even reload, properly aim, perform maintanince, etc. Games don't actually teach you these things or build up your body to do them. Games are not any kind of military training, or shooting simulaters for school shootings and such.

The only thing they can possibly due is serve as some kind of lying drug, meaning you addict some VERY mentaly disables people to the idea that if they die, they will respawn or get healed, and will survive combat. It can only serve to make soldiers less scared, but that is still stretching the concept beyond critical max.

I think the main point of people (my step-dad and I have argued about it random as one of our topics but anyway) saying they're "Muder simulators" (aka jack thompson) is not that they train you to shoot, kill, et cetera...well no one besides him is suggesting that. The main thing is the level of desensitization which goes back to the whole "do video games make people/kids/your dog violent" argument, that it desensitizes people to violence, killing, and all that. But to be honest, I really doubt there's evidence that a video game situation (at this time) is the same as real life, that people use it to prepare for killing people (as someone suggested they did in Columbine) psychologically or as a plan tactically.

And so as people already semi touched upon that (with the reflexes and such) - No, it doesn't that's even a gigantic stretch of the imagination to even think that, even if the game was realistic with medics performing a field surgery or whatnot, a game is a localized environment, and it doesn't generalize at all with the real world. MAYBE 10 years or so down the line when we have fully-immersive VR technology (ala Metal Gear Solid), then the question can be raised.

On an interesting note, anyone see the latest DoD toys they're experimenting with mentioned at the escapist recently?
(http://www.dodbuzz.com/2008/11/04/army-tries-holograms-qauntum-computing/)