Frightening Games

[Kit LeBlanc]

Okay,

So I enjoy the occasional arcade game. I really only like the ones with the attached handguns where you address whatever threats the screen in front of you provides. They have one where the slide on the gun actually cycles!

Now, I have read Grossman and in playing some of these games, I see his point. Some of them really are training systems for projectile fighting. But no game ever really BOTHERED me until today.

I played a game called "Police 911" or something like that. You have your gun just like in the others, difference is you stand on a pad that somehow senses your body movement. There must be sensors in the screen as well because it tells you to remove your hat, etc. and only one person can stand on the pad. The pad was about 4' by 2 1/2' so you have some range of motion.

You are expected to take cover, duck right or left or down, etc. matching the terrain you have on the screen. You are conditioned to take cover in fact, as that is how you reload, which is a feature on another game I have seen. If the computers and sensors determine that your head or body was where one of the bad guys rounds was, "Officer Down" calls out from the machine.

It was as close to a FATS (a firearms training simulator used to train law enforcement in deadly force decision making) machine as I have seen. Even better because you are penalized if you have not gotten out of the way when the bad guys shoot back.

Part of me was "this is too cool" and part of me was "this should be at an academy or gun range and NOT at a video arcade!"

Next they will have simulators where you have to dump and reload magazines, I am sure.

Kit

[Mark Brecht]

This simulator has been around since a while in the Arcade halls here in Japan. And, yes no kidding the game is quit realistic... You have to distinguish between between bad guys, civilian and other LEO... The game is based on police work in Tokyo, and the place and backrounds are real... So real that they actually cover (mosaic) the business names... (e.g. during street chases).

:p You gotta try this game intoxicated...

[Joseph Svinth]

Awhile back, the cops busted this juvenile, maybe 8 years old, for driving without a license. It wasn't as if he'd wrecked the car or anything, he was just awful short so they said, "Let's pull him over." Junior learned to drive playing video games, and was reportedly doing about as well as most folks.

BTW, 3-D is no problem; you just build the game so that it shows any direction you look, to include up, down, behind, etc. You could conceivably reach the point in a couple years where the average 12-year old is better trained than the average patrolman, as the kid spends six hours a day doing nothing but shoot-'em up, whereas the cop has other things to do during his shift, to include NOT shooting people. (This could be built into the game, too, but eight hours on stakeout in which nothing happens except the coffee gets cold is not real thrilling.)

[Mark Brecht]

Originally posted by Joseph Svinth
(This could be built into the game, too, but eight hours on stakeout in which nothing happens except the coffee gets cold is not real thrilling.)

He he he... good idea... without a "pause" function... No going to the bathroom... They gotta either hold it or find a container... Like mom`s flower vase...

[Kit LeBlanc]

Can't remember where but I saw someone once suggest that every police department should have a game like this in every squad room. You could have informal competitions for high score, etc. I bet it would see a lot more activity, and maybe be even more productive, than the range that most cops DON'T go to except near qualification time.

Kit