Kit LeBlanc
2nd July 2001, 06:53
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
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