Fresh Loaf

ARMY RECRUITING WITH VIDEO GAMES AT SIX FLAGS: Shoddy armor, amputations, PTSD, and lack of adequate post-war medical care not pictured. (Photo by Alex Gibbs)

Back in the day, game makers boosted sales of military-themed video games by making them seem like the Army. Now, with two endless, aimless wars depressing recruitment, the U.S. Army is taking the converse approach – trying to get young Americans to join the army by convincing them war is like a video game.

The Virtual Army Experience is a touring Army recruitment video arcade which stopped at at Six Flags Over Georgia last weekend. Children in the park were invited to “experience” life in the Army via a short video combat mission. After completing the mission, the kids got a recruitment pitch.

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Naysayers be damned, video games — especially good ones with an awesome storyline and graphics like Halo 3 — still rule. You have to make exceptions to being an adult when someone puts out a quality product like that.

I know what you’re thinking — “But Thomas, what the hell does Halo 3 have to do with traffic, the environment, development, all the wonderful things we’re so accustomed to seeing you blogging and babbling about?” Well, not too much, dear reader, but if you’re out and about around midnight, you might want to check which stores are hosting special midnight openings to hand off copies to the gamers who preordered the long-awaited title. If you were the type of person who went to Dragon*Con just to ogle sci-fi fans in oh-so-scandalous costumes, you might also enjoy driving by and seeing what the event brings out in terms of fanatics.

According to the retailer’s website, the only Best Buy in Georgia doling out the games at midnight is the Buckhead location at Sidney Marcus Boulevard and Piedmont Road. Just my luck that’s the store where I promised my roommate I’d accompany him to pick up his copy, so if you see a redhead dressed as a Master Chief, chugging Red Bulls and chain-smoking cigarettes in nervous anticipation, please know that’s not me. I’ll be the redhead cursing the world under his breath, furiously poring over transportation plans, and eagerly looking forward to the next morning’s State Supreme Court hearing determining the fate of Beltline.

(I’m waiting on Best Buy’s manager to call me back with details of sales, expected turnout and security preparations. I’ll update you when I hear back from him. Or her.)

For Gamestop locations propping open their doors at midnight for the overcaffeinated and strong-thumbed gamemaestros, visit their website. For a wonderful take on an übersecret and rapper-filled game preview that went down in our fair city, check out the talented Atlanta-based artist and GoldenFiddle.com editor Spencer Sloan’s piece here.

But for your giggling pleasure, CL compiled some of the better comments left at the AJC about the game’s release.

(Image courtesy Microsoft)

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The New York Times featured a great article Monday on the use of the video game Dance Dance Revolution in physical education classes in West Virginia’s public school system.

To play Dance Dance a person steps on different arrows on a mat by watching what arrows pop up on a screen in front of her. The arrows are synchronized to a song. School officials hope the game can help kids battle obesity while having fun.

The implementation of Dance Dance into public school systems is a positive sign that a new realm of video games can help society. CL wrote about the new genre, dubbed “serious games” or “reality games,” in a recent cover story.

If Dance Dance won over public school administrators, who often view video games as brain-draining flights of fantasy, it’s likely that other video games could offer kids many more lessons. Already, games such as Ayiti, The Cost of Life and Revolution allow kids to budget a Haitian family’s finances and simulate the American Revolution in a virtual world, respectively.

And who knows what they’ll think of next.

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I just attended a symposium at Georgia Tech on video games that play with reality. It was a fascinating conference filled with cutting-edge innovations that showed games not only entertain, but also educate.

One of the best panels was titled “Playing with Health” and featured a variety of speakers who’ve helped people understand and cope with their environments and health — from autistic children to individuals who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. Ken Graap, co-founder of Virtually Better (located in Atlanta), showed a great slideshow on how a virtual world could potentially help heavy marijuana users lower their cravings. The “game” works like this:

Virtually Better has created several virtual rooms — the neutral room, the paraphernalia room (adorned with joints, cigarettes, black lights, Grateful Dead posters, etc.) and the party room (people smoking up, fresh pizza on tables). A person starts in the neutral room and then is taken to the other rooms. When he or she gets to the paraphernalia and party rooms, a USB port emits the smells of pot, pizza, cigarettes, etc. while music and conversations come through headphones. Throughout the game, a person’s heart rate is measured to gauge the intensity of that person’s craving.

The company has found that these virtual rooms, scents and sounds can “turn on” a person’s craving in a matter of minutes.

So of course — as Graap pointed out — wouldn’t this make the person want to go find a joint ASAP after leaving the lab?

The simulation brings the person back into the neutral world at the end, and cravings, data show, lower — not back to the initial state, but significantly from the height of the game. And it seems legit: the National Institute for Drug Abuse funds the project. Virtually Better hopes to use the data from these virtual worlds to figure out new ways to treat people with substance-abuse problems — from pot to cigarettes to crack and even possibly meth. And that could be really cool.

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