Army builds arcade to recruit gamers
- January 07, 2009 16:28 PM PST
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In Philadelphia, The U.S. Army has built "The Army Experience Center," a 14,500 square-foot video game mecca to help encourage gamers to enlist.
I want YOU... to play in my arcade!
Like moths to fluorescent light bulbs, gamers in the Philadelphia area are flocking to the Franklin Mills Mall to experience one of the most high-tech arcades in the country. The catch? Recruiters for the U.S. Army might finagle them into enlisting in the process.
"The Army Experience Center" is a shooter fan's El Dorado, housing not only many intense militaristic shooters such as Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, but also contains HMMWV, Black Hawk, and Apache simulators displayed on giant wrap-around screens and housed inside true-to-life models of the vehicles. Sources have yet to confirm if you can still get TSD from the simulators.
[Via Joystiq]
Those tricky army recruiters, they'll do anything to get more people to enlist. I can't believe they opened this arca... oh, hey hold on, it's my turn in the Apache, out of the way!
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- Jan 07 2009 at 12:38:19:PM PST
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They must have called me half a million times after I turned 18. I'm sure they still call my parents trying to recruit me and my brother.
Seems like a smart move I guess. I'd really like to visit this "arcade" but if some recruiter tries to convert me, I'm going postal
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There's a simple way to deal with the potential recruiter:
"I'm sorry, were you talking to me? I didn't hear you. I was gunning down Taliban on the Apache sim. What's that? You want me to kill Taliban for real? Sorry, I'm a pacifist."
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I send in those Army info cards all the time to get free stuff. I got a Army Of One dufflebag, backpack, t-shirt and hat. I make up names and use random email address' and use my address but break it down as apartments.
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I played the Hum-v sim at the Cleveland airshow, the army had a huge tent set up with 6 hum-v's, and 3 blackhawk sims. It was a lot of fun, playing with 5 8' wrap-around screens. Our 5 man team fired off 1100 rounds in the 10 min sim (they give you a detailed breakdown of your shots fired, enemy and friendly kills). Plus all equipment plays co-op as a large convoy rolling through a middle east city. Good times!
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Any doubts I had about FPS games being training protocols for the military has suddenly dissipated. No wonder a high percentage of pple I meet online playing CoD4 are either enlisted or wanting to enlist in the army.
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The BBC ran an interesting article a while back about virtual war training, and the software British forces were using for training sessions.
Read it here.
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Well were the hell is the Mechwarrior simulator!?
How does the Army expect to train a good Mech pilot without a Mechwarrior simulator??
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First the border patrol "game" and now this...man America is f*cking lazy.
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they toke a page out the Simpson's book instead of a Boy Band they put up a Arcade.
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neji64 wrote:
they toke a page out the Simpson's book instead of a Boy Band they put up a Arcade.
YVAN EHT NIOJ, lmao. More like YMRA EHT NIOJ to them. Seriously though, that's just pathetic what the military these days do to recruit anyone. Sad, just sad. Oh snap I'm next in the Apache Sim.
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