War isn't a game.

 

Tell me, Art, where in your game is the mother standing over the teenager with an AK you've just shot, saying, "That was my baby"? The classroom full of children who get to personally know the unfortunate end of the statistics on smart bombs that "only" go off target one out of a hundered times? Or the memeber of your 50 man team who are left braindamaged and crippled, with no parade or medal that can repay what they have lost?

 

Sometimes war is a necessary evil, because their are greater evils in the world. It is essential that we are better at it than the enemies of all that is just and so we use simulations in this age of computers. It is not some game that young men with nothing better to do can w*nk over in their spare time to feel strong and good. Read a book or go to the gym, you'll actually be a better human being after both unlike the end result of this.

 

I'll stick to chess, thank you very much.

Actually Parm, I am a voracious reader and spend 2 hours in the Gym every day (05:30 to 06:30 and 18:00 to 19:00 or as close as my schedule allows), but I take your point "War" isnt a "Game".  I also know all too well the effects of conflict on our young men and women and their families, having the priveledge to work with them on a daily basis.  I have also been to the "Two way range" in support of OEF, so I might have a better dea than you of the realities of modern conflict.

 

This game ArmA2 absolutely does not glamorise war, if anything its the most accurate portrayal of it available to the current generation.  That random bullet due to being in teh wrong place at teh wrong time is very accurately modeled.

 

Regards

 

Arty

 

P.S. Cant stand chess ;)

Chess, is that the game where we sacrifice the "pawns"...you know the powerless little people?  Chess is medieval war...you play chess you're playing a war game.  You just tart it some so you don't feel so bad. 

 

I guess all those pawns that starved to death or were trodden down into the mud of some medieval battlefield just kind of disappear as long as you tell yourself your just playing an intellectual "game", eh?

 

Don't get preachy on the board...it really doesn't fly too well.  A goodly number of folks, not me, but a goodly number of folks have served and may even have killed their fellow humans.  They don't need some preachy little Internet voice telling them something I think they've already figured out or experienced, first hand.

 

Go home and read a "good" book, w*nk yourself off telling yourself that you are a lot deeper than they are...auto eroticism or narcissism they all have a lot in common, don't they?  Because it's all about YOU, eh?

I have to side with Arty.... that's what this forum is about isn't it? discussing the various facets of combat, history and geography.... basically word games and scenarios.... should we feel ashamed?

 

I don't want it to sound like everyone is ganging up on Parm, but I have to concur with some of the previous posters.  Many of us know the true consequences of violence, but as members of a warrior class there are things about warfare and the study of it that we still find attractive and even enjoyable.  Much of my military training was boring and monotonous, but at times it was absolutely exhilirating.  The same goes for my later police and SWAT training.  When I engaged it heated battles with MILES gear and later simunitions I tried to do so with the same intensity that I would like to think I would have done in live combat, but at the end of my engagements nobody died and everyone went home.  I understood the true stakes once I was loaded up with real ammo, but didn't feel like my training in any way trivialized the sacrifices that other cops and soldiers have made before me. 

 

It shouldn't surprise anyone that members of the warrior class and students of history and warfare would be attracted to games that portray combat.  I enjoy the Total War strategy games and the Rainbow Six series because it allows me to participate in epic battles or close quarters fighting without having to experience the horror of actual war.  My Roman cavalry can chase and cut down dozens of fleeing Celts and my special ops team can take out a group of terrorists holding an embassy, but none of those people actually die.  There are no grieving parents, no flag draped caskets, and no soldiers having to cope with the trauma of having just taken a human life.  I enjoy reading as well, but so far they haven't figured out how to write a book where I can actually BE the main character as the story moves along.  Maybe someday they will, but for now the only place I can be a tank commander or Samuri general is in a computer game.  When the game is over I'm still the same guy in the midwest with a house, wife, two kids, and a dog. 

Total war series is awesome, but I think they should tune the pace a bit slower to one season per turn, and given large tax income in one season.

 

War is fun if no one dies in real life. You take out the consequences of war, and men will sign up just to have little indulgence of pwning. Just take a look at online war games, and no one can deny it.

 

Arma 2 could be a great simulation game. However, realism is not always fun. Arcade style game like Battlefield series is always more popular than simulation-oriented shooters. Besides, I've heard that it is still buggy and very demanding on graphics performance. Maybe in 2011.

pfff, arma schmarma.

Operation Flashpoint 2- now THATS gonna be a greta game!

link

[img link

I got arma2--- very nice, its not that graphically demanding- but its hard as hell-

and empire total war is brilliant, Im in the process of ,,altering the world map,, just the moguls and russians left

I love artillery!