News British Army salutes 'PlayStation generation'

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2007/11/29/british_army_salutes_playstation_generation_/1

Not everyone sees the obsession of todays youth with violent computer games as a bad thing - the Army in particular thinks its great!

 

At last someone saying something good about gamers.

TBH, the people getting flabby playing computer games wouldn't be professional athletes anyway, they'd probably be watching TV instead.

 

Well... as long as they don't try to make a game and recruit us gamers with it I guess it's alright. You know the one I'm talking about.

 

I can see the daily mail headline now... Children desensitised by Playstation, Enjoy actual war!

 

especially when combined with fetching exoskeletons:

http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=142953

 

The most hardcore gamer I know, my gf's brother, is a marine. He's done two tours of Iraq so far with one of the most elite groups, he was even being considered as a guard for the President at one point. From what he says, there are a lot of gamers in Iraq and in the armed forces. All they do is play games on the base. In fact, I think every person I know in the military is a gamer of some level.

 

I have never been in war but paintballing feels exactly like a computer game to me as does driving and as such I never get worried or paniced when doing such activites. Driving is a little dull when your doing 60 and know that you can get round that corner at 80... everything happens in slow mo in the real life driving game.

 

the question is:

Are they fervent gamers because they actually like gaming, or are they fervent gamers because there's only two other options for things to do out there (Get shot by 'friendlies' or get shot by enemies)?

 

I think we would be lazy without the games. I like to play games, but I also love the gym, I cant imagine that anyone is playing games so much that its just not possible to do any exercise.

 

The USMC are hardly elite. They're pretty well trained and they're fairly badass due to the ethos/brainwashing, but there are 220,000 of them - and frankly, the training really isn't particularly long compared with many other marine organisations.

I'd definitely not f**k with one though

 

Of course statements like this will make it easier to convince all those angsty parent and crazed lawyers (or is it just 1 crazed lawyer) that video games do not make people kill.

 

The Clan I've just joined has a large community of US/Euro servicemen/women. The Clan is well run as they bring alot of their real life knowledge to the games. The guys I'm online with tend to play more hours than me and I concider myself to be a regular gamer at 8hrs a week. Good alround players most of them and real friendly bunch.

 

i hate when people say that we are the "playstation generation", the current generation started playing with other older and more interesting consoles.....

 

I started on the Amiga 64, and I'm not even 20.

 

I would never consider myself a console gamer... I owned an Atari but the family had a PC before we got that and I've always much preferred PC gaming...

 

yeah definetly, i started on the 386, didn't get a PS1 until like 1 year before the PS2 was launched, and still mainly play the PC

But i guess "PC generation" "N64 Generation" "SNES Generation" or whatever doesn't roll off the tongue as well as the "Playstation Generation" does (actually the snes one isn't that bad )

 

C64 and Amiga A500+ - I didn't even get a console until the original Xbox and used to have to go down the road to play my mates PS1 and Saturn.

 

C64 then a mac, didn't do that much gaming on that: sim city 2000 ate my life though. Didn't really get into gaming till i went to uni and i got a half decent pc and my flat mate brought UT home with him. Never owned a console, played my flat mates occasionally but i'm too anti social.