Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
America's Army And The Last Starfighter
America's Army, the official U.S. Army game, is an online video game that has registered about 4.7 million users. More than 30,000 people log onto the game's servers every day; thousands more play in unofficial leagues. It claims to present the most authentic military experience available, including individual and collective training.
(From America's Army)
When the game begins, it presents the same thrilling words to participants:
Greetings Starfighter. You have been recruited by the Star League to defend the frontier from Xur and the KO-Dan Armada.
No wait - that's the start of the video game in the movie The Last Starfighter, a popular 1984 sci-fi thriller, in which a video game is used to both train and find the best Starfighters - for real. Whenever a player on Earth won the game, he was abducted by Robert Preston - or rather, Centauri - to fight the real bad guys out in the galaxy.
(Robert Preston as Centauri - Galactic Recruiter)
The Army spares no expense in making the game realistic; uniforms, equipment and situations are made as similar to the real thing as possible. The software has a Teen rating; death animations are without gratuitous gore. Special Forces soldiers wear motion capture suits to record urban assault techniques. Game programmers spend time under the targets at a firing range, to make sure that the noise used in the game realistically simulates the "crack" of the miniature sonic boom made by a passing military round.
(Geek live fire exercise)
In the movie, the Last Starfighter video game is placed all around America; wherever kids are bored, they can always play video games. (Historical sidenote: this movie was made before the era of handheld games. If you wanted to play a video game, you had to go to an arcade to play at a large, cabinet-sized machine.) Young Alex, who lives in a trailer park, wins the game and is recruited to join the Starfighters.
(Alex and the other recruits)
In real life, America's Army is as close as your Internet-enabled computer, and most Army recruiters have copies of the game and offices in malls.
"We don't expect that a young person is going to play the game and run out and join the Army," Chris Chambers, retired Army major and project deputy director, said. "That was never the point. We want the game to help us form a more long-term connection with the young person."
(Greetings, starfighter...)
Read more about how America's Army is made more realistic; visit the America's Army website. Read more about The Last Starfighter.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 2/17/2005)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 13 )
Related News Stories - (" Weapon ")
Sleeper Drones Lie in Wait
'Wandering mines, you took them out on the edge of the desert, set them down and activated them.' - Maureen F. McHugh, 1994.
Worm Disrupts Physics Simulations Undetected For A Decade
'It diverts integers of the data, the fundamental message-units, so that they no longer agree.' - Philip K. Dick, 1965.
Moscow Attacked By Hundreds Of Drones
'It hurtled on down with inconceivable speed until it was visible as thousands of tiny robot planes...' - Hal K. Wells, 1942.
China's Handheld Electromagnetic Gun
'Completely silent, accurate up to about twenty meters. No recoil...' - Richard Morgan, 2003.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Cislunar Space And The Space Lanes of Golden Age Fiction
'He had travelled the space-lanes of the solar system for the greater part of his life...'
NASA Moonbase Update
'The dinner was excellent. It was completely vegetarian — grown in specially prepared gardens in this Moon base...'
Neuralink Will Allow Humans To Communicate With ... Animals?
'Telepaths had their sensitiveness enlarged to an immense range by the pin-sets, which were telepathic amplifiers adapted to the mammal mind.'
Special Lights For Driverless Cars!
'That light is actually the Anamorphic Equalizer...'
'Old People Began to Cross The Continent In Their Own Cars'
'It was a relief to enter one of the comfortable autos, whisper a direction down the tube, and just know that you would be taken to your destination in the quickest, safest, and cheapest manner.'
Harrison Bergeron, Illustrated And Practiced
'But he didn't get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts. George winced...'
Starfall Manufacturing Drugs In Space
'The vast spinning sphere of Factory in the Sky loomed above and ahead of us, gleaming white against the unfathomable jet depths of surrounding space.'
The Solar Oberth Slingshot
'And if it doesn’t work,' inquired Lazarus, 'what does that make us? Sunspots?'
'Maybe The Woman Of Your Life Is Still Under Production'
'The Dillard people had performed a miracle and put all the works in a girl-modeled case.'
'If Anyone Is Watching Earth...'
'Our study of your race has convinced us that you are not fitted to leave your planet in the present state of your civilization.'
Epirus High-Power Microwave Defeats Drones
'...the spreading beam of the deranging ray struck them, and Then one toppled and fell. Then another.'
Cloud Of Space Rubbish From China's Long March Rocket
'Within seconds the material was spread out over fifty yards, in a matter of hours it might occupy several cubic miles of space...'
Biomimetic Tendons From Rochu Robotics
'... the curious parallelism to animal motions.'
Living Human Neuron Biological Compute Rack
'The men are dead, but their acquired wisdom lives on and I am the beneficiary.'
Martha Stewart Approves Ojai 'Living Room On Wheels'
'Young people found the driverless car admirable for petting.'
ESA's Draco To Study Heat Of Reentry
'...a synthetic which air-friction would erode.'
