More Than a Game

"Greetings, Starfighter. You have been recruited by the Star League to defend the frontier against Xur and the Ko-Dan armada."

These are the words spoken in a video game featured in the film, The Last Starfighter (1984). The basic storyline of the movie goes something like this:

A new video game machine is delivered to a flea-bitten trailer park in the middle of nowhere. High School senior Alex Rogan, whose mother runs the trailer park, plays the game frequently and dreams of making his name in the big city. One day Alex sets the all-time record score for the video game...and his life will never be the same again!

You see, this is no ordinary game; in fact, it is a training module sent across the galaxy to recruit a bona fide starfighter "to defend the frontier against Xur and the Ko-Dan armada." After a few necessary plot twists, Alex does indeed defend the frontier to become a hero in another world.

When this film came out in the mid 80s, it seemed like a fantastic (and a bit cartoonish) sci-fi flick based on whimsy, certainly not reality. Fast forward to 2011 and the fantasy has BECOME reality!

The US Army has developed a game platform called "America's Army." It features several shoot-em-up games in which children and adults alike can kill the bad guys. Besides this recruitment vehicle, there are scads of commercial games that simulate the same thing. In fact, I don't think it's an overstatement at all to say that America is overrun with militaristic games for all ages.

With the US reliance on drone aircraft increasing by leaps and bounds under the Obama administration, these games become training modules for future soldiers. While it wouldn't surprise me at all to learn someday that the military brass have embedded some code to keep track of the highest scores -- just like in the movie -- even without this capability, the games serve as a mechanism to make the life of a soldier more attractive and palatable to many a young man or woman.

Of course, it also makes the carnage of true war less unsightly and traumatic for those doing the killing. It is one thing to be on foot patrol knowing that other people with guns are trying to kill you as opposed to sitting in front of a console playing a video-type game in which your actions might mean the death of faceless enemies. It becomes a great way to reap the glory without having to expend the blood and guts.

More than anything else, it makes war (murder) fun!