Killing Time

Courtesy Photo | The Urban Terror league meets every Tuesday night in Baghdad's International Zone to...... read more read more

Courtesy Photo | The Urban Terror league meets every Tuesday night in Baghdad's International Zone to relieve stress, battle boredom and bond as brothers.  see less | View Image Page

IRAQ

02.27.2009

Story by Maj. Jon Powers 

44th Infantry Brigade Combat Team Public Affairs

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If Nietzsche really said, "Religion is the opiate of the masses," it is obvious he never played Urban Terror. Or any video game for that matter; too bad, because Nietzsche ain't seen nothin'. More masses play video games now than lived in all of Europe when he was quoted.

The popularity of video games in readily visible in the Joint Area Support Group - Central too. Consoles are in the Morale Welfare and Recreation center and talk of video games can be heard almost every day. In fact, video games are one of the most common activities for Soldiers in Iraq.

So it is not surprising that a dozen dedicated JASG-C Soldiers gather every week to kill each other virtually in an everyman-for-himself video game of snipers and flanking assaults. Others, who play alone, find refuge in the chaos of World War II, covert CIA Ops in Las Vegas or the mean streets of Vice City. Whether they play solo or in a gang, the focal point of the most popular games is shooting - shooting everything from aliens to zombies.

The Urban Terror league began during the mobilization phase at McGregor Base Camp, N.M. Spc. Jonathan Pierce and Cpt. Ben Stoner began playing more than six months ago and continue today.

"It's a way to vent; you can get angry during the week and it starts to build up. This you can play with your comrades and have a good time. I think with the training that we do you can implement that in the game, use it for tactical advantage," said Pierce. "It's exciting, and you feel like every move you make there is someone behind you getting ready to shoot you. You have to be aware of everything."

Starting with two players, soon there were more than 20 Soldiers involved. Inside the game, teams of armed soldiers can attack and defend a variety of terrains from European towns to remote desert villages. Realistic environments are a mainstay in this new wave of war-games. Some allow players to interact randomly with the surroundings rather than follow a determined story line.

Not all the Soldiers who enjoy video gaming play in a group. Cpt. Brian Stramaglia primarily plays video sports games in the evenings alone or against his roommate.

"It's something to do. I am into baseball and football back home so I can play that, I can play baseball on Xbox to pass the time, something to maintain a link to my interests back home," he said.

But he also plays the shooters "There's the cross-hairs on the screen and you pull the trigger. They're mindless, there is no intricate plot to them, it's simple, it's fun and not too complicated. For some people, they may be taking out some frustrations."

Mike Snyder wrote in a USA Today article describing the genre's growing reach. The U.S. Army has created its own online games – America's Army, and a sequel, America's Army: Special Forces — recruitment programs played on personal computers (free at www.americasarmy.com). The games have drawn more than 1.9-million players. Ubisoft, which publishes the Tom Clancy games and has Brothers in Arms, a World War II game, in the works, has a deal to publish America's Army for consoles such as the PS2 and Xbox. Full Spectrum Warrior, which grew out of Pandemic Studio's creation of an Army training simulation, is "technically, tactically very real," says retired Army Captain James Ytuarte, who served as a consultant on the game.

Stoner noted the military aspect of the games. "Here we are, we are Soldiers and we are trained to fight. To do that for real is obviously very dangerous, but in the virtual world you can hit the reset button.We are sitting around the table at computers and we are communicating with each other on the same team, 'Hey look to your left! I'll cover you!' It's almost practicing your Soldiers skills."

Even stand alone consoles have incorporated the ability to play with a group. Online services are part of the draw for Xbox 360 and Playstation 2. In Call of Duty, players can join others. "It is much more interesting because of the multiplayer aspect of it, being with your friends in this virtual shoot-em-up world...you get your mind off your daily routine," said Stoner.

For console players, only one game in the top 10 is not a shooter. From Grand Theft Auto to Call of Duty, Metal Gear to Halo, all these titles are combat-oriented and violent.

Lt. Col. David Grossman, a former West Point psychology professor, has written several books that pertain to the subject of violence in the media, including On Killing and Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill. During heights of video game controversy, he has been interviewed on the content of his books, and has repeatedly used the term "murder simulator" to describe first-person shooter games. He argues that video game publishers unethically train children in the use of weapons and, more importantly, harden them emotionally to the act of murder by simulating the killing of hundreds or thousands of opponents in a single typical video game.

Though Soldiers don't see it that way. Not one JASG-C Soldier agreed with Grossman.

"That is people looking way too deep; they're reading into everything. People are violent for other reasons, I don't think video games have a big influence on that," concluded Pierce.

The only killing video players claim is killing time. The virtual world has nothing to do with how they spend their day and because of that simple fact they enjoy them. Deployments can be dull and dangerous to varying degrees, and according to these players video games relieve both boredom and stress.

"We are just enjoying a little bit of time with each other," said Stoner. "I mark the weeks left in the deployment by the number of Tuesday nights."

Stramaglia also believes that events like movie nights or game clubs keep people going. "It's something to look forward to every week that marks the passage of time," he said.

"You can get wrapped up in a video game. I am going to beat this team, I am going to beat this level of the game and I will sit here until I do it; next thing you know an hour is gone, then two hours, three hours. It is a good way to stay out of trouble. If you play Xbox by yourself it is really hard for trouble to come find you," noted Stramaglia.

True, unless trouble is a level-seven Zombie Warlord boss; they are everywhere these days.