[url]http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-052202army.story[/url]

Today at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, the Army will unveil two games designed to appeal to a media-saturated, tech-bombarded generation. One is a sanitized version of "Unreal Tournament," a classic first-person shooting game known for its graphic, nonstop killing. The other is a take on "The Sims," a popular game that mimics life itself.

But instead of dismembering mutants or pursuing romance, players can work on their organizational skills, free hostages and rise to the rank of first sergeant. The games are part of the Army of One marketing campaign, which stresses professionalism and the importance of the individual, themes marketers say resonate with youths.

Though the military has long used realistic video games as training tools, this is the first time the Army has relied on games to reach out to the public. The intent of the free games--which will be distributed starting in July at recruiting stations and on the Army Web site--is to sell the soldiering life.

It uses the Epic game engine, used in Unreal Tournament.

The realism is excellent, btw. Many of the levels are exact copies of various actual sites such as Ft. Bragg. So those of you who are nostalgic for their paratroop days can pull up that level and see the textures from the training areas. And the sounds and images were recorded from the actual weapons. If you get a weapons jam you have to go through the actual drill for clearing it.

A truly realistic game would model latrine cleaning and 3:00 AM guard duty in Alaska.

-kill-9

This is not a skin on an existing game--they used the UT game engine but the play and goals are their own. No plasma rifles. No Space Marines. No zombies. They got real DIs for some of the sound effects, real weapons sounds, realistic ballistics, real weapons.

They are going to give the game away. It's hot.

I'll take a free copy, since they're giving it away.  I like the reality based games better than all the zombie/alien crap that's out now anyways.

I want the buffer with the extra length power cord.

so what does their version of the Sims offer?

Does the military Sims come with the Hot Date add-on? I hear some great things about Okinawa.