Back in the 80s the the 90s, the UK Ministry of Defence (not to be confused with the UK Ministry of Magic) could boast it had some of the most state of the art military simulators. Nowadays, though, it seems they’ve fallen a little bit behind.
Technical team leader Andrew Poulter spoke to UK newspaper The Guardian about the awkward predicament the MoD has found itself in. "Back in the 1980s and 1990s, defence was far out in front in terms of quality of simulation. Military-built simulators were state of the art. But now, for £50 [$77], you can buy a commercial game that will be far more realistic than the sorts of tools we were using."
The MoD currently uses a simulator called Virtual Battlespace 2, which was developed by Bohemia Interactive – the people who gave us Operation Flashpoint. Poulter says, however, that they’ll be changing this in a couple of months, with MoD investing in trying the technology from modern shooters. Good for them, too, because Virtual Battlespace 2 is looking just a little bit sad these days.
"The weapons need to be credible. If they fire a rifle and the bullet travels three and a half miles, then that is not right. If they are steering a vehicle, then that has to be right too.” Poulter said. “Realism is more important than entertainment. Levels of immersion are very important."
If you quit out of frustration in these simulators, does that mean your character goes AWOL?
