The Problem of Modern Day Computer Gaming

In the early days of computer games, one of my favorites was called Operation Vietnam, where you handled strategic level battles that took place during the
Vietnam War. I found it fun. It consisted of me choosing which type of military support to throw at the campaign, including airstrikes, and then you watched it all take place. To a civilian, it was the idea of being some kind of general back at headquarters, making those kinds of decisions. If you were in the military, it offered a different lesson, and it wasn’t the same one civilians were getting.

For me, it reminded me that no matter how you tried to plan the right offensive, someone on the ground was going to completely mess things up. Seriously.

Why do I think that? Well, because the game was coded horribly so that no matter what type of orders you gave, it wasn’t going to do exactly what you wanted. I hadn’t seen this type of bad execution until years later when I played a game called Patton vs. Rommel, where I experienced what it felt to order flanking movements on the enemy, only to be yelled at by General Patton for not ordering flanking movements on the enemy. THAT was exactly what being in the Army reminded me of, sadly enough.

So, years later, I find myself still playing computer games and loving every moment. But around the year…