The United States Military recently announced that it would be officially licensing game controllers built to resemble assault rifles. Accessories maker CTA Digital will soon be rolling out the U.S. Army Elite Forces Assault Rifle for the Playstation 3. The PlayStation 3 Move system currently uses “wands” that resemble microphones to control motion gaming. The Elite Forces rifle is allegedly an attempt to make motion control games involving firearms more realistic. Carbine and sniper rifle controllers are also available. All of the CTA Digital firearm controllers will also be mapped to standard Sony PlayStation controller buttons, potentially allowing you to use the guns to play any controller-style game. CTA Digital’s website suggests that the firearm controllers are best used to play games from the Battlefield or Call of Duty franchises.

CTA Controllers Will Allow Gamers To Play Games With Toy Assault Rifles

First person shooters have always been targeted as violent simulators of war. In recent years, popular franchises such as Battlefield, Call of Duty, and Medal of Honor have been singled out as works of fiction designed to make war look glamorous. Video games are no strangers to being scapegoats to the cries of protest from critics of violence in fiction.  But as first person shooters, and video games in general, have soared in popularity in the last half decade, the criticism has become louder and louder. Some critics are now claiming that first person shooters are nothing but commercially available military training tools. These same critics are likely to points at products such as the CTA firearms and claim that they are just another brainwashing tool.

I’m not a fan of modern first person shooters. When I first began gaming many, many years ago, I actually enjoyed playing shooters. Many of my friends tell me that I’m unjustly talented at first person shooters, which hardly seems fair, since I don’t really play them.  I’ve watched as both Battlefield and Call of Duty, both franchises that I had formerly enjoyed, devolve (or evolve, depending on your opinion) into giant cash-cows for their respective owners. In my opinion, Battlefield now lacks much of the tactical finesse that was once so important to the franchise, and Call of Duty has become something akin to an arcade game where drunken frat boys and twelve year-olds battle it out over a test of reflex. So it may come as a surprise to some that I’m writing in defense of modern first person shooters.

What critics of first person shooters fail to realize is that, while many FPS games do indeed glamorize the idea of war and combat, they are far from being the military simulators they are alleged to be. At best, they’re examples of high budget, A-list titles that bring in millions of dollars for the gaming industry. At worst, they are roughly the equivalent of the gritty TV-spots encouraging viewers to join the military. While military-based first person shooters have certainly gotten more realistic over the years, the vast majority are still far from being any sort of ideal combat simulator.

To begin, most modern first person shooters have serious logistical problems. Anyone who’s ever played or watched a first person shooter in action will tell you that guns are angled from the far right corner of the screen, and aimed towards the center.  Despite most modern shooters now heavily incorporating the use of iron sights, the “firing from the hip” angle of view described above is the standard view of most FPS games. If you held a gun in this manner, the bullets you would fire would not hit the center spot you were aiming for. Any artist could tell you why. The angle of view is simply off. Yet in first person shooters, guns held in this manner are always “aimed” towards the center of the screen.

FPS games more like action films than military simulators

Line-inconsistencies aside, most first person shooters also feature a heads-up-display (HUD) that tells gamers how many bullets they have in each magazine, how many spare magazines they have remaining, and/or how many grenades they are carrying. Without moving your head, look to the left corner of your field of vision. Then look to the right. Do you see any numbers appearing there? Hopefully you don’t. If you see them there, maybe you’re spending a little too much time fragging noobs online every night. In real life, several weapons and tactical equipment industries have sold entire lines of products dedicated to pursuit of letting soldiers know how many bullets they have left. Heckler & Koch and SIG, European firearms manufactures, have designed transparent magazines that visually show operators how many bullets are left in magazines. Remembering how many shots have been fired out of the weapon is a skill that soldiers are expected to master themselves. If the video game HUD existed, wouldn’t life be a lot easier?

In most first person shooters, when guns are reloaded, a certain number of bullets from the player’s reserve of ammunition is taken out and placed into a fresh magazine, in combination with the bullets remaining from the previous magazine. This ensures that the player always has a fresh, completely full magazine to continue blasting with.  But how is this even possible? Are the player characters stuffing bullets into magazines from a box? Of course not. But do little icons appear in your vision when a grenade lands near you in real life? No.

The fact is that first person shooters are unlikely to ever become accurate simulations of war. Real life warfare just isn’t as exciting as it is in FPS games. Real war involves politics. It involves hauling around sandbags to make fortifications. It involves cleaning guns and pitching tents. For the most part, it doesn’t involve walking away from an explosion in slow motion. It’s more accurate to say that the average first person shooter is attempting to mimic the style and flash of an action film, not real life.

I could go on and on by throwing common-sense facts out there. It’s well known among the serious gaming community that first person shooters are not accurate representations of real life. But casual critics of video game violence don’t seem to know that. If you know someone like that, please, sit them down with a controller, and make them try out a first person shooter. If they still think it’s an accurate representation of “realistic violence”, then perhaps you might want to show them a Hollywood movie. They’ll discover something new to vent at.

As for the CTA rifle controllers, they’re likely just novelties for die-hard fans of Playstation shooter titles. It’s true; there are some gamers out there who believe that the FPS games they consume are accurate representations of war. Maybe these controllers will stop them from doing some rash, like actually joining the military. For everyone else, the CTA rifles look like they’re going to be over-priced novelty gadgets.