America’s Navy – The Video Game

Five years ago, the Army decided to try a new approach in their attempt to improve their horrible recruitment rates: using a video game to lure unsuspecting children, much like a modern-day gingerbread house. On the surface, I’m sure it made sense to someone; after all, they’re looking for people who’s idea of a good time is shooting other people, which happens to coincide with basic plot of just about every video game out there. The Army’s game was free to download, with the caveat that they could contact you (ala The Last Starfighter) if you proved especially “l33t”.

Well... the video game was a success, in that lots of people have downloaded it and continue to play it. But it also flopped horribly because now the DI’s in boot camp are confronted with hoards of scrawny shut-ins who suck at playing soldier without a keyboard-mouse interface. Maybe a tank simulator would have been more practical.

But it got me thinking – what if the Navy tried a similar approach? A free online game that supposedly showed what being a sailor was like, thus pairing up people who found the Navy interesting with recruiters willing to exploit said interest to meet their quota for the month.

The game, once started, would have to run for some random period between two days and nine months. While you can’t ever really predict how long it will run should you load it, your EULA warns you in no uncertain terms that shutting it down prematurely will result in jail time. Initially, a panel with a bunch of meaningless gages appears, along with some sort of sensor that can tell if your eyes leave the screen. Should that happen, a petulant voice comes out of your rear speakers, ordering you to “mind your fucking panel”.

After that goes on for about six hours, the gages are replaced by a message saying it’s now safe for you to go eat and/or sleep. But before you can even stand up, another voice booms out of the speakers, either telling you to clean the keyboard or disassemble and lubricate the mouse. This is followed by a seemingly endless series of other menial tasks, including some random training sessions.

You initially look forward to these, as the box art for the game promises you'll be taught all sorts of neat things. But the training you receive is either pointless (like the detailed instructions on how to start up your computer, which is pointless because you couldn’t do the training if you couldn’t start it up), overly simplistic (like how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, which for some reason takes a whole hour), or insanely difficult and just as useless (like how to conjugate irregular verbs in Klingon).

As soon as the last of the training ends, but before you can even go to the bathroom, the panel with the pointless gages reappears. At the bottom, a popup message constantly reminds you that you’ll go to jail if you leave before the game says you can leave. But, on the other hand, if you get the high score on the game for the week (which is determined at random) a form letter will spit out of the printer, telling you how much Uncle Sam appreciates all your hard work.

You may ask yourself, “Who’d be stupid enough to play such a game?” Well, just think about that for a minute.