Suicide Bombing Makes Sick Sense in Halo 3

[Renew Deal]

This is not a typical article for DU, but it's relevant and interesting.

I used to find it hard to fully imagine the mind-set of a terrorist.

That is, until I played Halo 3 online, where I found myself adopting -- with great success -- terrorist tactics. Including a form of suicide bombing.

This probably bears some explanation. I'll begin by pointing out a basic fact: A lot of teenage kids out there play dozens of hours of multiplayer Halo a week. They thus become insanely good at the game: They can kill me with a single head shot from halfway across a map -- or expertly circle me while jumping around, making it impossible for me to land a shot, while they pulverize me with bullets.

I can't do those things. I haven't got enough time to practice as they do: I'm an adult, with a job and wife and kid, so I get maybe an hour with Halo on a good day. I wind up sucking far, far more than most other Halo 3 players, and despite the best attempts of Xbox Live to match me up with similarly lame players, I usually wind up at the bottom of my group's rankings -- stumbling haplessly about while getting slaughtered over and over again.

So after a few weeks of this ritual humiliation, I got sick of it. And I devised a simple technique for revenge.
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http://www.wired.com/gaming/gamingreviews/commentary/games/2007/11/gamesfrontiers_1105

[Xipe Totec]

1. Yes, it is interesting, actually.

Thanks!

[tomreedtoon]

2. It is perfect vengeance, and ties video game crap to reality.

What are these games anyway, but a way of getting idiots to enjoy the "thrill of combat" and convince them that killing is a great way to make a living?

And yes, these kids probably believe they can live forever, too. They never saw, or are too stupid to understand, the second half of the movie Full Metal Jacket.

By finding a way to kill off these players, at the cost of his own death (which means nothing in terms of videogames) this guy is giving these retarded jerks a little taste of reality.

In fact, if I had the money and the time to do this, I'd become a suicide bomber in Halo as well. I'd research new ways of killing off the bad guys - which, obviously, is anyone who WANTS to play the game. Can the game be hacked to provide something with the explosive power of a tactical nuke, so we could wipe out dozens or hundreds of players?

Maybe we could create an organization of players dedicated to wiping out all other Halo players. Call it...oh, I dunno, the Sons of Harris and Klebold.

[Lisa]

3. anybody else remember a gaming experiment with Vietnam vets?

This was back in the days before video games became really sophisticated (and it may not even have used computer software). When the veterans were confronted with a big disparity in resources and technology, they ended up using guerilla-style tactics -- like the Viet Cong. I seem to recall that some of them admitted that it was the logical response (changing their minds from seeing the other side as insane and subhuman).