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Denver, 4:39 AM
Mon Nov 23
22 posts in the last 24 hours
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09/23/09
09/22/09
Gives an interesting POV in regards to Chinas business activity and how a lot of it supports terrorism / anti-western related countries along with general expansion across the globe which a lot seems to point towards the securing of natural resources and safe logistics routes mostly hidden from the hands of the western world.
Interesting book and do like how the author goes around the asia region explaining his theories supported also by facts and data in regards to Chinas expansionism.
Dragon Days - Time for "Unconventional" Tactics : By H. Joh...
09/22/09
Instead of reading that, I suggest that you take a look at Rand.org . At least their people show up for Congressional testimonies more often than any other think-tanks.
09/22/09
Personally I had picked up that book in regards to seeing his views on tactics and such and was not expecting the whole part with his pov in regards to the situation with china and the rest of the world.
Still though overall Id trust the US of A over China regardless of all the crazy bullshit we pull around the world during our span of history.
09/22/09
There are times where you can actually preempt the other side by taking a strategy that blunts/negates the advantages that the other side enjoys. The Chinese strategy at the moment seems to be to maintain the political status quo while improving its self-defence capabilities.
09/22/09
Though I have been personally looking into the private sector situation more although unfortunate I have not had as much time as I used to in regards to reading and such.
Currently am trying to catch up on the South East Asia situation. With all the reading ive been doing I swear to god my corrective eye surgery is going bust.
09/22/09
I'm wearing glasses as it is and yeah, I do tend to lose myself with reading a ton of stuff when it has my interest.
09/22/09
I personally would like to play a mech game, where the mechs were designed by mechanical engineers, and not artists.
09/22/09
Sometimes these plots that game developers come up with makes my head want to explode and this was one of them!
09/22/09
Two things i want to relate here:
1) Chinese economy: While it is universally known that its economy IS good, the numbers (gdp, etc) are official numbers (can not be trusted), and more importantly, if any of you try to make any kind of transaction in a n international stock exchange market (US, Eurozone, Israel, etc) you'll find out that you CAN NOT make almost any tranzactions with 100% chinese controlled companies FROM china, because there is no "translation" for their value (in short, you don't know WHAT they are exactly worth just so you won't be able to trade with them). So i'm not so sure about the current chinese economy being in SUCH a big boom, it's more probably hyped because they want to attract investors (smart!)
2) "After all, sometimes real-life is scarier that the "what-ifs" video game developers imagine for us". Damn right. I am Israeli, 23 years old. All my friends are about that age. What that means is that we all went through our 3 year army service, and met numerous soldiers/generals/etc. While we did not go through an actual war (luckily) we have trained for 3 years and patrolled mostly hostile territory, and i must tell you, games like call of duty 4 and bad company are for real soldiers what burnout is for F1 racers. The only shooter game that REMOTELY resembles a war/patrol in enemy territory on the PSYCHOLOGICAL level is dead space, hardest difficulty, volume to the maximum and worst armor.
09/22/09
That's interesting. I too have heard that our media (i.e. Games and movies) hasn't even come close to mimicking real life situations like being in a war.
Though, you say Dead Space on hardest difficulty level Psychologically resembles the real thing more than anything else. Did you really mean that? That's crazy. I've yet to get that game but I really wanna get it.
09/22/09
09/22/09
At least I'm pretty sure that's how he meant it.
09/23/09
would think the sheer terror of what could happen is more reflective of actual combat. A realistic sim like ArmA seems closer to what it would be like to play Paintball. Exciting for sure, but with the underlying knowledge that nobody is going home in a box.
09/22/09
They have a large history of border skirmishes and such. Despite relations having cooled post-Soviet Russia it still seems far more likely for those two to go to war in one way or another than the US going up against either one.
I just think it's an interesting concept for a video game story. How would the rest of the world react? Could NATO or Japan get pulled into the conflict? What about areas in the region that are very tense right now like North/South Korea? It would be cool switching between the two sides and the US/Europe taking a more backseat role.
It would be something different, at least.
09/22/09
It's not unforseeable that further changes could happen in the future, especially with the current government wanting the withdrawal of some of the US forces stationed in Japan. (though, admittedly, they haven't really talked about doing anything to the JSDF either.)
09/22/09
09/22/09
Then again, video games!!
09/22/09
09/22/09
09/22/09
China's been farther out there in the world, for longer than most seem to realize.
The borders between Russia and China have already been worked out a few years ago as well. The real flash points remain Taiwan and India.
09/22/09
The China vs India issue is partly caused by the US and partly caused by general stupidity throughout the Indian political and military leaderships. The Henderson-Brooks Report reviewed the whole fiasco of why the Indian army failed so miserably and so completely. Even now, that report has not been released to the public and only one historian has had access to it.
09/22/09
09/22/09
The only one that's related to a China vs Russia situation is The Bear and the Dragon.
09/22/09
09/22/09
All I know of Clancy is that he has a very good understanding of politics, especially insider knowledge. Beyond that, I don't even know if he is a retired spook or not.
09/22/09
So its better to make a lot more make believe than something too real which will have a good chance of pissing off somebody.
GRAW 2 had the mexican govt pissed off to call for seizure of the game due to the portrayal of the country in said title.
Then again somebody will always be offended by something so its a pretty lose lose situation.
09/22/09
09/23/09
09/24/09
On a side note, Korea's professional StarCraft tournaments have this Panda Curse that always results in the player who killed the Panda to lose the game.
09/24/09
Maybe no one would shoot at the pandas but there are folks who are sick enough to click on sheep and seals till they explode tho!
09/22/09
09/22/09
Kojima convulted MGS storytelling is like hearing a well told child book in comparison to what you said.
But lets not bother developers, they have a hard time writing anything interesting let alone build a real scenario that only some geniuses could do.
09/22/09
Just finding someone like that to fit in perfectly with the project would be another issue.
MGS4 what a lot of people miss is that it had some real strong and real points in regards to the boom with "private sector" / contractors, PTSD, illegal arms trade and terrorism.
Though its quite understandable that most folks would miss a lot of those important points mainly because people dont study those types of issues asides from what they might hear from the various news sources.
By far MGS4 is one of the most advanced games when it comes to actually talking about said issues and give the player a chance to consider how their own actions tie in with the setting.
09/22/09
09/22/09
09/22/09
I'm guessing that the North Koreans went nuclear for similar reasons such as distrusting the Chinese commitment even though China is the only nation that is propping up that failed state.
09/22/09
09/22/09
09/22/09
09/22/09