US Army to make Ender's Game a reality (Orson Scott Card)

[Dave]

Slashdot reported that the US Army is to release two Army simulation games as a recruitment tool, and makes the comparison to the Hugo and Nebula award-winning SF novel 'Ender's Game' by Scott Orson Card. The story centers on children who are trained by the government to play a game, with the best players ultimately tapped to battle aliens that seek to eliminate the human race.

Posted by michael on Thursday May 23, @08:55AM
from the army-of-one dept.
securitas writes "Reuters and AP tell us that Epic Games and the US Army have announced the America's Army series of games, jointly developed by the Department of Defense and Epic. The first two-part game in the five-year project includes an RPG called Soldier and a first-person shooter called Operations. The game will be free of charge and available for download in July or August, with 1.2 million CDs simultaneously released, attached to gaming magazines. Does this remind anyone else of the war-room scene from 'Toys' or 'Ender's Game'?" Future installments will include Sim Mess Duty, Sim Standing Guard in the Rain, Sim Blister, and Sim Invading Iraq to Keep Approval Ratings High.

Scifi Wire has also announced that Warner Bros. has inked the deal with Wolfgang Petersen to direct the big-screen version of 'Ender's Game'/ 'Ender's Shadow', with Card himself penning the first draft of the script.

"There is great potential for a variation of what I did with The Neverending Story," Petersen told the trade paper. Card told 'Daily Variety', "Wolfgang completely understood the book, and my children grew up on 'Neverending Story', so I knew he could direct performances out of young children." Card's official Web site, Hatrack River, links to a statement by the production company Fresno Pictures saying, "The upshot is that all are agreed on a fairly detailed outline of a film that combines Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow in a way that will combine the most important elements of both." Petersen's other films include Das Boot, In the Line of Fire, Air Force One and The Perfect Storm.

[timdgreat]

so gonna have to go looking for this now:rolly2:

[sarakoth]

America's Army is a great game. However, it doesn't force all of its best players to join the army, it is merely a recruitment tool, to interest children in joing the army.

[Dave]

Can you tell us more about it?

Slashdot was obviously using a small amount of parody, and that post is 5 years old, but it did say the project was a 5 year one, so it must be nearing completion now.

Did they ever produce a fix for Sim Friendly Fire?