Does playing video games encourage good or bad tactical habits?

[firearms_instructor]

This is just for fun, guys. I love playing Battlefield 1942 online, and I also enjoy Unreal Tournament and UT2003.

I have wondered from time to time if the time I spend playing these first-person shooter games has benefitted me, or am I likely to develop bad habits? I'd love to hear what y'all think about this, especially from those of you who like to play video games.

Cheers!

 

[MacPelto]

FPS games are, IMO, so far removed from what one might expect in a fight that it would neither help nor hurt. The skill sets are so different as to be irrelevant: the way I think during a game doesn't ever occur at the range, or on the Judo mat (the 2 thing I do that could have a bearing on a fight.) This could just be the way that I play games, though When I'm online there's nothing to lose, so I can be way more dramatic/risky like I never would be in reality. For example, I never stop moving in a game, and I don't get tired from it either - not realistic.

The only way it would make any difference at all would be if you're using range time to play computer games...that probably wouldn't help

 

[CleverNickname]

I wish I was as good a shot in real life as I am online.

 

[litman252]

I think it could help in a small way when your thinking under pressure. What your thinking is diffrent though. Just dont start thinking, hit the "X" and turn right, now the " triangle" when your at the range............

Tony

 

[BerettaNut92]

It trained me to be a coward. The AI teammates can detect enemies through foliage so I let them go in front of me where it's safe

 

[Hkmp5sd]

I've played them since the day they first started making them and IMO, they do help with hand-eye coordination and reaction time. As for actual tactical skills, I don't think they have any effect.

 

[strambo]

The problem with most games is good real world tactics are not rewarded...they are punished. Things like concealment, taking time to recon etc.. usually get you killed in games. Constant movement and use of unlimited firepower allow you to win. Most team member AI is poor so its easier to do things by youreself in games too.

I'm looking forward to the "Full Spectrum Warrior" Xbox game origionally developed as a training tool for the Army. This game (I hope) should reward using sound tactics (or at least standard Army infantry tactics, "soundness" can be debateable )

The "Swat 3" game for PC that came out about 4 years ago, rewarded good tactics. If you tried to Rambo it, you would just end up getting you and your team waxed. Going slow and directing your teams while using all your assets (mirrors, flashbangs, CS etc..) was the only way to win. You also had to have a team member secure each danger area (watch your back) or a BG would kill you from behind.

 

[Treylis]

Bad, bad, bad habits.

 

[Devonai]

Day of Defeat for Half-Life rewards good tactics in spades. You get what you put into it, however. Play like crap and you will lose. If you and your teammates are using proper movement to contact, covering fire, bounding overwatch, et cetera, you will improve your chances of success exponentially.

I don't compromise. I get more fun out of the game doing things "right" than I do leaping around corners and trying to Rambo my way to victory.

Being trained as a soldier makes me a better DoD player, but certainly not the other way around. It is an object lesson in how good squad movement works, but it is too unrealistic to be of use the other way around.

 

[itgoesboom]

I think most of the time it either reinforces bad habits, or at best just doesn't help.

The games just arent that realistic. Someone could be hiding behind a regular wall, and rounds wouldn't go through. In real life, unless that wall was fortified, pretty much anything would go through. Players would be killed by a 9mm to the body, yet a person might not die when hit by .50bmg. Never had to account for bullet drop at any range, nor was there any deflection when shooting through glass, even at extreme angles.

Occasionally you can play online with people where you can use actual sound tactics, and those tactics can be rewarded, but that doesn't make it any more realistic.

I used to play Rainbow Six and Rogue Spear on a team. The small team we had worked similar to how a fireteam would work. One of us (usually me) had a full-auto laying covering fire, allowing my teammates to flank the opponents. We used cover, kept distance from each other (so one grenade, or some quick shooting wouldn't take out multiple of us), used a rear guard when there was a possiblity of our enemy coming up from behind.

When we first started there was 3 of us, and we would regularly take on 8-12 other players, and we had a high win %, probably 80-90%.

That doensn't meen that any of us would survive a real tactical encounter. It just meant that our tactics work well for the game. At the same time, there were very poor tactics that were rewarded.

I.G.B.

 

[UnknownSailor]

I found some of what I did in gaming to be a help, like pieing corners everywhere I went, and reloading after every engagement (when playing games that it's possible to do so), but for the most part, mouse+keyboarding doesn't translate well over to real-life skills. Other than improved hand-eye, which I've noticed big time. I used to be a klutz with my hands. Used to be.

Funny story: Thunder Ranch Defensive Handgun, Octover 2000 - first run through the indoor simulator. (First ever run though anything like it in real life, as a matter of fact.) I commented that it felt like Quake somewhat as I was leaving. Bad idea. Instructor commented on this in a gather-round session. This is not a game, this is real life.

A real Homer Simpson moment. Doh!

 

[Red Dane]

Bad, I mean.. don't you feel compelled to bunny hop in order to dodge incoming fire?

Last time I was at the range.. I jumped up and down and then squatted while moving purely along my x and y axis.. didn't help my shooting but made me look like I was playing Quake3

 

[UnknownSailor]

Yea, and I don't find rocket launchers and railguns just lying around on the deck, either. Damn the luck.....

I could really use strafe-jumping in real life, though.

 

[La Pistoletta]

Then of course, there's a difference between Counter-Strike and Rainbow Six.

 

[TCD]

Operation Flash Point has bullet drop.


Trying to hit a running guy at 600 meters usually takes several tries

 

[Correia]

I know it keeps screwing me up. I keep trying to fire my rocket launcher at the ground to propel me higher in the air in real life, and I just haven't had much luck.





Seriously there is no correlation whatsoever between video games and actual shooting. As for tactics, I'm sure that should the Covenant ever land on Earth, I will be ready.

 

[La Pistoletta]

I could believe technical aspects such as reloading and firearms theory could be influenced, though. Theory.

 

[SLCDave]

A lot of training relies on muscle memory as well, so you do things instinctively as you have trained. Since you aren't actually going through the motions, chances are minimal that there is any measureable benefit.

 

[Vitamin G]

I used to get into a lot of street fights when I was little. I won most of them until I got into video games.

Shortly thereafter, I attempted to start every fight by throwing a big blue fireball from my hands, or making a giant spear with rope appear out of thin air, so I could hit them, pull them across the playground, and uppercut them.

 

[twency]

As for tactics, I'm sure that should the Covenant ever land on Earth, I will be ready.

As long you've got a warthog and/or banshee handy, right?

-twency

___________
Now I'm off in search of an invisibility power-up.

 

[Diggler]

I wish it worked that way.

Like in some games, I could go out shooting, and when I run out of ammo, I throw away my gun, go back to my gun safe and an exact replica of the gun I just threw away will be there, loaded to the gills!

 

[MrMurphy]

I play Call of Duty and the single player game rewards teamplaying, proper tactics, conservation of fire, etc... Rambo will get you killed usually.

Multiplayer, I play under the name of "That Bastard Who Aims" and am the bane of all lead-spraying-SMG-types who spray and pray on the move. I get an M1, Mauser, Mosin-Nagant, etc (sometimes a BAR for fun) and using the iron sights (which you must in that game to actually hit anything past 10 yards) I lay down fire from behind cover at anywhere from 10 to 200+ yards (depending on the map).

I was playing today and was dropping Germans from 150-200 on the "bocage" (hedgerows and fields) map with an M1.. usually got about 10-12 of the lead-spraying types before getting ambushed from some guy hopping hedgerows I missed or a lucky grenade.....

And COD you have to account for bullet drop at 100+ or more... depending on the weapon of course. I had to kentucky-elevation my shots with a Mauser requiring three shots to hit a guy all the way across the map, but I hit him. Range in real life would have been 250m or so going by size of bad guy on screen.

Games don't get the right instincts going, but they do sometimes teach proper tactics, such as the fact that charging an MG42 is instant death...... and that running through 30 rounds of SMG ammo as you charge a rifleman then getting killed by one shot to the chest as you foolishly reload (Standing up!) is a very good way to die quickly........

 

[GSB]

It depends. I think some games like Rainbow Six can be, at least, non-detrimental. For an experiment I tried that game's shoothouse practice levels with real "slicing the pie" techniques and found that techniques I had been taught for room clearing worked very well. But I wouldn't conclude from the experiment that I am now some super FBI HRT ninja.

However, the old-school run and gun FPSs encourage some really suicidal gameplay -- I can't seem to find health packs in real life.

 

[GSB]

Funny story: Thunder Ranch Defensive Handgun, Octover 2000 - first run through the indoor simulator. (First ever run though anything like it in real life, as a matter of fact.) I commented that it felt like Quake somewhat as I was leaving. Bad idea. Instructor commented on this in a gather-round session. This is not a game, this is real life.

Oh, they have to say that so as not to trivialize the training or encourage people to treat it like a paintball game. But we all know that the reason most of us go to those schools is as much for the boys-with-toys factor as it is for the real-world skill value. I mean come on, shoothouses are fun, and I'm sure the instructors in private know this.