Project Reality na Soldier Magazine

Project Reality teve uma matérias publicada em nada mais nada menos que a revista do exército britânico, Soldier Magazine. A edição de Abril de 2008 contém um artigo na seção de "reviews"



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Report: Cliff Caswell
IT is a familiar sight in Iraq – troops in desert fatigues piling into the back of a Warrior armoured vehicle against the backdrop of Basra’s Contingency Operating Base.

In the distance, a Royal Air Force Merlin helicopter is taking off, carrying soldiers to the insertion point of another op while elsewhere squads are planning their next mission, analysing intelligence and sizing up what the enemy might do next.
WO1 Alan Rudduck of The Light Dragoons, however, is some 3,000 miles from Iraq. Based at Blandford, he is in front of his PC playing Project Reality, a virtual military campaign that is becoming a cyber space phenomenon.

The brainchild of Swiss game designer Noel Tock, Project Reality is a specially modified version of Electronic Arts’ Battlefield 2 package. The free-to-download add-on has been given a full overhaul by a team of volunteers to include the latest British uniforms and equipment. Maps of southern Iraq are already available while a virtual environment of Sangin, southern Afghanistan, is under development.

“Once you play this you are hooked,” admits WO1 Ruddock, who is a member of the Active British Army (ABA) clan that regularly patrols the game. “To join our team, you have to prove that you are a soldier and we will check up on you to make sure.”

While anyone, serving or not, can play Project Reality, you should not expect a simple first-person shooter. Weapons take longer to reload, vehicles behave in a realistic way and stray bullets can put you out of action immediately. The emphasis of the game, which requires the original Battlefield 2 disc to play, is on tactics and teamwork as well as dexterity.
“Noel had seen that there was a community in the UK that wanted a game that realistically represented British military forces,” says Jason Dooley, one of the senior members of the development team based in Michigan, USA.

“From previous examples in games we had seen, the portrayal of British Forces was half-hearted, so getting it right was one of the areas we wanted to focus on.”
And the developers’ efforts have not gone to waste. Project Reality is now a weekly, Thursday night ritual for members of the ABA team and their experience has made them formidable opponents.

One of the regular players, SSgt Craig Turner, LD, is also a military adviser on the Project Reality development team, where he has been helping to bring the latest British kit to life.

And he certainly has the right credentials for his consultancy role – the Army has been his way of life for nearly 20 years. The senior NCO, who is now on a second tour of the Communications, Information and Systems School in Bovington, has served in Iraq, Cyprus and Bosnia.

An enthusiastic gamer since 2003, when he set up an online network to play the original Battlefield Vietnam game with friends, his involvement with Project Reality began when he heard from a friend that a British Army modification of the game was being created.
“I later had an email from someone on the project asking if I would be an adviser,” SSgt Turner recalls. “My job is to look at the models of the equipment and say what is right and wrong about them.”

For the volunteers designing the kit, making sure details are accurate is key.
“I got into all this by playing games,” says Steve Kennedy, who crafted the Apache helicopter in Project Reality. “When drawing up designs I look at photos and, in some cases, have model kits made.”

The future promises to be interesting and gamers can expect an increasingly realistic experience.

“With the game being online, British soldiers can meet wherever they happen to be based,” says SSgt Turner. “We already have one person based in Germany and another in Tidworth joining us in the ABA. You can get totally immersed.”