From:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jul/30/computer-games-expert-nuclear-weapons

UK's Atomic Weapons Establishment asks for applicants with experience of games such as Crysis, in which US troops take on North Korea

* Rob Edwards
* guardian.co.uk

Thursday 30 July 2009 12.12 BST


If you're the kind of guy who gets his kicks from killing Koreans, atomising aliens and blowing up beautiful islands in pursuit of "total domination", your country needs you.

The government's Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) at Aldermaston in Berkshire [operated by AWE ML, two-thirds owned by US corporations Lockheed Martin and Jacobs Engineering and one third owned by Serco] is advertising for a "virtual reality specialist" to use "serious gaming" to help train nuclear weapons scientists. One of the qualifications required is experience of computer games with good graphics like Crysis, the job advert says.

Crysis, marketed by the California-based company Electronic Arts, is a "first person shooter" game in which players become part of an elite group of US soldiers on a mission to an island in the South China Sea. They rapidly become embroiled in a bloody battle with North Koreans, then monsters from outer space.

Players have access to a daunting arsenal of deadly hi-tech weapons, and wear a futuristic "nano suit" to make them more lethal. In the latest version, Crysis Warhead, they help Sergeant "Psycho" Sykes, find "unique and all-new environments they can explore and blow up", according to a blurb for the game.

However, computer gaming experts question the wisdom of seeking out war games enthusiasts for a nuclear bomb factory. Mathias Fuchs, the leader of a creative games programme at the University of Salford near Manchester, warns that AWE may get more than it bargained for.

The rule-breaking and "creative craziness" characteristic of gamers might not make them ideal candidates for working with nuclear warheads, he said. When his students were asked to design a game to encourage interest in Manchester Art Gallery, they came up with a scenario based on a virtual art theft.

"The anarchic approach to objectives may turn out to be very surprising to Aldermaston if they get gamers involved," Fuchs told the Guardian. "A mathematician or a physicist might be more useful."

Computer simulations are being increasingly used as training tools by the military in the UK and the US. Submariners, for example, can pretend to launch nuclear-armed Trident missiles, and practise dealing with fires and other emergencies.

John Ainslie, the co-ordinator of the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, argued that the world would be a lot safer if nuclear scientists stuck to virtual reality. "The trouble is that instead of killing cartoon North Koreans, they are fashioning weapons that could actually wipe out the whole country," he said.

An AWE spokesman insisted that it had no interest in the content of Crysis. "We are simply interested in the expertise behind the software tool used to create it," he said. "This type of software has applications for creating virtual reality environments which can be used for safety and incident response training."