Video Game Warfare, Dissected

As somebody who’s played more than his fair share of video games (albeit not lately) and a nerdly number of strategy-based board games involving warfare of various kinds (ah, Conquest of the Empire; good times, good times…), I find the intersection of real-life war and gaming pretty fascinating. A bit morbid, sure, and I don’t actually like war, but I dunno, there’s something about putting yourself in the role that’s addictive. I’m guessing this is mostly A Guy Thing, by the way, although I could be wrong.

Beyond that, I’m fascinated by war in general throughout history — I’m reading Warriors of God right now, which is a very illuminating parallel look at Third Crusade leaders Richard the Lionhearted and Saladin (never realized Richard was gay ’til now…), and it goes into quite a bit of detail as to their strategic wins and mishaps, as well as the political situation of the region. Of course, whenever I throw out some random tidbit of useless information from this book or a similar one I’m reading that I happen to find incredibly interesting (did you know that Genghis Khan outlawed torture in his empire and instituted a system of protection for diplomats?), my wife just rolls her eyes and shudders. So, again, A Guy Thing.

Given the above, it makes perfect sense that tonight’s lecture up at Domy Books, “War and Video Games”, sounds pretty damn enticing to me. The good folks at Domy — being the video game geeks they are — are bringing author Ed Halter in to talk about his book From Sun Tzu to Xbox: War and Video Games, which supposedly covers the whole spectrum of war-related games, from Army propaganda-ware to Muslim(!) videogames.

Anyway, the lecture’s tonight, Thurs., May 3rd @ 8:30PM up at Domy (1709 Westheimer), and it is free, free, free. Should be interesting…