I wouldn’t go all out in calling him a retard. In fact, you could almost look at him as a newbie to all this. As for COD being a good point of reference into deciding what stuff to throw on your AR, not a good idea. One, COD doesn’t let you feel how heavy all that crap is, and two, instant acquisition of target with dead-on groupings doesn’t happen all the damn time.
But looking at Guitar Quero (I play the real deal, so I’m biased to an extent). What has Hero done for kids now: scratch that fantasy to be a rock-star like all the rest of rock-saints for that one moment, or until you get it perfect. It’s like the lottery; people are paying money to have a five minuet fantasy of being a millionaire. Do they win…you are more likely to get struck by lightning twice in a week’s time than score the lotto. Hitting it big and becoming a rock-star has about the same odds, possibly better. Hell, with my talent and the strive to improve it could land me some boocoo bucks, but that is if I stop playing old 50’s rock, start screaming out lyrics, play a guitar I despise, oh, and actually write and do my own stuff, which has been a pain in the ever loving rear.
What has guitar hero done: it has gotten youngsters to enjoy the moldy oldies. Think of it, how many kids and teens knew who Foghat or Pat Bennitar are prior to Guitar Hero? All those artist on Guitar Hero have seen a major increase in sales from it. Now that the Beatles are back, I’m having interesting discussion with kids about the fab four, and how to do some of their lyics on actual guitars. The best part is is having them oh-and-drool over my Gretsch Tennessee. However, what they are missing is doing improvisations, or more to the point, playing how the feel without being held to a certain solo.
I play on a mod for Battlefield 2 called Project Reality…and it nearly holds up to it’s name. You can’t modify your weapons like some of the other FPS games, but the jobs you choose does lend you to use an Aimpoint, and ACOG, or straight-up irons. When using the aimpoint, or bringing it up, it comes on target pretty quick. As for the ACOG, it takes a half second longer, which I smile due it actually does take a little more care to come up.
Why is this important? Because it helps get used to getting on target and understanding what the optic looks like while on target in different areas (shadows, open plain with high sun, etc.) It actually helps me while out practicing on the range in identifying that damn tiny dot at high noon. It also has let me figure out how a 2 MOA dot looks like compared to a 4 MOA. I know it doesn’t say much, but compared to the Aimpoint M4 that the mod runs on the M4’s, and that I have an M2, I now know how to dial down the brightness of the Aimpoint to get the effect of seeing a 2 MOA dot.
In hindsight, some of these FPS are getting people into the shooting sports…but it is also getting crappy idiots who think they can play guitar on the word go. Everything has its goods and bads. I suggest we welcome some of these curious individuals and educate them instead of ridicule them. Like one of the above posters expressed: “We’ve all had to start somewhere.”