Battleangel

In a Pentagon wet dream of a computer game. No wonder that they’re a subcontractor to the Pentagon then. Mercenaries 2: World in Flames plays out as “a power-hungry tyrant messes with Venezuela’s oil supply, sparking an invasion that turns the country into a war zone.” Will we be seeing every future U.S. operation on film and in play before it actually happens (or not)? Talk about hyperreality.

“Pandemic has no ties to the US government,” says Greg Richardson, the firm’s vice president of commercial operations. That’s the sound of hairs splitting. Pandemic Studios is a Pentagon subcontractor through the aegis of the “Institute for Creative Technologies,” launched by the US Army in 1998 with $45 million as a go-between with the entertainment and gaming industries. Pandemic is the developer of military training simulations such as Full Spectrum Command, commercially available as Full Spectrum Warrior for gaming on Playstation and XBox.