"Addendum:

While it has been the subject of much contention and I strongly disagree with it, airsoft and paintball if conducted properly could have beneficial training applications. Going out and practicing things you saw on TV or playing Call of Duty is only setting yourself up for failure.

Combat operation is not fancy, dramatic or glamorous. It is a very technical science and like all technical professions, requires technical instruction and committment to learn well. "

"Saying videogames can make you a better fighter is preposterous.

Yes there is a definite link between gaming and hand/eye coordination. The benefit stops there. Videogames will NOT teach you how to shoot. They will NOT prepare you for combat. There is far more going on in real life combat than most people would ever consider "cool" or "fun." Therefore you will never see it in a game.

Please dont mistake entertainment with real-world application. The two are rarely, if ever interchangeable. "

"-Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (PS2)
Subsistence has a better camera than the original. Great game, very fun, realistic, and it had some in depth, if at times tedious game elements. You had to forage food to keep yourself energized, wildlife could be as much a threat as the enemies, or useful to use against them. As in, certain mushrooms would give you blood poisoning, food could spoil, and wild animals could be used to scare guards.

Injuries would require a well-stocked medical kit. A gunshot wound, for example needs: knife, syptic, suture, bandage. Your health would restore only gradually, and enemies took significant damage for your fairly limited weaponry to take down.

-Fallout 3 (X360 / PS3)
Perhaps not the most difficult of games, but I found it neat to have to scavenge and maintain everything in the post apocalyptic waste land. Good damage and "cripple" system, and an interface that wasn't too cumbersome."

"Put down the game controler and get started on an excercise program of some sort.
"

"I've made that transformation and trust me, it's marvelous.

On the subject of games, though....It isn't only firearms and combat that are inaccessible from a television screen.

You can't feel the evening Sun hitting your face while your water-logged boots trudge through a sloshy field of snow as your stomach growls like a rudely awakened dog, you don't get that rush when bolting away from armed pot farmers in rusted pick-up trucks through a thicket of woods, you don't acquire that kinesthetic relationship with your surroundings.

This might seem trivial, I know, but it's actually a big shocker to plenty of people I know when they actually have to go places that aren't exactly sterile or overly safe.

That aside, my personal fave is Condemned: Criminal Origins. No Zedskies, but a bunch of crazed people instead wanting to bash your skull in or blow your head clean off.....and it's well within their means to do so.

What I particularly liked was the LACK of firearms in game and the prioritization of melee weapons with a not half-bad real-time fighting set-up tossed in to make it somewhat realistic.

When you do find a piece, they only have the ammo in their mags and require you to plan out their use carefully. They also break down if used as melee weapons, as well....so the whole smash 'n flash thing is non-existent.

Health is limited to the few painkillers you find, but you still get beaten down with a few solid hits regardless. It isn't fun to get bum-rushed by four guys with fire axes and shovels and get your sh!t mercilessly whacked to the ground.

Even still, it's only a game best played at 2:27AM with the lights out, a couple beers in your gut and some Tool playing in the background."

"A video game can't even do that. It's entertainment only, and that is its only value. It's an artificial adreneline rush generated over a screen and it's designed to do that. That's why they can be so addictive.

Anyway, I can't see how it can simulate an actual scenario since there has never been a zombie apocalypse to base it on. I'm afraid it just won't prepare you for the real thing.

Here's why: You aren't hungry and tired and dirty and injured while playing these games, things that are entirely likely when z-day happens. You haven't wet your pants and if you need to go to the bathroom you can always pause it. Not to mention that turing an avatar on screen with your fingers to protect your back is completely different from zeds coming at you from all sides irl and you can't even see them.

To say that it offers anything of value is just wishful thinking, and trying to justify spending too much time in a virtual world.

*ducks*"

"Silly me. I said what you did. I guess I should read more thoroughly rather than just skim.

Feeling kinda sheepish now. :)"