Giant Bomb Video Game News

Apparently after returning home from a nightmarish tour of duty spent wallowing in man's inhumanity towards man and other unsavory things, a serious number of U.S. Army soldiers like to do a little bit of recreational drunk driving. It's bad behavior for sure, though as someone who gets stressed out from blogging, I don't feel I'm necessarily in a position to pass judgment.

Still, the U.S. Army is taking the issue of shellshocked vets getting DUIs seriously, or at least seriously enough to throw some funding behind Booze Cruise, an educational PC game designed at the University of Calgary to educate people about the dangers of drunk driving by virtually recreating the effects of alcohol when you're behind the wheel. Punch in your weight and the number of highballs you've had, and Booze Cruise will blur your vision and cripple your reaction times accordingly. The game's been around since 2007, though the Army is throwing additional funds behind it for some unspecified improvements.

I realize that it's the video-game blogger's duty to defend our industry to the death, particularly when it comes to receiving serious validation from the outside, but this doesn't seem like the best use of resources if vets are hitting the bottle because they're having trouble coping with civilian life. And frankly, I thought that Rockstar already nailed the whole drunk-driving simulator idea with Grand Theft Auto IV. While that game wasn't so concerned with hammering home the horrible consequences of such grossly irresponsible behavior, I would always end up calling a cab after going on a bender with a buddy, simply because the constant fender benders and vehicular manslaughter made getting home take forever.