I agree that the protest is due to what's going on in Iraq, but at the same time I believe that there are those who would not enjoy the game regardless of Iraq and the surrounding events. Once again it's my personal belief that war is not something glamorous or praiseworthy as these sorts of games sometimes try to make it out to be. I recently tried Ghost Recon Advanced War Fighter 2 for instance and felt unsettled when an npc congratulated me upon shooting a group of militia men. The game itself is a master piece but the reality of the scenario is a bit too intense I suppose. I'm not even certain that there's any way to tone it down. War is war and no matter what decorations you surround it with it's nothing to be celebrated.

You should have clarified that it was like 90 army vets who protested. The US Army has about 1 million people and takes in around 150,000 recruits a year so I'm certain you can easily find 90 people who hate pretty much anything in Army. I wouldn't be surprised to find that many of them either were never in the army or never in Iraq to begin with (which includes a surprising number of anti-Iraq War, anti-Bush, and/or anti-military "Iraq War veterans" angling for media coverage). So 90 protestors means nothing.

As for a recruiting tool, it does at least give something of an idea of what it's like serving in the army. Real life isn't shoot everything that moves, take no prisoners, go Rambo every level like most FPS' which it does show (according to the game at least, I haven't fully verified that). Having served in the army I don't much care for the game though. I spent 3 weeks qualifying with an M-16 in basic training so I stopped playing after it took more than an hour to do the same in the game. The drill sergeants in the game are also quite a bit nicer about screw ups than they are in real life.

 them not being real soldiers protesting at a army recruiting event is like saying John Carry didnt get his Purple Hearts legitly.

First it's John Kerry, ehh, that's a whole nother issue.  Second, I'm not saying they aren't, just that I wouldn't be surprised if some aren't.  Several so called anti-Iraq War Iraq War vets spotlighted by the media were either never in the army or never in Iraq or fibbed about where they were. There's even a US Senator, whose name fails me (he's a Democrat from a Plains state), who claims he was some hotshot Vietnam War pilot with some huge number of combat missions. Turns out he was never in Vietnam, he flew replacement planes from Japan to the Philippines for real combat pilots to pick them up.   It's not hard to get a group together, say they are all Iraq War vets and have a protest.  The media certainly won't fact check it.  Granted with a group as small as 90 it is possible they all were but again it's such a small group that even in that case it's meaningless.

Well, either way i'm not giving up C&C or Halo because some people say that war isn't an ethical subject matter

The issue they are protesting is the use of games, what they see as a toy, as a shameless recruitment drive to send kids to war. The fact that they, not unsurprisingly, are unhappy with the way the Iraq war is going compounds their feelings on the issue.

I'm very glad my government has not yet come up with such an underhand scheme to recruit into the armed forces. I hope they never do but I'm sure it would be widely denounced and protested against.

@dallas

I actually like both of those :D It's generally true to life scenarios/locations that tend to be a put off. Love me some Warhawk

I'm just surprised that Jack Thompson didn't make an appearance at this protest

I've actually never heard of this game. But in general if I was in real combat for any period of time... I imagine I wouldn't be a fan of ANY kind of FPS shooter or TPS.

Or at the very least atleast not the ones based on real life wars and such.

 As for underhanded tactics for getting people to enlist in the army... Well yeah.  I'd expect that.

"Hey come work for us, we try and strip away most of your individuality, and you'll get paid about the same as if you worked at Walmart... and as a bonus people will shoot at you every day."

Pride in your country will only get you so far with work conditions like that.