Warning: PS3 firmware 4.45 crashing consoles
Dragon's Prophet preview: how to catch your dragon
Report: Respawn Entertainment co-founder left due to personal conflict
Oculus Rift secures $16 million in venture capital
Max Payne 3 slowly dives onto Mac this week
NRA releases Practice Range game on iOS
by Andrew Yoon, Jan 14, 2013 3:00pm PSTThe National Rifle Association has released a new game for iDevices today called NRA: Practice Range. The free app provides rudimentary target practice, enabling players to virtually shoot 9 firearms across 3 shooting ranges. Practice Range offers both analog and gyroscope controls for their weapons.
In addition to the virtual shooting range, the NRA app also offers safety tips on gun handling, and is updated with news and legislation updates pertinent to NRA enthusiasts.
The release of Practice Range has attracted some criticism, especially as its release comes less than a month since NRA VP Wayne LaPierre pointed to video games as partly responsible for the gun violence in the country. Others are critical of the game's target age group of 4 and above.
While LaPierre insinuated homebrew Flash games like Kindergarten Killer are corrupting the minds of American youth, today's release of Practice Range shows that video games of all types can be created and distributed freely over the web.
Comments
The National Rifle Association has released a new game for iDevices today called NRA: Practice Range
The National Rifle Association has released a new game for iDevices today called NRA: Practice Range : Shacknews
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 36 replies.
It might be that this game is too "safe." It is so casual, it almost trivializes just how careful we need to be when handling firearms. I don't care about the safety tips the app may provide, one cannot understand what safe handling of a gun means until they actually hold one. I know I didn't, especially since I found they are both harder to control and easier to use than I expected.
As for this versus "violent" games like Bulletstorm or Borderlands (or that old favorite, Doom), the ease and lack of weight that this game presents I think prevents some valuable teaching opportunities for young gamers. There's no obvious fantastic backdrop which provides a "this is pretend"-style inlet to teach a child boundaries. There's also the complete lack of situational difficulty inherent in those shooters we love so much, difficulty which provides a sort of association between pulling a trigger and actually trying to hit something you're aiming for.
Finally, there's "news and legislation updates," which is a covert propaganda tool, regardless of intent. The vast majority of parents will not take the time to screen the information being fed into the game and discuss it with their children, so what the NRA says will go (assuming that the child reads.) While I don't think the NRA has the intention of turning children into careless hordes of gun-waving ne'erdowells, it's probably safe to assume that the news coming in will be 100% rooting for reducing restrictions on firearms and widening access to them. This could lead to children regarding firearms with possibly not as care as is warranted. The risk here, then, is accidents, not shooting sprees, but tragic nonetheless.
I'm not trying to put forth conspiracy theories here, just trying to analyze why /{I}/ am a bit put off by this app. If a lobbying group released an anti-gun app that would randomly shoot babies in the face as a means to show the danger in guns, I'd be just as critical. (Moreso, probably, but there could be an app released that's not quite so outlandish.) My point is that, as an adult who wants our society to have a reasoned, balanced understanding of firearms use, especially when it comes to children, this app is not innocuous.
And yeah, bad timing. Just saying.
You must be logged in to post.