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" Videogames, even those with &amp;quot;Tom Clancy&amp;quot; in the title, aren&amp;#039;t known for their realism. But when Tom Clancy&amp;#039;s Ghost Recon debuted in 2001, it was possibly the most realistic first-person shooter ever released. Six years and various sequels later, Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 (GRAW 2) , released last month for the Xbox 360, plays like a brochure for the Pentagon&amp;#039;s Land Warrior System, which as Popular Mechanics contributing editor Noah Shachtman reviews in our current issue. Gamers use a heads-up-display to direct flying drones, ground-based drones, gunships, tanks and infantry without breaking a sweat. But as heads-up-displays gun cams are on the verge of deployment in Iraq, it&amp;#039;s due time to see how the real Land Warrior gear compares with what&amp;#039;s in GRAW 2: Blue-Force Tracking  Map screens compared: Ghost Recon 2 (left) and the Land Warrior system (right). In GRAW 2, you always know where your squadmates are. When you call up the 3D tactical map on your flip-down eyesight, friendly units, including UAVs and ground and air support, show up as blue diamonds. Tell your team to come around a corner, and you can watch those little blue diamonds slide along in real-time. As we found out, blue-force tracking isn&amp;#039;t actually that responsive: Shachtman discovered a lag time of at least a minute before the GPS-enabled map registered that a given squad had moved. Granted, GRAW 2 is set in 2014, but what functions as the backbone of all tactical maneuvers in the game is, in reality, significantly less useful. As a strategic tool, to assist in deploying large forces in a conventional battle, the current tracking capability could be a godsend. But in the kind of quick-and-dirty firefights that flare up in Iraq, and in GRAW 2, slow-loading maps are of dubious use. Weapon Subsystems  Target views compared: Ghost Recon 2 (left) and the Land Warrior system (right). When the going gets particularly tough, GRAW 2 gives you a rifle equipped with a camera. You can aim over cover or around buildings, the video feeding to your eyesight, letting you fire with near-impunity at entire squads of distant, bewildered hostiles. But when Shachtman tried using the real thing--a 12x magnification camera mounted on an M4 assault rifle--the focus was sluggish. Other M4 attachments include a thermal sight and a laser rangefinder, all of which require carrying extra batteries and a 400-MHz CPU, contributing to the soldier&amp;#039;s staggering 80-lb. load. And while GRAW 2 remains one of the few games in which running backwards or sideways is slower than charging forward, no game designer would dare to make the player noticeably weighed down by his gear. But that&amp;#039;s exactly how some of the soldiers testing the Land Warrior gear felt. And while batteries and computers will get smaller by 2014, there&amp;#039;s no excuse for the way GRAW 2 allows you to track enemies. Whenever you or one of your units spots a hostile, the target is marked with a red diamond. This could be explained away as laser designation, meaning you or one of your squadmates is training a gun-mounted laser rangefinder at the target, but one unit can spot and track multiple targets. Forget about the massive processing power and leaps and bounds in sensor tech needed to somehow include enemies on your dynamic GPS-enabled real-time tactical map: In a world increasingly defined by asymmetric warfare, a UAV that can differentiate between a hostile and a mere bystander would require a sweeping breakthrough in artificial intelligence. And that&amp;#039;s not likely to happen within the next seven years, if ever. Real-Time Upgrades In GRAW 2&amp;#039;s defense, it&amp;#039;s one of the best games on the Xbox 360. And while some gamers have complained that high-tech toys make the story-driven missions relatively easy, multiplayer missions can be tweaked to be gadget-free. And in the Land Warrior program&amp;#039;s defense, gear will no doubt get smaller, and a new batch of military satellites scheduled to launch in 2010 might help support the entire system. But just as the original Ghost Recon shocked gamers with its unflinching realism, maybe it&amp;#039;s time for a game where military planners make mistakes, high-tech gear falls short in the field, and warfare feels as visceral, as uncertain and as terrifying as it always has been. More On The Wireless Warrior...     * HOW IT WORKS: Inside Eye Cam and Digital Armor      * HARDWARE: The Army&amp;#039;s New Land Warrior System  They may look like identical systems, but the video camera mounted on the M-4 of this soldier from the 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team is really a lot slower than the Xbox-speed Ghost Recon package. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/a1593/4215749/>