Virtual combat.

I'VE BEEN INTERESTED IN gaming trends since the 1980s, when I worked part time in an arcade. In those days, pinball wizardry ruled, and video games still bore the glint of novelty. Harmless titles like Space Invaders, Pac-Man, and Centipede rose to the level of virtual cultural icons. And while arcade games with guns (like Tank) weren't unheard of back then, chasing a piece of fruit or fighting a spider occupied more of our time than battling Nazis or any other recognizable humans. You can still find a few arcades around, but for most players, gaming leaps out from the nearest computer or TV set. And the military has gotten in on the production side of some of the best-selling games available.

Take America's Army, a game created with about 6.3 million in tax dollars and used as a recruiting tool to lure young people into the U.S. military. According to the America's Army website, the game "is an entertaining way for young adults to explore the Army and its adventures and opportunities as a virtual Soldier. As such, it is part of the Army's communications strategy designed to leverage the power of the Internet as a portal through which young adults can get a first hand look at what it is like to be a Soldier."

The Army doesn't camouflage its interest. "Given the popularity of computer games and the ability of the Internet to deliver great content, a game was the perfect venue for highlighting different aspects of the Army," it says on the America's Army website.

The Army cites "the elimination of the draft" as one reason young adults are not gaining "vicarious insights into the challenges and rewards of Soldiering and national service." To counter this, "the game is designed to substitute virtual experiences for vicarious insights."

There is little virtual carnage. "Game characters show a small puff of blood when injured," says the America's Army website. "We built the game to provide entertainment and information without resorting to graphic violence and gore. When a Soldier is killed, that Soldier simply falls to the ground and is no longer part of the ongoing mission."

I spent more than thirty-six hours downloading the huge game file, and the play was both remarkably detailed and filled with subtle (and some not so subtle) recruiting messages. Shooting at pop-up targets in Basic Marksmanship was fun and challenging, but the lecture on "Vehicle, Aircraft, and Weapon Identification" was Soldier of Fortune scary. While each section of the game is loading, the "Soldier's Creed" appears on screen. The creed ends: "I am a guardian of freedom and the American way of life."

As far as the characters in America's Army are concerned, females are well represented numerically, but occasionally stereotyped. During medic training two of them chat about all the fun things they do on base. "We just bought a new TV," Joanne tells Nichole. "You can't beat the prices at the PX."

America's Army is not the only warfare game in town. Conflict: Vietnam, which used the Rolling Stones song "Paint It Black" in its ad campaign, allows players to control four different soldiers. The game offers a melodrama complete with highly developed storylines and characterization. Corporal Bruce Lesh, for example, is described as a twenty-three-year-old athletic, African American man from Queens, nicknamed Junior. "The America that Bruce Lesh had always known was one of poverty and exclusion," we're told in the back story, available on the website of one of the game's distributors. "Like thousands of other disenfranchised youths, Lesh only believed he was destined for a life of petty crime and low-paid work. Drafted into the Vietnam War, Bruce saw this as a route out of the ghetto. However, the reality of combat and the loss of many close comrades have soured his view."

Along with Vietnam, the Conflict franchise includes Desert Storm and Desert Storm II. A visit to the Desert Storm section of the Conflict website reveals a chilling method of addressing user queries about the game, especially in the context of the current torture scandal. The "Interrogation" section uses a mix of text and low-level animation to represent game developers answering questions while strapped in a chair under the duress of torture. ("Was balancing realism and fun a major issue?") After you complete each group of questions, a cigarette-wielding interrogator ends with the words, "Thank you, you've been very helpful." The bare light bulb goes out and the screen fades to black, except for the red light of the cigarette moving in the prisoner's direction. That's followed by a long, bloodcurdling scream.

Screams, cries, and groans--along with military music that crescendos as you approach the end of your mission--are standard fare in the high-tech sound environment of many of these combat games. Powerful computers and increasing software sophistication mean that players can do a lot more than just run and shoot. Most "first-person shooter" games now operate in a 360-degree field of play. Players can throw grenades, use a variety of guns and ammo, control tanks and heavy equipment, give orders to other soldiers, call in air strikes, and, of course, heal all wounds with a simple first aid kit. There's also no reason for all of your missions to be solo. Thanks to the Internet, those who grow weary of battling computerized foes can join online multiplayer warfare.

Games of war are serious business. Software development companies like Activision and EA (Electronic Arts) make millions of dollars annually on gaming titles, and combat war games provide some of the strongest sellers on each of their product lists. The range of options is dizzying: Players can choose enemies who are German, Japanese, Somali, and Iraqi; they can engage in close combat or fly complicated sorties to bomb their chosen enemies from high altitude.

The popular Medal of Honor and Call of Duty series both situate themselves in World War II. Other game developers have taken to more recent conflicts. In Delta Force: Black Hawk Down, players are invited to join Army Rangers and Delta Force Operatives in the infamous 1993 battle in Somalia. You can "experience the intense combat of Operation Restore Hope in this groundbreaking first-person shooter," according to the game's website. "As a Delta Force operative, participate in a number of daring and intense raids against the oppressive Somali warlords in and around Mogadishu."

If ground combat isn't your thing, you can fly above it all. F/A-18 Operation Iraqi Freedom promises that players will be able to jump "directly into the cockpit of the Navy/Marine workhorse fighting machine--the F/A-18 Hornet.... Load up with precision guided munitions and bring the forces of freedom to bear on the Iraqi regime of terror." That may all sound intriguing, but after reading a few paragraphs of the daunting 133-page user manual for the game, F/A-18 became about as much fun as auditing an Air Force training class.

One of the newest releases in the theater of war games is Close Combat: First to Fight, "a tactical first-person shooter so real, the Marine Corps will use it for training, according to the game manual. Players can "lead a four-man Marine fire team in urban combat.... When you cross an intersection, ascend a staircase, and engage the enemy, your team will do it the way Marines are doing it, right now, in the most dangerous places in the world.... You are part of the Marine Air Ground Task Force, the razor-sharp tip of America's military spear. Call in tanks, sniper teams, mortar, helicopter gun ships, and more, to shock your enemy into surrender or retreat."

The game play of First to Fight is a synthesis of high-tech militainment and Marine Corps glorification. Set in Lebanon in 2006, First to Fight spells out a complicated scenario that has forced the U.S. (under NATO's umbrella, we're told) to send in the Marines. The game even prominently features fictionalized embedded reporters who give you the latest mission news in surreal CNN-like updates, complete with a fiery logo, "The Battle for Beirut."

While a disclaimer that the Marines don't officially endorse First to Fight appears at the beginning of the game, their imprint is unmistakable. "The U.S. Marines graciously sent over forty combat-experienced Marines to our offices to help us make Close Combat: First to Fight accurate," reads a statement from the development team in the game's user manual. "Sometimes within just weeks after they returned from combat operations in Iraq."

Many adults (myself included) enjoy computer games as a way to unwind from work. But after several weeks in the trenches of virtual warfare, I realized that the uniformly gung ho comments and interactions I had online with other players have left me feeling more unraveled than unwound.

Andrea Lewis is a San Francisco-based journalist and co-host of The Morning Show on KPFA Radio in Berkeley, California.