Well, computer games are getting closer to reality – especially graphically. It seems that it can sometimes happen that an Egyptian news presenter mistakes a scene from the game Apache: Air Assault by the War Thunder developers for a Russian airstrike in Syria …
The Egyptian news anchor Ahmed Moussa is quite controversial in the USA, as he makes no secret of the fact that he supports Russia’s intervention in Syria. During a news broadcast, he praised the precision with which Russian troops operate in Syria and wanted to illustrate this with a video that he believed depicted an actual Russian airstrike. In the video, the attack of an Apache helicopter is seen, which precisely eliminates ground troops from the air.
The Russians have succeeded. Yes, that is the Russian army, those are Russian weapons. That’s Putin. Yes, they are fighting terrorism, they are really fighting it. Now you will see a disturbing video, really disturbing. – Ahmed Moussa
A video from a computer game is mistaken for a scene from a real conflict
This, however, is not footage from the real conflict, but a scene from the computer game Apache: Air Assault. This was released in 2010 by Gaijin Entertainment, which is better known as the developers of the online game War Thunder. Ahmed Moussa was obviously not aware of this and even commented on the events with great enthusiasm, praising the precision with which the Russian helicopter eliminated the ground troops. Of course, it was not long before the internet made fun of it when it became clear that it was scenes from a computer game.
Actually, Gaijin Entertainment could see this as a compliment, as the Dagor engine used in the games apparently creates such realistic scenes that they can easily be confused with the real world.
Source: The Washington Post
