Baghdad, USA

The JRTC has been offering this sort of training since 1993. But in the past three years, with the US embroiled in its most complex conflict since the Vietnam War, Pentagon planners have dramatically improved the simulation. The 4,000 guardsmen here for these late-winter exercises will encounter 500 soldiers from the 509th, 500 support staff, a dozen Apache and Blackhawk combat helicopters, 30 tank-like Bradley Fighting Vehicles, and 1,000 jeeps, Humvees, and sundry other things with wheels. Commanders on the ground get video feeds from simulated surveillance planes flown over 3-D maps of the battlefield. In-game journalists produce three daily newspapers, a radio show, and a nightly reel of video highlights. More than 200 of the role-players are Arab Americans, many of them Iraqis, bussed in from around the US for extra realism. A three-week exercise can cost up to $9 million. —Vince Beiser —Baghdad, USA (Wired)

This article describes a massive U.S. military role-playing operation. Not a computer game, but rather a meatspace training exercise.

I love the detail about the in-game media coverage. I wonder where they recruit the journalists to produce the three newspapers and the radio show?