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Computer game players wanted to help develop nuclear weapons

If you spend your spare time playing with an array of deadly hi-tech weapons capable of atomising aliens and blowing up islands in pursuit of "total domination", then your country needs you.

The government's Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) at Aldermaston in Berkshire is advertising for a "virtual reality specialist" to use "serious gaming" to help train nuclear weapons scientists. One of the qualifications required is experience of computer games with good graphics like Crysis, the job advert states.

Crysis, is a shooter game in which players become part of an elite group of US soldiers on a mission to an island in the South China Sea. They rapidly become embroiled in a bloody battle with North Koreans, then monsters from outer space.

Computer simulations are being increasingly used as training tools by the military in the UK and the US. Submariners, for example, can pretend to launch nuclear-armed Trident missiles, and practise dealing with fires and other emergencies.

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