When I ask Wardynski about the theories of Lt. Col. David Grossman, his "Oh, yeah" is mixed with a barely audible sigh. After the Columbine massacre, Grossman enjoyed momentary prominence for his theories of "killology."

By playing first-person shooters, Grossman asserted to "60 Minutes," Clinton and anyone else who'd listen, kids were training in a "murder simulator," being taught -- as the Army does in boot camp -- to deliver expert kill shots on reflex.

So does this mean America's Army is rearing the next generation of serial killers?

"We brought in Ph.D.s in behavioral science, political science, Army experts in training, and I have yet to find one who [subscribes to these theories]," says Wardynski. (Grossman did not respond to repeated requests for an interview.)

In a similar vein, I challenge Wardynski on the game's dearth of on-screen gore. (Hits are rendered with a prim red dot, as if the weapons were shooting out magic markers.) Doesn't that sanitize the gruesome aftermath of an M-16 hit? Gore would disqualify the game from getting the intended Teen rating from the ratings board, he responds -- and besides, "We respect our audience [enough] to know that if we don't have that in our game, they're not dumb and they'll still know that [gore is] part of combat."

Even with terrorism designated as the primary enemy, care was taken to keep scenarios and combatants as generic as possible, says Wardynski. While his men in Kabul are conducting subject-matter reviews, so that future missions can be based on active units in Afghanistan, no nation or people is identified in its depiction of terrorists: "There's some blond white guys, there's some skinheads ... so it's not like we settled on any ethnic group or anything like that." (This despite the Nation's dishonest claim that the game encourages "Arab bashing.")

There's nothing generic about the opponents in NovaLogic's Delta Force: Black Hawk Down, who fire at you from turret-mounted jeeps, or from the rooftops in the game's vividly rendered, 3-D Mogadishu. They unmistakably resemble the Somali militants who took the lives of 18 U.S. soldiers, after downing two troop choppers with rocket-propelled grenades -- an operation orchestrated in part by Qutb disciple and bin Laden consigliere Ayman al-Zawahiri.

The United States' subsequent withdrawal from Somalia was a milestone in the al-Qaida narrative, one more victory that proved that atrocity would be met with retreat -- eventually making their designs on New York and Washington seem like an inevitable next step.

For unrelated reasons, the game generated some controversy, especially after Mark Bowden refused to have anything to do with NovaLogic's project. "I think there's a substantial difference between a work of art, which I consider a film to be, even a Hollywood film, [and a game]," Bowden explains, reached while on a train headed for Manhattan. For him, "A game is a game. It's something that you play. And this story is about real people, and I know many of the family members who lost brothers and husbands and sons in that battle. And I did not want to be part of something that turns it into a game."

"Mr. Bowden is certainly entitled to his opinion," NovaLogic producer Wes Eckhart e-mails me later, "but who is he to judge what a work of art is, or even what an acceptable form of entertainment is?" Eckhart says that NovaLogic hired two Rangers who fought and were wounded in the conflict as the game's subject-matter experts, and on their request, will donate some of the profits from the game to charities that will benefit those families.

"[Games] have a certain amount of potential value in making someone interested in history or in the military or how the military operates," says Bowden. "It has that kind of educational value." But he's skeptical their utility may extend beyond that. "In terms of preparing someone for the actual experience of combat, particularly infantry soldiers, I just regard that as really unlikely. Because I think the essential element in real combat is terror. And I don't believe you can re-create actual terror in a video game. It's a game; you can turn it off whenever you want to."

I ask Bowden how many games he's actually played. "I think I got pretty good at Super Breakout, but that's pretty much the extent of my video game experience." He readily agrees that declining NovaLogic was a visceral reaction to the medium, though "I have no personal grudge against video games; my kids play them all the time."

Bowden's repute as a journalist of military and international affairs is without peer -- his stunning Atlantic Monthly profile of Saddam Hussein is a tour de force -- so it's understandable if he's not also versed on the latest in interactive entertainment. If anything, his wariness says more about the distance between generations, and the mediums they call their culture.

The tactical shooter is already a tool in the military's regimen. "Indeed," says Eckhart, "a modified version of NovaLogic's Delta Force is used for training plebes in their first year at West Point. The software helps teach principles of maneuver, elements of combat power and land navigation."

Capt. Jason Amerine, a West Point grad who recently served in Afghanistan, agrees with Eckhart's observations on the value of games as training tools. "The Army taught me all the skills I have, but at the same time, a lot of these first-person shooters, I think that they do tend to kind of get you in the right mind-set for some of the situations you might encounter in real life," he says. He compares them to the battle drills of his field training. "When you're sitting there in some of these multiplayer shootouts, engaging your opposition, I think that it does kind of condition you a little bit to know what to look for. You get those visual cues down, I think is the best way to put it."

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