MEU (or Marine Expeditionary Unit) 2000, is a "real-time, networkable, 3D strategy game, simulating modern US Marine Corps warfare". According to MAK, the aim is that the game should "allow the player to have a great time while learning US Marine Corps doctrine, tactics, missions and capabilities". The project, while principally for military application, will also be "co-funded by a commercial publisher in order to ensure that the game is exciting and fun to play".

But this isn't quite as thrilling as it may initially sound, however, and if you're excited by the prospect of being able to get your hands on bona fide toys, developed specifically for the Marine Corps, you're going to finish reading this article disappointed. For while the development process is intended to happen over a similar timeframe, with both games due out in 2000, MAK Technologies are effectively creating two games. They'll run along extremely similar principles and they'll contain many similar options, but they'll be entirely separate entities.

Your commercial version may well include better graphics and more entertaining gameplay objectives than the edition funded by the snappily titled Industrial Programs Office of the Amphibious Warfare Technology Directorate, but there's no way you're going to get your hands on anything pertinent to United States National Security. And it's no good lurking round the Internet with a copy, hoping to find a bored Marine logged on to a network game, either: in such a situation, the two versions are designed to be incompatible.

From this it's clear that the American military establishment are starting to take their use of videogames seriously, but that many of the games available today still can't meet the standards and functions required as part of their training programmes. However, the more interesting conclusion would seem to be that the world-over, politicians, puritans and uninformed do-gooders with nothing better to worry about have got it all wrong. You can carry on shooting each other in the head, blasting zombies and knocking seven shades of demon-crap out of everything the latest videogames can throw your way and it's not going to turn you into an efficient murderer. Instead, quietly - in bedrooms, sitting rooms and offices across the globe - the real killers are working on their strategy.