Full Spectrum Warrior, a new videogame for the Xbox, feels real. The setting is the fictional locale of Zafarra, Zekistan, but it may as well be Baghdad, Iraq. You command two four-soldier infantry squads and are charged with securing neighborhoods and rescuing wounded comrades. Your men dash across dusty streets, slink along chipped walls, and launch grenades from behind overturned cars. Bullets fly. Bodies fall like rag dolls.

Radar. The Internet. The Jeep. The Global Positioning System. Technologies developed for the military often cross over to the civilian world-subtly or still in character. A Hummer, even painted lemon yellow and parked downtown, still looks battle-ready. And technology crosses back too. The Marines´ Dragon Runner surveillance vehicle was inspired by the radio-controlled car industry; the controller was copped from a PlayStation 2.