With 60 personal computers loaded with military video games, 19 Xbox 360 video game controllers and a series of interactive screens, rock music and comfy couches, at first glance, the huge space in Philadephia’s Franklin Mills Mall must look pretty freakin’ cool–it’s a huge one-shooter game!

Players can try out simulators modeled on an Apache and Blackhawk helicopters with game-built automatic rifles and shoot enemy soldiers emerging from hide-outs, while in another room a real Humvee mounted with model guns allows players to fire on enemy encampments shown on huge screens.  W00t!  >9000 internets! And no real blood.

Welcome to the U.S. Army Experience Center, a experimental recruiting office, the first of its kind, focused boosting urban recruitment which has traditionally lagged behind that of rural areas.  And it’s pretty creepy IMO to reduce the battle field experience to a night on the couch exercising the thumbs.

The Army’s chief marketing officer Edward Walters told the Times of London:

We’ve found virtual experiences are an effective way to communicate the value of army service. We hope visitors will have a better understanding of the high-tech nature of our institution.

Project manager Maj. Larry Dillard says about recruiting new soldiers:

Now the news coming out of Iraq is better and we are in an economic downturn. It will be easier.

And it just might be working. Since opening, the Army Experience Center has signed up 33 full-time soldiers and five reservists, basically matching the performance of five traditional recruiting centers it replaced in Philadelphia.