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A comment on NASA's Radar Found 4 Men Trapped in Rubble in Nepal by Their Heartbeats. Parent comment

Re:NASA's Radar Found 4 Men Trapped in Rubble in Nepal by Th... by txru on Thursday May 07, 2015 @01:36PM (#9506813)
When I read Rainbow Six, I remember wondering if he wrote parts of it to be more applicable in the video game, a la Splinter Cell. The heartbeat monitor, the map types (jungle, city, amusement park)... it seemed like nice fit.

They were still a good read though.

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Re:NASA's Radar Found 4 Men Trapped in Rubble in Nepal by Th... by Cushman on Thursday May 07, 2015 @03:21PM (#9507585)
Weren't they made at the same time, in fact? Edit: Mind you, I only know this because I looked it up after having that exact thought reading the book :)

Yeah, according to this wiki citation[0], the tie-ins were a bit ad-hoc but the game plot was actually finalized before the book was done, which accounts for the discrepancies. So there's no real way of knowing what started out as a game mechanic.

Worked out better than Splinter Cell, anyway-- I don't think I got through more than a page of the novelization. (Which wasn't written by Clancy, FWIW.)

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20010804114957/http://gamasutra....

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Re:NASA's Radar Found 4 Men Trapped in Rubble in Nepal by Th... by Crito on Thursday May 07, 2015 @02:33PM (#9507219)
I remember having the same thought with that book. Elements of the book seemed to be there for the benefit of spin-off video games, much like you'll sometimes find a character in a movie probably exists for merchandizing.

Maybe I gave him too little credit in this case. Either he was familiar with prototype tech that we aren't aware of yet, or he was actually a decent near-future sci-fi writer.

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