6. Ghost Recon Gets The Russia-Georgia War Right To The Year
Tom Clancy (RIP) racked up more correct predictions than Nostradamus during his life. That might be because he filled his doorstop-sized books - and the games and films inspired by them - with so much unnecessary detail about real-world politics, weapons and military strategies that at some point that thick sludge of information in his fiction was going to hit upon something that then happened in non-fiction. As in, the real world. Besides foreseeing the recent conflicts between Russia and the Ukraine in his final book, Command Authority, the first Ghost Recon game to carry Clancy's name also predicted a skirmish between the Ruskies and neighbouring Georgia. Released way back in 2001, the first entry in the series - titled Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon - centred on a conflict between Russia, Georgia and various Baltic states, as the former tries to bring the former Soviet countries back under its control. Also the guy in charge looks a lot like Putin. Finally, the game was set in 2008, the very year that the actual conflict between Russia and Georgia broke out, which is pretty eerily accurate.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
