Days later, he used his virtual experience in a real situation: the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. He was put in charge of an 800-bed hospital in Baton Rouge, La., and found many decisions he made there originated in what he learned by playing the game.

This week, on the first anniversary of hurricane Katrina, game developer BreakAway Games Ltd. released the final version of Incident Commander free of charge to municipal emergency departments.

It's part of an agreement with the U.S. Justice Department, which invested $350,000 US in the game's development. BreakAway Games put in the other $1.5 million US.

Most cities do not have the budget for real world emergency exercises, said BreakAway Games founder Douglas Whatley.

"Most municipalities are manned by only a handful of policemen and a major incident only happens every few decades," he said.

"There's just not enough money for training."

The game tutors players in how to build a budget and start a commissary under U.S government guidelines. The training could help prevent a repeat of the administrative fiascos after Katrina, Whatley said.

Barlow, now the emergency medical services co-ordinator and director of the Hancock County, Ill., ambulance service, agrees.

Although he went to Baton Rouge trained as a paramedic, his time spent playing the game helped him look at the situation as an administrator.

His first professional instinct was to start patching people up, he said.

But the game had trained him in a different set of priorities, such as the importance of acquiring resources and setting up lines of communication.

"It gave me an understanding of the broader picture, how to manage resources to get the job done," he said.

For example, Barlow said that at the Baton Rouge site, he might not have realized he needed to get triage tags for classifying patients had he not played the game.

Video games have become a common tool for simulation training exercises in fields such as emergency response and military combat.

The U.S. military uses America's Army, a free online game with more than six million registered users, as a recruiting tool. And with clients such as the Naval War College, BreakAway Games has developed other simulation games that re-create combat scenarios and teach troops how to look for ambush tactics used in the Middle East.

Incident Commander is not for sale commercially, although Whatley said a public version might become available. "The scenarios really are engaging," he said.

"I'd hate to say 'fun."'

Cities interested in obtaining a free copy of the game can find more information at incidentcommander.net.