The Assassination Game

[jamcat]

Check this out:

New Video Game Recreates Kennedy Assassination

Mon Nov 22, 9:38 AM ET
Oddly Enough - Reuters

By Ben Berkowitz

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A new video game allows players to simulate the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy.

The release of "JFK Reloaded" is timed to coincide with the 41st anniversary of Kennedy's murder in Dallas and was designed to demonstrate a lone gunman was able to kill the president.

"It is despicable," said David Smith, a spokesman for Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy (news, bio, voting record), the late president's brother. He was informed of the game on Friday but declined further comment.

Kirk Ewing, managing director of the Scottish firm Traffic Games, which developed the game, said he understood some people would be horrified at the concept, but he insisted he and his team had nothing but respect for Kennedy and for history.

"We believe that the only thing we're exploiting is new technology," said Ewing, a former documentary filmmaker and senior executive with Scottish developer VIS, responsible for games like "State of Emergency." He said he sent Edward Kennedy a letter before the game's release.

Ewing said the game was designed to undermine the theory there was some shadowy plot behind the assassination. "We believe passionately there was no conspiracy," he said.

Traffic Games said the objective was for a player to fire three shots at Kennedy's motorcade from assassin Lee Harvey Oswald's digitally recreated sixth-floor perch in the Texas School Book Depository.

Points are awarded or subtracted based on how accurately the shots match the official version of events as documented in by the Warren Commission, which investigated Kennedy's assassination.

Shooting the image of Kennedy in the right spots in the right sequence adds to the score, while "errors" like shooting first lady Jacqueline Kennedy lead to deductions.

Each shot can be replayed in slow motion, and the bullets can be tracked as they travel and pass through Kennedy's digitally recreated body. Players can choose to see blood by pressing a "blood effects" option.

Players can view the motorcade from a number of angles, including the perspective of filmmaker Abraham Zapruder and a view from the "grassy knoll" where some conspiracy theorists believe a second gunman was stationed.

The game will be available via download for $9.99.

[Shane R. Monroe]

Yeah, I read about this a couple days ago. It will appear on a future show.

[Boar]

I would like to know why this game is so despicable, given the publisher's intentions. I admit it's a pretty bold concept, and I'm wondering how well it could work. But any President is just another citizen on one level -- you can criticize him, make caricatures of him ... just about anything but threaten his life, which is a serious crime. But if this game purports to be a simulation of the assassination of a dead president, I really can't see why it should be such a horrible thing. I agree with the publisher that (especially if you read the reports of the attending physicians at the time) there is no need for anyone to keep imagining some multiparty conspiracy. One man trained with a rifle by the marines can do a lot of damage.

Just my opinion.

[jamcat]

I bet a donut that if they did something like this on Martin Luther King, people would be screaming racist.

[Shane R. Monroe]

Dude, there would be RIOTS in the streets...

[Boar]

I bet a donut that if they did something like this on Martin Luther King, people would be screaming racist.

People are already very upset about it. But why would they do a similar treatment of the MLK assassinatin? There's no question there as to who did it and how. Maybe you're just saying it doesn't matter how the publishers treat it, it's still the wrong subject for a game?

[jamcat]

Not saying it's wrong. It is a very interesting simulation of a event in history. They didn't glorify the violence like the idiots over Rockstar games with the piece of $#!t Grand Theft Auto.