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You'll also see that these new games focus on things like fighting "political corruption."

That hardly begins to cover it. As noted by Gamasutra, they created one game in 2005 called "Assault on Iran", about attacking Iranian nuclear facilities. It's described in detail here but a few excerpts quickly reveal the flavor of the thing:

Given the alarmingly advanced state of Iran's nuclear program, the US military might well consider an all-out assault against Iran's nuclear installations.

Iran's retaliation options include[...] perhaps most frightening of all, summon[ing] their terrorist allies in widespread factions like Hezbollah to initiate vicious terrorist attacks against Americans on every continent.

Iran's nuclear means and shadowy intentions cannot be ignored. The War on Terror is not about retribution for the attacks of 9/11 or taking out dictators who brutalize the innocent. It's about keeping weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of the rogue states and non-state organizations most likely to use them...and the risk here couldn't be clearer.

I dare ANYONE to call this anything other than propaganda. And though it may not be CIA sponsored, the company has developed software for the US army in the past, so it's hardly a logical leap.
All of that said, creating propaganda shouldn't be a crime. I too hope this man is freed.

I originally typed "buy it" in the subject line, but remembering back to slate's article http://www.slate.com/id/2149694/ on this very same topic, decided it wasn't necessary. One of the examples given there was Kuma\War, which is a free to download FPS based on current events in the Middle East. I haven't played it, so can't vouch for it, but it seems to be doing pretty well, and although I admit that the screenshots are pretty lame compared to the average FPS, I've read that in March the company signed a deal to work on Valve's source engine http://www.kumawar.com/PressReleases/03-22-2006.ph p for upcoming titles using the same episodic ideas. But all other politics and nonsense aside...

A.) It's free,
B.) It releases new "episodes" typically coming out about every three weeks, and they are also free.

2) Time, WWII was two generations ago, the Kennedy murder was one.

I downloaded the 7-day trial version, and I have to say, I've had most of my office stopping by my room to check out the absolute coolness of Keyhole.

This product seems extremely useful to me. I'm a geocacher. (if you're a member, my username is "virosa") I have purchased several maps from Garmin, but their maps are fairly expensive (typically $100 or more), and don't have every little dirt trail clearly marked, which are usually what I wind up on eventually. The Keyhole maps may not have every road labelled, but you can visually SEE the dirt trails that are there. This is great for reconning a geocaching location for good ways to approach, and large hazards. After all, that thin line that says "creek" on my GPS may be an unfordable river, or it could be a dry bed. I don't have to guess with Keyhole.

I also like to travel to places that aren't your typical tourist fare. I try to pick one country a year and wander around backpacking for 2 or more weeks. This year was Turkey (OK, it isn't tourist fare for us in the U.S.). Last year was Romania. Garmin GPS maps SUCK for these locations, and for any location that isn't really metropolitan. While the Keyhole software doesn't have any resolution for Turkey (haven't checked Romania yet), the resolution for other backwoods places like Iraq and Afghanistan is remarkable! Places like these would maybe have one airport listed on them with Garmin maps, and here I get tons of detail, including topography!

Which leads me to another cool tie-in. I like first person shooter games. I also like watching current war events in the news. I went to Kumawar's website and learned to combine these two likes. Kumawar offers you missions that are based on recent world events, such as battles in Najaf, Sadr, and the assassination of Sadam's two sons. Kumawar has recreated these locals with real attention to the actual architecture of where these battles took place -- keyhole adds one more level of understanding to what was happening, since I can actually look at Sadr or Najaf and see how all the buildings are positioned. History always kinda bored me. With these two tools, it really cements current events into my mind.

If I'm going somewhere new by car, and I have the address, I used to use a free service like this one so that I could just GPS my way there. Keyhole gives me some more detail.

Did I mention the fact that most of these satellite shots are 6+ years more recent than Microsoft's terraserver images?

Now having said all that, there are a few things that Keyhole really has to work out.

1) No way to enter Lat/Lon coordinates. It will display them, sure, but if I really want to zoom in on 38N 77W, I have to do some tricky stuff with my mouse.

2) Puting in addresses is touchy. I have to say that Puerto Rico is the U.S. It will find "Kirby St", but not "Kirby Street". Little things like that.

3) Many countries have absolutely no resolution. I wanted to show some buddies of mine one of the most amazing sites in Turkey, but the entire country is a blur. Even a huge city like Istanbul has no imagery.

4) Right now, there's no support for any coordinate types other than Decimal degrees and Degrees/minutes/seconds. UTM and MGRS support would R0xx0r.

5) A way to export points of interest onto my GPS would double-r0xx0r.

I still think this is a winner. I'll definately be giving them my $30.

Kuma\War has a game featuring John Kerry. It's called "John Kerry's Silver Star," which is about one of his missions in Vietnam.

Kuma\War has a game featuring John Kerry. It's called "John Kerry's Silver Star," which is about one of his missions in Vietnam.