Slashdot Mirror
New Video Game Recreates Kennedy Assassination
theodp writes "Lee Harvey Oswald-wannabes will be able to simulate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy when Traffic Games releases the $9.99 JFK Reloaded on Monday to coincide with the 41st anniversary of Kennedy's murder in Dallas. 'It is despicable,' said a spokesman for Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy, the late president's brother."
I for one am looking forward to "Chappaquiddick II: The Game"
What is wrong with it? I see re-creations all the time on the History Channel, Discovery, etc, etc, etc. Why not create a game that lets you do it? It is something that happened. Where is the upcry when you have WWII games happening??
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
with Teddy Kennedy on *anything*, but this is in very poor taste.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Those bastards! AGAIN!
Seriously, tho, WTF?! Is this a way to commemorate what is reportedly (I wasn't born at the time, so I can't speak for it) a very sad day in US history?
Or is this just a thinly vieled cover for the "Shrubya" skin that will be showing up on 0-day sites shortly after release?
Hopefully it isn't this company and a Kennedy impersonator.
I was hoping for a game that would let me recreate the beers that were thrown at Ron Artest on Friday night.
I was look around on their site earlier. Seems to me that the point of this game is to get people to question the findings of the Warren commision by showing how impossible it is to pull off.
If you can, they offer a $100,000 reward. Sounds like it's bot time to me...
stuff
While I might or might not agree with your assessment of the Slashdot editors' political opinions, we would all do well to be careful when making remarks regarding violence towards current or former presidents, as well as presidential candidates and other high-level federal officials(elected or appointed). There are laws regarding this sort of thing. If I recall, some late-night talkshow host got into some serious trouble years ago by showing a picture of W at a podium with the words "Snipers Wanted" underneath. Or, something like that. Quite a stir arose from the incident.
Campers. Bastards. The lot of them.
How can this possibly be $10 worth of entertainment? How can this be worth anything?
I get to shoot one guy, four times? If that costs $10 bucks, I owe Bungie about 180 billion dollars.
http://brandonbloom.name
Yes, as so was your boses behavior when he, while driving drunk, killed a woman.
But thats in the past and doesn't matter.
oh boy oh boy.. I can't wait until they make a simulation of Clinton in the Oval Office. Mission: Hit the mouth Fire torpedo one! The dress was hit, I repeat the dress was hit! Game Over
Press "back and to the left, back and to the left" on the controller after the Traffic Games logo for an extra shooter!
or drive Mary Jo home... which is less fun.
Just my two cents, of course, but with videogames like this, maybe the outrage at the lack of decency should be directed a little more broadly...
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
*When the simulation starts, you are viewing Dealey Plaza through Lee Harvey Oswald's eyes: from the sixth floor of the Texas Schoolbook Depository. A cross-hair marks the position of your rifle sight. Controls available to you are left-click to shoot, and right-click to zoom in/out, and mouse-movements to adjust your aim.*
so, you only get to aim and shoot. sounds quite boring, and doesn't really offer anything for the conspiracy heads either, as the conspiracy and plot is already played out with oswald as the shooter. now if you would be able to reconstruct the happenings in different ways, like placing the shooter at different locations or using multiple shooters.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
While I personally don't agree with the product, I certainly hope this doesn't turn into another campaign against video game violence. It may however, since that this comes out during a time when people still lived through the event in question, yet the audience is clearly a newer generation. Shameless, yes. Outlaw it? nope.
One, You realize that at least we have the freedom to create this recreation. Many countries could ban this, or even worse put you in jail.
Second, Could this be to prove that the 3 bullets didnt come from the same gun? No matter what you do, you can't recreate the assignation since the bullets come from different directions?
I thought it was proved when the home movie was finally released showing the driver getting hit, that there was a 2nd gunman.
Or is that damn Magic bullet bullshit true? Bounces around like ping pong ball. Hey, even snopes.com doesnt explain that urban legend.
I don't like that it only allows you to be oswald though. It would be much more intresting if you could also try it in the multiple shooter scenario. if this were an option, the game would be much more likely to "undermine the theory there was some shadowy plot behind the assassination" as the developer claims its purpose is.
System.out.println(syynnapse.getSig());
We have freedom of speech and expression the last I heard.
Those freedoms apply to the brothers of assassinated presidents too, yes?
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start JFK now has 30 lives!
Are reenactments of historical events disrespectful to those involved?
They certainly can be, and this game is one such example.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
You're missing the point.
While this is recreation of a historical detail for points, it's also recreation of a murder.
I imagine you would be extremely upset if someone created a videogame reenacting the murder of your sister or brother, asking players to try and mimic as perfectly as possible the trajectory of the bullets that exited your loved one's skull.
This isn't a history role-playing game, this is recreation of an actual murder.
There's definately more wrong than right in this. You should be able to see that.
The hear the multiplayer sequel lets your friends play as the shooters on the grassy knoll!
XIII is a FPS based on a hit French illustrated series of the same name, and loosely inspired by the JFK assassination. You play the role of an amnesiac who finds out he is somehow implicated in the assassination of a US President, and must clear your name and recover your past. The twist at the end is stunning. Interestingly, the 3D is rendered to resemble cel animation, very cool.
This is a historical event, and while all three things are probably true for many recountings of such historical events, I'm not convinced that video games should be treated differently from any other historical account. Certainly the game is there for entertainment, which makes it different from a documentary (for example), but not so different that it isn't still (at least implicitly) a narrative about an important historical event.
You'll throw the switch on an electric chair holding a convicted baby-butchering doctor in this educational look at both sides of the abortion debate. Learn all about electric current, too.
Take Dat, Bitch!
Use a crowbar on a conniving hooker before the jury rejects her opportunistic criminal complaint against you. The game has been designed to debunk phony assault charges; after all, she's a hooker.
Voterator
Install and, with the help of a bottle of Windex and a micro-fiber cloth, debug the latest U.S. touchscreen polling machines. Can a vote here or there go awry? Find out when your candidate enjoys late surges in the opposition's key districts!
"New Video Game Recreates Kennedy Ass..."
% mkdir
% ls -dF
Kill JFK and win a FREEEE iPod!
Huh! Imagine when on higher levels there are HUNDREDS! of limos with Kennedies rushing at you! Like in old arcades.
incase you want to get an extra shooter on the grassy knoll.
There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.
When the GWB mod is due out?
Um, Dude.
When does freedom of speech = freedom to threaten another human life? Do you think someone has the right to make a video game about killing you personally? What about someone you love?
Would you suggest that a society where threats on life are accepted and protected, would in fact be more free? That sort of system of intimidation would only sacrafice our freedom to those who have the greatest ability to end our lives.
Lets say some very rich and powerful person were to threaten the life of the president, and for the sake of argument, there is nothing illegal about making that threat. What you would be left with is a weakened presidency, perhaps more likely to act along the idealogical lines of the man who has threatened to take his life.
The intimidation that comes with a threat makes it just as serious as the actual act of murder. It is control based on whoever is strongest. A society free to threaten its leaders is not free, but merely bound to the will of the entity best equipped to make good on its word.
Thats a great idea. Concentration Camp Tycoon, from the makers of rollercoaster tycoon and railroad tycoon. I can see it selling just about as well as lemonade tycoon...
No, silly. It's called Sim-Camp. Getting started is easy- just follow the steps below and you'll have your concentration camp up and running in no time.
Step 1 -- Build an Incinerator
Every camp needs an incinerator to dispose of the bodies of its victims. To build an incinerator, click on the Incinerator tool, then click on an empty area of the map. (Note: If the smoke from your incinerator is not animating, the game is probably paused. Choose a game speed to start the smoke animating.)
Step 2 -- Add Zones
Zones are areas that you designate for different kinds of buildings in your compound. The people who will be enslaved in your camp need to live in Residential Zones, work in Industrial Zones, and die in Disposal Zones. Place each zone type on the city map near the incinerator.
Step 3 -- Build Railways
The residents will need some way to arrive in your camp from the rest of the Reich. Place some Railways along the sides of your zones. Now that the zones in your camp have transportation, you should see your death camp slowly come to life. Congratulations! You've created your first concentration camp -- you may now call yourself "Kamp Kommandant!"
If you bothered to read the fucking web site you would quickly realize that this game is hardly distasteful. It isn't a shooter where you try and whack hordes of secret service guards to kill JFK. It sounds like a project to try and show that the shot was impossible. It is a simulation. Just spend thirty seconds reading the website and it becomes pretty clear that the motive for the game is pretty pure. Hell, just skim the FAQ and you should get an idea what these people are about. If it was some KKK website letting you shoot that liberal panzy, I would agree, but it sounds more like a historian with too much time on his hands.
How many years until we have "September 11th, the video game"?
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
The replays and ballistics through bodies stuff is creepy. First time it showed the replay of JFK losing a chunk of brain I was actually horrified. This is different than blasting monsters a bazillion times with unrealistic weapons. It actually friggin makes you see, hear, BE the killer. On the other hand it answers a lot of questions I'd always had about the distance and angle of the shots. The sim idicates that JFK was in an exposed position, much more so than I'd ever noticed before. Randomly blasting into the car seems to take out JFK more often than the other characters.
The SS at your door.
The game is intended as an "interactive reconstruction." The idea is to see how plausible the findings of the Warren Commission are. There's even a contest with a $100,000 prize if you can pull off the shots that Lee Harvey Oswald was supposed to have taken. The simulation is an attempt to be so accurate that you must miss with your first shot in accordance with the assumptions they have made in recreating the events. Read all about it on the FAQ page.
Historians are always reconstructing the assassination. The Discovery Channel once ran a special where they ran a dummy by in a car and had an expert marksmen sharpshoot at its head as it drove by. It wasn't horrifying; it was supposed to be educational. This game is clearly an attempt to show just how implausible the official explanation for the JFK assassination is. I would love to see if any player actually achieves a high passing score.
Personal, I find the idea of this fascinating. The angle of "play as assassin and shoot JFK!" was given by Slashdot; that's not the intent. It's more of an academic exercise, and it will be very interesting to take part in this and see if the government's explanation for what happened actually plays out when you try it yourself. There's a reason they have the assassin's floor blocked off in the Assassination Museum--as Bill Hicks said, they didn't want thousands of American tourists going up there each year, pointing out the window, and realizing "There's no fucking way!"
Of course, all of this publicity is probably more than they could have hoped for. I doubt many people would have known about this sim otherwise.
It was on the Discovery Channel and was called "Unsolved History: JFK - Beyond the Magic Bullet" It doesn't show to be airing again anytime soon. However, they do have the DVD for sale on their site - here
I'm quite skeptical of the games "re-enactment shows it's possible" contention. Sure, you can make a computer simulation where it's easy for the FPS player to shoot the President, but it's unlikely that they're doing the physics well enough to let anybody prove or disprove the Magic Bullet theory, and the news article and web site don't sound like they're giving you the choice of shooting from the Grassy Knoll either - just that you get to watch the bullet flying in Neo-like slow motion. It ain't science. (Also, of course, even if Oswald was the only gunman, that doesn't prove he was a lone assassin vs. getting support and funding from the Mafia or the Cubans or the Pentagon or whomever your favorite conspiracy theory likes to pin it on.)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
And finally, a gigantic limo drives up, with a humongous Kennedy.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
How many years until we have "September 11th, the video game"?
It's called "Microsoft Flight Simulator" and it's been around since the 1980s...
0 1 - just my two bits
... keep trying to make this a multi-player game.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
The problem is that when people try to recreate something like this, they want to assume that what happened was precisely as was intended, and thus you have to recreate everything just as happened for it to be possible. Well, not so much.
Assuming that the WC's report is true and Oswald was the lone shooter he had one objective: Kill president Kennedy. So, to that end he was firing at the prsident until he was convinced he was dead. Most likely by a visual clue indicating a headshot. The first two shots were misses, as least as far as he was concerned. He wasn't trying to miss, he was trying to hit, however he failed to do so.
It's not hard ot take two shots and miss and hit with a third one, even at a moving target if you are an experienced marksman. That doesn't mean you can recreate the happenings perfectly. It will happen one way one time, another the next.
Also, no game can accurately model the physics of what will happen. Realtime physics engines in games are pretty primitive. They can deal with the basics like ragdoll simulation on bodies, falling objects, and simple destructable objects, but any real simulation is FAR beyond what we have.
Well, to accurately simulate a bullet impact, it takes some serious power. Bullets do NOT act intuitively, espically high power ones. Lots of people forget that the bullets fired were high powered rounds form a Carcano military rifle. Thos act quite differently from a 9mm JHP round. Their penetration is extreme, and you can easily shoot through 3 or more unarmoured people with one. TRying to say that a game can simulate the trajectory of a bullet through a complex structure like the body is just stupid.
Sounds to me like these people are really doing one of two things:
1) Trying to play up the consparicy nut angle saying "See, lots of gamers couldn't do it in our (highly invalid) simulation, how could it possibly have happened in rea life?" and thus "prove" their theory.
2) Make money off said consparicy nuts.
I see nothing here approaching valid or interesting.
It seems to me that the most despicable thing is the fact that the American people have never had the people who killed former Pres. Kennedy brought to justice, not had the whole facts of the assasination revealed publically and officially. Of course, such a revelation would probably reveal things still relevant today, so it stays secret.
If I was Sen. Edward Kennedy, I'd find this game less tasteless compared to a lack of answers and justice.
Of course, if I saw the game sold in a store, I'd reconsider ever purchasing from them again. Thourougly tasteless and disrepectful, regardless of whatever you might happen to think of JFK.
Si tacuisses philosophus mansisses. If you had kept quiet, you would have remained a philosopher.
This game wouldnt sell a single copy if the media didnt splash it everywhere as some kind of scandal. Its just like the game 'manhunt' which the media got pulled from UK stores recently. ;)
Seriously, there are some fantastic games out at the moment, Half Life 2, Rollercoaster Tycoon 3, maybe Pirates will be good even *cough plug* my own Starship Tycoon
Its always pretty depressing to see that you can get a million dollars worth of advertising just by ensuring your game is sick and tasteless.
Lets treat trash like this the way it deserves, and ignore it completely. there are plenty more worthy pieces of entertainmemnt out there that could be covered instead.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
Except it's already been done. It was covered on either the History Channel or the Discovery Channel a while ago. They made models out of ballistics gel with pig bones inside, and had a shooter on a crane to get the same angle and distance Oswald had, using the same model gun from the same year, firing the same model bullets. He made the shot, the "wounds" on the ballistics gel model matched the wounds on Kennedy and Connely, and the damage on the bullet was almost identical to that of the so-called "magic bullet".
There's already a humongous Kennedy. He senates for Massachussets.
Actually, the authors are trying to show exactly the opposite, that the Warren Commission made perfectly reasonable conclusions. Perhaps you should actually read what the game's authors said before you spout off your tired old conspiracy theories.
Funny, when I visited Dealey Plaza, it seemed so... small. Then I visited the Sixth Floor museum and stood next to that window. That shot was easy! The only mystery is how he actually managed to miss one shot out of three.
By the way, I've actually read the Warren Commission report. Have you?
By analysing the information gained from the release of the game, we now believe that:
"The killer grenade jumped the parade, and bunny hopped across to a grassy knoll where it spray pained a clan logo before shouting 'j1h4d l0l rotflmao gg' and then using an aimbot to assassinate JFK.... the final words of the killer before police emptied the munitions budget of a small state into him was: k1ll4h dropped - connection reset by peer"
Games.
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
Getting away with it these days is nearly impossible...
[Trivial, with money and manpower inside united states, and with some time for preparitions.]
Quicklist:
Someone inside does it with poison or something: blackmail, bribe, personal hate towards president etc...
Longrange rifles and explosive bullets 2 kilometers away from target...
Mortars 8 kilometers away from target... Best would be if you could get enough firepower to take down a building, if not then in the street right in front of it.
Bazooka trough a wall...
Burry explosives before hand to a location you know president will be at sometime future....
Best location would be a large bridge. Feed the sharks below the bridge before hand just to make sure...
Navy/airforce insiders... Well get missile, zero it to a building where president is. Hit the fire button. Or better yet. Use insiders to get it from armory, deliver it withing its range to the president and then fire it at the target...
Now none of the tricks are something you could get AWAY with actually, so there has to be something more important than persons own life for a motive to do it. Doing it isn't going to make anything better, you just get another dumb polition that does same mistakes, perhaps few additional mistakes os it won't solve a thing.
Emacs is good operating system, but it has one flaw: Its text editor could be better.
Where can I download a Dubya mod/character?
Verbing weirds language....
~Idarubicin
Actually there was some damage. The bullet head was flattened out some and lead was starting to come out the back of the bullet. The discovery channel show's bullet matched the photos from the magic bullet with unbelievable accuracy.
As someone who lives in Dallas and has been to the six floor museum several times I can definitively say you are full of B.S.
The entire six floor is dedicated to a museum covering the event. Until a couple years ago, you could actually crouch down at the window, in the exact position Oswald was in. They had to block that area off (about a 10'x12' area) with glass walls because idiots kept trying to "rearrange" things or "leave momentos" that they had been there. I believe that you can actually still get into the area, you just have to pre-arrange it with the curating staff.
The six floor museum is actually the best museum on a political subject I have ever seen. I really expected it to be highly biased, one way or another, however, it turns out to be an incredibly unbiased and thorough review of all the credible work that has been done on the assasination, as well as a good, unbiased review of Kennedy's life and presidency. I was overwhelmed the first time I went through with all of the information presented. I've been back 3 times, by myself, just so that I could spend timing examining some of the displays and presentations, rather than rushing through with visiting family and friends from out of town.
Even if you aren't really interested in museums or the assasination, I would still definate recommend a stop at Dealy Plaza and the museum if you pass through Dallas.
"Unheard of means only it's undreamed of yet,
Impossible means not yet done." ~~ Julia Ecklar
I don't think it's supposed to be fun. It's supposed to be educational. BTW, I wrote a JE a while back with this very idea: Prior Art.
That's nothing. Back in the 80's a buddy and me wrote a game based on the Kennedy assassination for the Commodore 64.
It was kinda cool. It played a cheesy version of "Hail to the Chief" while you shot at the president. If you remember the kind of sounds that came out of a Commodore, you know what I mean.
Naturaly, not everybody thought it was as funny as we did. My girlfriend came home from work, took a look at our game and the collection of beer bottles around the apartment, and made a face like she'd bit into a lemon. She asked us, "Don't you two shingle-heads have anything better to do?"
I gave a copy of it to friend to take to work with him at the water department. He showed it to some old man who worked there. I understand the old geezer flipped out, and threatened to call the FBI on us.
We uploaded it up to some bulletin board, and promptly got banned after some of the other customers complained.
I guess we should have stuck with it, since it looks like there's a buck to made.
But we didn't exactly get a lot of encouragement at the time. Didn't look very promising. I wonder if there's still a copy of our version floating around on the net some where?
Everyday citizens comprised militias. They were not "armies," but ordinary people who could be called up wen needed. They supplied their own weapons. Hence the phrase "the right of the people." To say the second amendment does not apply to individuals is to say likewise of the first and fourth, which contain the same language--"right of the people."
Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever.