:: NEWS COCKTAIL aka BlahBlahBlog ::
"Everything is being compressed into tiny tablets. You take a little pill of news every day - 23 minutes - and that's supposed to be enough." -Walter Cronkite, RE TV news. The Web has changed that for many, however, and here is an extra dose for your daily news cocktail. This prescription tends to include surveillance and now war-related links, along with the occasional pop culture junk and whatever else seizes my attention as I scan online news sites.:: 11.22.2004 ::
:: "The conspiracy game" ::
JFK's assassination is turned into computer entertainment
By Paul Kelbie, Scotland Correspondent
The Independent UK
23 November 2004
For years, experts have argued over who killed President John Kennedy and whether it was the work of a lone gunman.
Now, after four decades of endless speculation, a Scottish-designed computer game has been accused of plumbing new depths by turning one of the most controversial political killings in history into "interactive entertainment".
From the sixth floor window of a virtual reality book depository in Dallas, Texas, anyone with a computer and about £6 can take the place of Lee Harvey Oswald and relive the infamous assassination. A "blood effects" button can be pressed for those who prefer extra gore.
Launched on the 41st anniversary of the assassination, JFK:Reloaded has been branded "despicable" by aides to the late president's surviving brother, Ted Kennedy.
The new British-made "docu-game" aims to simulate the final moments of the President's life and offers up to £53,800 in prize money for the first person to most accurately recreate the three shots credited with killing Kennedy and sparking a worldwide industry of conspiracy theorists.
Although it is the first independent venture for the Glasgow-based company Traffic, which designed the interactive game, many of the 10-strong team, who took 10 months to research and six months to program the game, have experienced working on some of the most notorious interactive titles of the past few years - including the original Grand Theft Auto, State of Emergency and Killzone, some of which have been blamed for a rise in real-life violent gun crime.
According to Traffic, the aim is to generate interest in one of the most important moments in US history among a new audience, who may be experienced in the ways of new technology but probably know little about what happened in Dallas on 22 November 1963.
The game, which can only be downloaded from the internet, for $9.99 (£6), provides links to background information on the president and the facts and theories surrounding his assassination.
Yesterday the company denied that JFK:Reloaded glorified the assassination. "Although the actual act is violent the game itself concentrates on whether it is possible to do what Lee Harvey Oswald is supposed to have done," said Dean Barrett, a company spokesman.
"It is amazing the way some people have reacted. The topic has been the subject of films and books for years, but because somebody makes it part of an interactive entertainment piece that is somehow more offensive."
Read more here.
ALSO
from BBC News Online
JFK shooting game provokes anger
from The Australian
Fury over JFK assassin game
from The Houston Chronicle
Video game re-creates slaying of Kennedy
from MSNBC.com
Nov. 22, Now a Game
posted by me
:: 8:23:00 PM [+] ::
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