JK in Vietnam...the video game

[TastesLikeChicken]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09...mp;partner=rssuserland

SENATOR JOHN KERRY'S Vietnam War record has been a focus of the presidential campaign for weeks. For a New York company that produces reality-based video games, that makes the topic ripe for a jump from politics to pixels.

The company, Kuma Reality Games, which specializes in recreating military encounters, is making one of Mr. Kerry's Swift boat missions the situation for a game. It says that the game is intended to entertain and to inform, and that it is nonpartisan.

Armed with a computer keyboard, players are invited to enter an interactive simulation of Viet Cong ambushes on a small tributary of the Bay Hap River in the Mekong Delta.

The company says the details - complete with the fire of automatic weapons and the exploding of rocket-propelled grenades - are based on the Navy's records of an encounter on Feb. 28, 1969, for which a young Lieutenant Kerry was awarded the Silver Star. The game, scheduled to go online late this month, is primarily designed to be played from a digital Lieutenant Kerry's point of view, its creators say.

"Our goal is not to give you a jungle setting where you can tear around, but to show you - at least give you a general sense of what happened," Kuma's chief executive, Keith Halper, said of the Kerry mission, one in a series of game missions called Freedom's Heroes.

Players must accomplish various goals in the game, ensuring that even with improvisation, gameplay will stick fairly closely to the battle's official chronology, he said.

In that chronology, Lieutenant Kerry's flotilla of three Swift boats was ambushed while making a sweep of the area. The boats turn and head directly into the attack. Troops leave the boats and battle enemy fighters on the shore.

Similarly, Lieutenant Kerry orders his boat and another upstream into another ambush. The boats speed into the ambush, according to the game brief. Lieutenant Kerry leaps from his boat and chases a Viet Cong fighter, killing him and finding a B-40 launcher nearby.

Mr. Halper said he had long thought that revisiting Mr. Kerry's Vietnam War experience would be a logical effort for the company, which will offer 21 other military missions, many set in Afghanistan and Iraq, by the time the Kerry game is available. (One of the games portrays the capture of Saddam Hussein.)

It was after he watched Senator Kerry speak before the Democratic National Convention in Boston in July, Mr. Halper said, that he decided that it was "obvious and timely" for the company to do a Kerry Vietnam game.

But not long after that, a group of Vietnam veterans bought television time in an attempt to discredit Mr. Kerry's war record. Sarah Anderson, Kuma's vice president for marketing and sales, said the company would take into account the dissenting views, especially those by a Republican-linked advocacy group, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, by noting them in background notes, a video report and links to news articles, broadcasts and related Web sites.

"We will present the controversy and different perspectives on it in the video news show that will accompany the mission," she added. "We will allow the user to play the game to determine for themselves what they think happened."

Kuma games are sold online (kumagames.com) through a $10 monthly subscription, which gives players access to the Kuma mission library and three new missions or episodes each month. The games require computers that have high-speed Internet connections, Microsoft Windows 98 or later and at least a 64-megabyte graphics card. Unlike typical video games that, like movies, take years to make, Kuma games are created more like episodic television shows: very quickly, Mr. Halper said. To help accomplish this, he said, his teams create and reuse digital models of places and figures that are in the news in anticipation of coming missions.

Mr. Halper said Kuma had created a digital model of Osama bin Laden, possibly for a mission ending in his capture or death. "We're waiting," he said.

And Republicans may soon have their turn to be at the center of the company's video game exploits. Mr. Halper said possible missions in the Freedom's Heroes series include the World War II heroics of former Senator Bob Dole and Senator John McCain's Vietnam combat and capture.

And corporate idiocy continues advancing at a rapid pace...

 

[cKGunslinger]

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken

And corporate idiocy continues advancing at a rapid pace...

Bah.. looks like capitalism at it's finest to me! I think it's a stupid idea, but if they make money off it, more power to them!

 

[LordMagnusKain]

Originally posted by: cKGunslinger

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken

And corporate idiocy continues advancing at a rapid pace...

Bah.. looks like capitalism at it's finest to me! I think it's a stupid idea, but if they make money off it, more power to them!

 

[dahunan]

Originally posted by: LordMagnusKain

Originally posted by: cKGunslinger

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken

And corporate idiocy continues advancing at a rapid pace...

Bah.. looks like capitalism at it's finest to me! I think it's a stupid idea, but if they make money off it, more power to them!

If they make money off of it >>>
http://www.midgetfarm.com/games/kaboom.shtml

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

I agree it's capitalism.

At it's finest though? That's where we diverge.

 

[cKGunslinger]

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
I agree it's capitalism.

At it's finest though? That's where we diverge.

Take a current "fad" and try to turn a profit by exploiting it. I love it.

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

So you'll be subscribing to Kuma?

 

[cKGunslinger]

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
So you'll be subscribing to Kuma?

Nah.. not my thing. They obviously think there is a market for it, however. Can't relly fault them for that. If they are right, they'll make some $$, if not, they'll lose some. It's a rather self-sustaining loop, wouldn't you agree?

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

If they include a secret Christmas in Cambodia level, it could be intriguing. Maybe some bonus points for finding the magic hat?

 

[T2T III]

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
If they include a secret Christmas in Cambodia level, it could be intriguing. Maybe some bonus points for finding the magic hat?

I think that part has been removed. But, they did add a new level where you can apply some self-inflicted wounds to your body in order to nominate yourself for a purple heart. :Q :Q

 

[Ferocious]

 

[Infohawk]

Originally posted by: cKGunslinger

As long as you make money doing it, it's all good right. :roll:

 

[chowderhead]

Read the story about an anti-war guy who raised money to buy GWB a PS2 and the Video Game Conflict: Desert Storm Cheney got a Dual Shock controller

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

LOL at fully-rendered Kerry action!!!

Lt Kerry at the helm

 

[FelixDeCat]

[sic]

 

[CaptnKirk]

I want that 'Leisure Suit Kerry' Game !

Get to take him up the Mecong, cross into Cambodia for Christmas Eve -
hit on some Bar Girls, take them to the Hooch, Rape and Pillage, kill all the children,
old men and Mama-sans, torch the village, go back down river through the mine field,
beach the boat, machine gun a VC, drag your buddy out of the water, get a Purple Heart,
& make it back to Cam Rahn Bay on Christmas Day - sounds like a good time to me !

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

Not of the screenshots show his feet.

I wonder if he's depicted wearing his battle flip-flops?

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
Not of the screenshots show his feet.

I wonder if he's depicted wearing his battle flip-flops?

What kind of footwear did you wear when you were under enemy fire? My guess is, pink bunny slippers, while playing UT2004.

 

[jackschmittusa]

TastesLikeChicken

You've got to admit that a Kerry game might be a little more exciting that a game based on GWB's service.

 

[lozina]

Originally posted by: jackschmittusa
TastesLikeChicken

You've got to admit that a Kerry game might be a little more exciting that a game based on GWB's service.

There already is a game for that, it's called "Sims"

 

[CaptnKirk]

I want the 'GWB Game' too !

Go to college with help from Daddy's influence.
Get a Keg - Drink & Puke.
Become a Cheerleader, get a keg - drink and puke.
meet Laura, score a baggie, Snort, Drink, & Puke.
Puke again
Puke some more
fry your brain
drink & puke.

 

[bamacre]

I think it's rather hypocritical of the Left to bash Bush for doing something that their last office-holder did, avoid going to Vietnam.

I didn't see a Clinton in Combat game (a few porno movies, but no game).

There are tons of reasons not to vote for Bush, but his avoiding Vietnam is not a logical one.

Always remember that the last US President we have had that fought in a war was a Republican, and his last name was Bush. And don't forget the Left voted him out, and replaced him with a draft dodger.

On his 18th birthday he enlisted in the armed forces. The youngest pilot in the Navy when he received his wings, he flew 58 combat missions during World War II. On one mission over the Pacific as a torpedo bomber pilot he was shot down by Japanese antiaircraft fire and was rescued from the water by a U. S. submarine. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for bravery in action.

Had I been through that, I'd question allowing my son to go to war. And maybe Kerry feels the same way, are any of his kids in Iraq? No.

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

Originally posted by: DonVito

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
Not of the screenshots show his feet.

I wonder if he's depicted wearing his battle flip-flops?

What kind of footwear did you wear when you were under enemy fire? My guess is, pink bunny slippers, while playing UT2004.

^^^

The typical reaction of those who are more than eager to Bush-bash at every opportunity but can't seem to take it when their own man's flip-flops are held over the fire. Instead they resort to lame personal insults.

When I qualified for my Marksman ribbon in the Air Force, I had my combat boots on. You?

 

[1EZduzit]

Originally posted by: Tiles2Tech

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
If they include a secret Christmas in Cambodia level, it could be intriguing. Maybe some bonus points for finding the magic hat?

I think that part has been removed. But, they did add a new level where you can apply some self-inflicted wounds to your body in order to nominate yourself for a purple heart. :Q :Q

LOL, that levels is fun. You set off a hand grenade and then have to judge how close to get to it withour killing yourself, it's trickier then it sounds.

 

[lozina]

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
Not of the screenshots show his feet.

I wonder if he's depicted wearing his battle flip-flops?

What's the difference between battle flip flops and the civilian flip flops Bush wears?