Battles re-enacted in video arcades
N.Y. gamemaker lets players portray Iraqi or U.S. troops
Baghdad -- The lone Iraqi police officer reloads his Kalashnikov and, with deadly aim, fearlessly dispatches two more of the masked insurgents besieging his station.
His exemplary marksmanship, however, comes not from successful U.S. training, but from the practiced hand of a teenage Iraqi boy sitting in one of the capital's many cafes with computer games.
Seconds later, a cheer goes up among the assembled audience as the pixilated police officer on the screen before him is hit by a rocket: It is "mission failed" and "game over" in another round of Kuma War, a new American- made series of interactive shoot-'em-ups that has become a huge hit among Iraq's youth.
The digitalized drama, in which players can choose their characters -- Iraqi cops or national guard -- is a direct re-creation of a savage insurgent attack on a police station in Fallujah in April.
The only real difference is that the real-life Iraqi police were not square-jawed, all-action cyberheroes, but ill-trained and outgunned rookies: 17 Iraqi officers died in the real-life assault that night.
"Guys here play these games because they are realistic and about our country," said cafe owner Bassam Hassan, 25. "The only people who don't approve are the resistance fighters themselves. One came in and told me that we shouldn't play games where we pretended to be U.S. or Iraqi forces fighting them."
The programming is the work of New York-based Kuma Reality Games, which specializes in re-creating battles based on actual news events. Its motto is candid: "In a world being torn apart by international conflict, one thing is on everyone's mind as they finish watching the nightly news: 'Man, this would make a great game.' "
Sad
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/01/16/MNG5LAR6KU1.DTL
N.Y. gamemaker lets players portray Iraqi or U.S. troops
Baghdad -- The lone Iraqi police officer reloads his Kalashnikov and, with deadly aim, fearlessly dispatches two more of the masked insurgents besieging his station.
His exemplary marksmanship, however, comes not from successful U.S. training, but from the practiced hand of a teenage Iraqi boy sitting in one of the capital's many cafes with computer games.
Seconds later, a cheer goes up among the assembled audience as the pixilated police officer on the screen before him is hit by a rocket: It is "mission failed" and "game over" in another round of Kuma War, a new American- made series of interactive shoot-'em-ups that has become a huge hit among Iraq's youth.
The digitalized drama, in which players can choose their characters -- Iraqi cops or national guard -- is a direct re-creation of a savage insurgent attack on a police station in Fallujah in April.
The only real difference is that the real-life Iraqi police were not square-jawed, all-action cyberheroes, but ill-trained and outgunned rookies: 17 Iraqi officers died in the real-life assault that night.
"Guys here play these games because they are realistic and about our country," said cafe owner Bassam Hassan, 25. "The only people who don't approve are the resistance fighters themselves. One came in and told me that we shouldn't play games where we pretended to be U.S. or Iraqi forces fighting them."
The programming is the work of New York-based Kuma Reality Games, which specializes in re-creating battles based on actual news events. Its motto is candid: "In a world being torn apart by international conflict, one thing is on everyone's mind as they finish watching the nightly news: 'Man, this would make a great game.' "
Sad
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/01/16/MNG5LAR6KU1.DTL