Speaking of presidential assassination attempts, I just heard about this new game called JFK Reloaded that sounds pretty cool. Actually, it’s rather less cool than I imagined, but then I have a pretty wild imagination. Anyway, it’s put out today because today is the 41st anniversary of the assassination of JFK in Dealey Plaza.

The game’s put out by a company called Traffic, out of Scotland. Supposedly, the purpose of the game is to help debunk conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination. Which is too bad, because when I first heard about it, I thought the point was quite the opposite. Anyway, you play the role of Lee Harvey Oswald, sitting at the window of the sixth floor of the book depository. You watch the motorcade roll down the street, and you have three shots to do the deed. The point of the game is to recreate as exactly as possible, using realistic physics, the shots, damage and injuries as reported by the Warren Commission. You can play the game again and again (for $9.99US) and each round, you get a complete ballistics report and 3-D analysis of the accuracy of your shots and their closeness to what actually happened. Also, there is a contest being held by the company for whoever can get the closest to the historically documented event.

Pretty cool. Of course, everyone is predictably in a tizzy over the whole thing. Just like how everybody gets upset about every fucking thing that happens everywhere. I actualy think it’s quite a good idea, and I subscribe very much to the whole idea that video games and shit like this can be extremely valuable as educational tools and inspiring interest in things. And not to mention that it’s just kind of cool in general. Sure people died in real life. Sure it’s a horrible tragedy. But the way that people can really understand things is by getting all up inside them. It’s called empathy; and it’s a major part of what makes us human.

While we’re at it, we may as well try to recreate other weird taboo historical events too, I think. There’s already that Syrian video game where you can be a Palestinian terrorist and fight against the Israeli occupation in a variety of scenarios. I can think of a million other ideas that would really cheese people off even more, and probably be very compelling. For example, what about putting together a slick realistic program called “Sim Concentration Camp™” where you play the administrator of the facility? Even though this is obviously treading into creepy territory, I’m not a big fan of putting restraints on what people can imagine, no matter how weird it is.