Osama bin Laden Death Raid Game

May 10, 2011 3:32 PM

Kill Osama First-Person Shooter programmers at Kuma Games have been working long hours to crank out this timely, yet controversial game. "The virtual bin Laden, created over a rush of all-nighters by a team of game developers who specialize in turning current world events and military battles into playable video games, had somehow disappeared from the faithful recreation of his Pakistan compound." But the Kansas City Star asks, is this "cathartic, educational or just ghoulish?"
posted by shawnwasson (62 comments total)

I know it's not likely to be a popular position but I think interactive 3D reconstructions of tragic/newsworthy events should be made. They should be as realistic as possible and enable people to participate.

After watching the video, not by these guys.
posted by polyhedron at 3:38 PM on May 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

as realistic as possible and enable people to participate

these goals don't jive
posted by nathancaswell at 3:41 PM on May 10, 2011

"We read there were 27 children in there," Halper says, as we watch the screen up on the wall. "We could put children in there, but I can't find any proof of that."

"Will you?" I ask.

"It's a sticky issue," he responds. Perhaps, if it's proven that there were children in the compound and that they in some way impacted the mission, they'll put them in, but not as children. Maybe they'll be depicted as unarmed adults.

I guess we can rule out "educational".
posted by Trurl at 3:42 PM on May 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

Needs more "Mein Leben!"
posted by gurple at 3:43 PM on May 10, 2011 [11 favorites]

Neither cathartic, educational or ghoulish. Just an FPS.

cf Langland and Bell's The House of Osama bin Laden.

(Not a total conversion of The House of the Dead, I'm afraid.)
posted by running order squabble fest at 3:43 PM on May 10, 2011

A rush job you say? And an ad supported cheap cash-in? Finally, a game for the Zoidberg demographic.

/Dr. Zoidberg
posted by 2bucksplus at 3:44 PM on May 10, 2011 [9 favorites]

I think 'educational' is pretty much out of the picture...

"While the reality of the mission had the odds in favor of the SEALs, the game will have an even number of U.S. military and enemies."

But realistic gameplay would not have been compelling; being one in a team of 20 SEALS against a single armed person doesn't sound like a challenging game.

This is as thought provoking as T-Shirts that were crafted within hours of his death and being sold by street vendors the next day.
posted by el io at 3:48 PM on May 10, 2011

these goals don't jive

I don't really agree, but they don't need to. The idea isn't to (just) make a 3D movie of the event, it's to allow people to recontextualize their interpretation of events. Interactivity does not necessarily forgo realism.


This just seems like a cynical attempt to profit off of war, which I guess is Kuma's MO.
posted by polyhedron at 3:51 PM on May 10, 2011

That reminds me, what ever came out of JFK Reloaded?
posted by kafziel at 3:51 PM on May 10, 2011

Gosh, I hope the controversy and press exposure doesn't hurt their sales!
posted by Nelson at 3:53 PM on May 10, 2011 [9 favorites]

Yep, once again I'm ashamed to be a citizen of this country.
posted by tomswift at 3:53 PM on May 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

That reminds me, what ever came out of JFK Reloaded?

Nothing. The maker, Traffic Games, folded. The game is still out there on torrents, but I wouldn't expect to win the $100,000 prize.
posted by running order squabble fest at 3:56 PM on May 10, 2011

If you made all the enemies unarmed, at least the game could make some philosophical point about the use of force, no?
posted by Bromius at 4:00 PM on May 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

I can see wanting to recreate the op in game form, in the same way as I can see recreating any other historical battle or military maneuver. But this looks like a solid turd.
posted by notmydesk at 4:00 PM on May 10, 2011

I wanted to be the first kid on my block to get a confirmed kill!
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:00 PM on May 10, 2011

I've never been tempted to play Call Of Duty until I started reading about the Bin Laden raid. That amount of precision would make an awesome FPS, mod, or map.
There's already SEAL Team Six game called 'Rogue Warrior' but apparently it's utter shit.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 4:00 PM on May 10, 2011

20 SEALS against a single armed person doesn't sound like a challenging game

Maybe they could put the children back in.
posted by ryanrs at 4:00 PM on May 10, 2011 [4 favorites]

From the article: His face is frozen in a thousand mile stare, eyes unblinking.

Do they mean "thousand yard stare"? A thousand miles is pretty far, even for Sauron.
posted by notmydesk at 4:02 PM on May 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

This just seems like a cynical attempt to profit off of war.

Though the same could be said of a large segment of the American economy as a whole.

Why shouldn't a little guy get a taste of the gravy?
posted by Trurl at 4:02 PM on May 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

I have noticed that the Bin Laden raid fits the trend of 'anticlimactic bosses' I've noticed in games like The Darkness and another modern game I won't name for fear of spoilers. Heaps of build up and than a weak man with a gun.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 4:03 PM on May 10, 2011

Do they mean "thousand yard stare"?

Video-game bin Laden has lasers for eyes.
posted by ryanrs at 4:05 PM on May 10, 2011

It's a great idea, but it's terribly done due to being stuck in the black and white FPS scenario.

It would be interesting to play as different characters, be it Bin Laden, his wife, one of the guards or one of the children. Kick it up a notch and play as a Pakistani intelligence officer or the US President. What do you do when your troops are in another country, doing a dubiously legal raid and one or both of their helicopters go down in the backyard of one that county's finest military schools? What if the soldiers get there and find it's not Bin Laden? There's a seemingly limitless number of paths such a game could take that would make it mindblowingly interesting.

But the video game market won't or can't make it.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:06 PM on May 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

I don't mind the idea of making a game about this, but this thing is basically a patriotic fart app.
posted by ignignokt at 4:07 PM on May 10, 2011 [8 favorites]

"It's a sticky issue," he responds. Perhaps, if it's proven that there were children in the compound and that they in some way impacted the mission, they'll put them in, but not as children. Maybe they'll be depicted as unarmed adults.
-----------
But realistic gameplay would not have been compelling; being one in a team of 20 SEALS against a single armed person doesn't sound like a challenging game.

A player of a realistic version of this game could get busy tying the children's hands and taping their mouths.
posted by fairmettle at 4:07 PM on May 10, 2011 [4 favorites]

Why shouldn't a little guy get a taste of the gravy?

I don't fault them for the attempt, nor am I ashamed of my country for it. I have no reason to hide my scorn nonetheless.

It appears to be a shitty game. Brandon Blatcher has the right idea.
posted by polyhedron at 4:09 PM on May 10, 2011

Probably should have let the guy live.
posted by Ad hominem at 4:12 PM on May 10, 2011

I mean, an Osama chilling out in his compound in Pakistan, assuming we could just keep a close eye on him, might have been preferable to this.
posted by Ad hominem at 4:13 PM on May 10, 2011

You know who else they made a video game boss out of?
posted by danny the boy at 4:16 PM on May 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

In the video, I like how the player "recovers" bin Laden's body and it just vanishes into thin air. Very realistic.

WAKE UP SHEEPLE!
posted by brundlefly at 4:18 PM on May 10, 2011

You know who else they made a video game boss out of?

Some gaming magazine had a list of the 10 best Hitlers in games.

"John Romero is going to make you his bitch" - Martin Luther King Jr

This reminds me of the very early days of Newgrounds, when it had that whole 'Assassination' section.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 4:19 PM on May 10, 2011

God bless Capitalism!

American Capitalism may not as be as robber-barony as it once was, thanks to the Chinese and their freer attitude towards the environment, but by golly, sometimes the U.S. can perch itself right on the edge of opportunity and ethics and spit over like no-one else!
posted by Capt. Renault at 4:24 PM on May 10, 2011

But realistic gameplay would not have been compelling; being one in a team of 20 SEALS against a single armed person doesn't sound like a challenging game.

Except that >bin Laden may not have been armed. Come to think of it, I think that would be very educational, children or no children. But not a very good game...
posted by ennui.bz at 4:24 PM on May 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

It's a great idea, but it's terribly done due to being stuck in the black and white FPS scenario.

How about a MMORPG set in 2010. You have 2 sides, those trying to find Bin Laden, and those trying to hide him. The game faithfully simulates everything from sat phone, to the internet, to drones. Devs can run events based on the news of the day, current threat levels and chatter. You can play anything from analyst, to navy seal, waterboarder, pakistani intelligence to Bin Laden himself.
posted by Ad hominem at 4:25 PM on May 10, 2011

is this "cathartic, educational or just ghoulish?"

The latter.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 4:32 PM on May 10, 2011

And I say this as a guy that's mown down hundreds and hundreds of Nazis and other bad guys in various games.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 4:33 PM on May 10, 2011

Pffft, there's already a Counter Strike map for it.

I think crunching to capitalize on something like this is stupid.
posted by hellojed at 4:33 PM on May 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Except that >bin Laden may not have been armed.

Make it a Difficulty level.

Beginners can start with Revised Briefing difficulty before tackling First Briefing difficulty.
posted by Trurl at 4:33 PM on May 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

There is also (not surprisingly) a Counter-Strike map of the compound.
posted by Lazlo Hollyfeld at 4:34 PM on May 10, 2011

Waiting for someone to grumble, "Back in my day, you had to create Doom maps for this sort of thing..."
posted by autoclavicle at 4:34 PM on May 10, 2011

I vote ghoulish.

And dumb.
posted by warbaby at 4:34 PM on May 10, 2011

ennui.bz : Except that >bin Laden may not have been armed.

And that matters why?


Come to think of it, I think that would be very educational, children or no children. But not a very good game...

Meh, you can find old Doom and Quake mods to let you kill just about anyone, from Hitler to any president ever to the Pope. None really have much educational value, and few actually count as very fun. More of a novelty thing.
posted by pla at 4:35 PM on May 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

I know it's not likely to be a popular position but I think interactive 3D reconstructions of tragic/newsworthy events should be made.

Taiwan is doing this nightly
posted by benzenedream at 4:37 PM on May 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

I expect the raid to be part of a mainstream game in the future. Since its both easy and badass it might be the first mission, like how Symphony of the Night starts with a fully-powered character killing Dracula. It work work as both tutorial and backstory.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 4:45 PM on May 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

ennui.bz: "Except that >bin Laden may not have been armed."

There was at least one armed person, was there not?
posted by brundlefly at 4:45 PM on May 10, 2011

Isn't promoting these games the whole point of all kevetching about whether Osama bin Laden was assassinated or not?

We shouldn't view military personnel as police, ennui.bz, especially not special forces. And that's one reason why they shouldn't be deployed against civilian targets, ala Bush's Iraq. In this case, I'd imagine the special forces would've understood any clear signal that Osama was surrendering, and bought him back alive, well that's the administrations stated positions afaik. If the forces already experienced some form of resistance from him, well whatever.. Osama is among most clearly military-ish targets of the last 10 years.
posted by jeffburdges at 4:47 PM on May 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

In this case, I'd imagine the special forces would've understood any clear signal that Osama was surrendering, and bought him back alive, well that's the administrations stated positions afaik.

Guess he couldn't strip fast enough.
posted by Trurl at 5:00 PM on May 10, 2011

Now that the bastard is actually dead, isn't this game kind of...anti-climactic? Why not a shoot Hitler/Mao game?
posted by jonmc at 5:12 PM on May 10, 2011

jonmc : Now that the bastard is actually dead, isn't this game kind of...anti-climactic? Why not a shoot Hitler/Mao game?

Because, who wants to shoot their grandparents' long-gone monsters, when we have our own?
posted by pla at 5:29 PM on May 10, 2011

Because, who wants to shoot their grandparents' long-gone monsters, when we have our own?

Lots of people.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 5:51 PM on May 10, 2011

But realistic gameplay would not have been compelling; being one in a team of 20 SEALS against a single armed person doesn't sound like a challenging game.

It might make a more interesting artistic statement, though.
posted by EarBucket at 6:33 PM on May 10, 2011

Ha, I was talking to a guy who writes for this company just the other day. He doesn't like the ripped-from-the-headlines games because "there are too many Call of Duty clones out there already." He says the company is working on a game series where you play as a local cop in Damascus or Dubai, etc, because the Middle East is an underserved market.

In other words, the guys behind Kuma Games are pretty equal-opportunity opportunists.

I also want to point out that this game was made in *one week*. (Osama's death announced: May 1; game released: May 8). I mean, damn.
posted by subdee at 6:51 PM on May 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Kill Hitler Game
posted by LogicalDash at 7:09 PM on May 10, 2011

jonmc : Now that the bastard is actually dead, isn't this game kind of...anti-climactic? Why not a shoot Hitler/Mao game?

Because there are dozens of Nazi-killing games already?
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 7:50 PM on May 10, 2011

As an old grognard, I appreciate simulationist games. Much like a flight sim or a racing game, an FPS simulation offers the opportunity for more than just gameplay. It places the player in the situation of a participant, with the strength and limitations that implies. Even if the outcome of the game is inevitable, the steps that lead you to that place are instructive.

Assuming, of course, that game's designers are looking for more than cheap bloodsport and "America! Fuck yeah!"
posted by SPrintF at 9:48 PM on May 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Is this the hard-stealth tactical espionage title I've been waiting for?

PROTIP: PICK UP THOSE SHELL CASINGS GIRL! That's how they catch you.

SPOILER: Osama Bin Laden isn't dead! He's going to show you his true form!!!

Rating: Aren't games like this one and the street harassment one made with the same engine/program? I always wanted that program when I was a kid. Doesn't look any better.
posted by fuq at 10:29 PM on May 10, 2011

A good number of years ago some of the former cast members and writers of Mystery Science Theater 3000, right after the show ended, made a website called Timmy Big Hands. They had a flash "game" I found amusing, for a few seconds anyway, called KILL A GUY.

It showed a cartoon picture of a cartoon man. Text appeared: "This is Bob. Click on Bob to kill him." Click. "Ugh!" Bob falls over. "Game Over. Click to play again."

Can you guess why I was reminded of that?
posted by JHarris at 10:48 PM on May 10, 2011

A good number of years ago some of the former cast members and writers of Mystery Science Theater 3000, right after the show ended, made a website called Timmy Big Hands. They had a flash "game" I found amusing, for a few seconds anyway, called KILL A GUY.

It showed a cartoon picture of a cartoon man. Text appeared: "This is Bob. Click on Bob to kill him." Click. "Ugh!" Bob falls over. "Game Over. Click to play again."

Can you guess why I was reminded of that?

That WAS old school Newgrounds.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 10:59 PM on May 10, 2011

Kuma War has been creating scenarios based on real combat in Iraq and Afghanistan for years now. They started with a "kill Uday and Kusay" mission and they finish on Usama. I didn't like the gameplay then, and I don't see how it coudl have improved in the intervening 8 years.
posted by Megafly at 12:22 AM on May 11, 2011

"Thank you Mario! But our princess is in another castle!"
posted by iamck at 3:53 AM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

But the Kansas City Star asks, is this "cathartic, educational or just ghoulish?"

I'm reminded of the George Carlin faux gameshow routine 'Asshole, Jackoff or Scumbag'.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 4:20 AM on May 11, 2011

Rating: Aren't games like this one and the street harassment one made with the same engine/program?

Bit more complicated than that, but the engine driving Hey Baby (certainly) and this game (from cursory inspection) is the Unity 3D engine, yes.
posted by running order squabble fest at 4:22 AM on May 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

They should have produced a game based on the Situation Room. Game play would include staring at the big screen, glancing around the room and deciding which Costco sandwich to eat.
posted by orme at 5:46 AM on May 11, 2011