Are you, perhaps, tearfully disappointed that you weren’t the one to blow Osama Bin Laden away? Quit your crying, here‘s your chance. The free-to-play online video game KumaWar launched a new mission on May 7th that enables gamers to play in the re-created world of the final assault on Bin Laden’s compound.
Thanks to KumaWar Episode 107: Osama 2011, thousands of blood-thirsty patriots will have the opportunity to raid Bin Laden’s compound and find sweet justice in the virtual world. Why do the Navy SEALs get to have all the fun? Gamers now have the chance to re-live the attack on Bin Laden’s nest.
Kuma Games Studio is providing this unique opportunity, making this mission the last of its 7-year online game franchise that has been re-creating key missions and battles from the War on Terror since 2004. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the New York based gaming studio works with various military personnel and warfare experts to maintain the accuracy of the game environments, and to bring the interactive action to virtual life.
KumaWar has launched over 150 game episodes over the past years, with over 20 million gamers logging on. No doubt this final mission will be epic in its popularity. Kuma Games CEO Keith Halper believes this video game will help many Americans get some closure after years of suffering under Bin Laden’s reign of terror. He also mentioned the fact that President Obama didn’t release any photos of Bin Laden’s body, so this game will allow people to see the terrorist leader blown away in no doubt gratuitously violent ways.
The Hollywood Reporter quoted Halper as saying:
“We read the same published reports as everyone else, though I suspect with a different eye. Since we have to reproduce events in 3D we care deeply about esoteric details like distances, heights, vegetation, furniture and the like that have to be re-created in the game. Sounds–dogs barking, helicopters orbits, pyrotechnics–those are important too. It’s all available in the public sources, and there was a tremendous amount of data released as you know, but the magic is in piecing together the details from the million little clues order to create a convincing 3D environment.”
The design team behind the video game wanted this mission to be dynamic, so that every time you play it the experience will be different. Bin Laden will be hiding in different places, and the terrorists in the compound will have weapon caches at different locations.
“Bin Laden was a bad man, and people feel relieved that he is gone,” Halper said. “To be able to recreate his death is just an added bonus. The SEALs must have been quick, smart, lucky or all of the above to have al Qaeda not be able to reach their weapons. Additionally, we see that the final rush up the stairs must have been incredibly perilous. Finally, the SEALs didn’t know where Osama was and neither will you; every corner is a potential death trap and each must be explored to find your target. Players will see all the key elements first-hand and gain a knowledge of the operation that would be difficult to obtain through traditional linear narratives.”
The entertainment world’s rush to capitalize on Bin Laden’s death has me a little amused, if in that “watching-your-dog-hump-a-neighbor’s-leg” way. First there was news of Kathryn Bigelow’s movie going full speed ahead and picking up cast. In the literary world, the first novel in a proposed series about the Navy SEALs team that has hunted Bin Laden is being rushed into stores ahead of its original release date, and quadrupled the number of prints.
Then there are the flying rumors about a TV movie or mini series surrounding the assault on Bin Laden’s compound and his demise. To top it all off the gaming world steps up with KumaWar Episode 107: Osama 2011. It leaves me wondering, what’s next? Will we see Bin Laden board games or a bloody, bullet-ridden Bin Laden action figure line? Hmmm…