For some, television just isn’t enough. You can read about the war and even watch firsthand accounts on CNN or YouTube. But what can you do to really step into the shoes of soldiers on the ground?
You can go to Kumagames.com.
Kuma, a New York-based gaming company, develops episodic video games that are released on a weekly basis to give players the feel of sitting down with a TV program. These episodes include tie-ins with The History Channel’s show “Shootout!”, a comical shooter called “Dinohunters” and “Kuma/War,” a line of games based onreal-life combat situations.
“We want players to be able to feel the news,” CEO of Kuma Reality Games Keith Halper told The Examiner Friday. “We try to create an emotional, exciting experience for gamers that would otherwise be uninvolved in this type of coverage.”
The latest of Kuma’s free downloadable games, which is episode 81 of its “Kuma/War” series, is based on President Bush’s increase in troops and determination to take and control Baghdad, only a few weeks after the plan was announced.
Players will take to Haifa Street, known to many U.S. soldiers as “Purple Heart Boulevard,” and try to take the perilous neighborhood from insurgents.
To recreate these foreign and dangerous environments, Kuma uses news footage, reports, firsthand accounts from troops and satellite imagery to create the best possible vision of what soldiers on the ground are seeing.
“We try to focus on the media coverage and the basic chronology of the war,” lead designer Dante Anderson told The Examiner Friday.
When you download the ad-supported player, you can see the research that the Kuma team uses to create these games. Resources available include the video reports, as well as a vast number of reports and editorials, real-life descriptions of the weapons players will use and a forum where gamers can discuss the concepts being presented in the game.
“We get a lot of feedback from troops coming back and people that have been over there,” Halper said. “They’re happy that we’re telling their story.”
