Game takes aim at bin Laden

In a computer game likely to stir controversy, Americans who wished they could have pulled the avenging trigger on arch-terrorist Osama bin Laden can now virtually storm the infamous walled-off Pakistani compound themselves in a new online video game.
While violent reality-based video games often raise eyebrows — such as “Dog Wars,” a dog-fighting game, and “JFK Reloaded” — one military expert said he believes “Kuma Wars Episode 107: Osama 2011” could help recruit the nation’s next generation of special forces heroes eager to rid the world of mass-murdering megalomaniacs.
“In forty minutes and a rain of hot lead, a decades-long, worldwide manhunt for Osama bin Laden will be ended... by you,” reads the Web site of New York-based Kuma Games, which released online the first-person shooter over the weekend.
The company claims it realistically recreated the compound, weapons and mission objectives from bin Laden’s real-life take-down May 1, based on news reports.
One screen shot on the game’s Web site creates an image that the Obama administration has refused to reveal — bin Laden’s corpse with a head wound.
“I think it might actually draw interest for young men and women to serve in the military,” said Neil Livingstone, CEO of the corporate security firm ExecutiveAction. He noted, “The Army had its own video game at one point to draw young men and women into the service.”
One local game developer, whose controversial cell phone app that let users sneak illegal aliens over a border was rejected from Apple’s App Store last month, said he thinks the trend of creating video games based on current events will continue to grow.
“If someone chooses to play it, that’s within their right to do so, and I don’t believe such games should be actively censored,” said Alex Schwartz of Owlchemy Labs. His game, renamed from “Smuggle Truck” to “Snuggle Truck” for iPad and iPhone, now involves teddy bears.
A spokesman for Kuma Games could not be reached yesterday. The free online game is the latest in a series of what the company calls “ripped from the headlines” battle scenarios. The company digitized Sen. John Kerry’s 1969 Vietnam Swift boat experience; the capture of Saddam Hussein; and the failed 1980 attempt to rescue American hostages in Iran.