JFK assassination game branded 'despicable'

A computer game that lets players re-enact the assassination of President John F Kennedy in 1963 has been branded "despicable" by his family. Glasgow-based software outfit Traffic launched the game this week to coincide with the 41st anniversary of JFK's murder in Dallas.

The outfit behind JFK: Reloaded reckons this new "docu-game" will let players relive the President's last moments as if they were Lee Harvey Oswald - the man fingered for the assassination.

According to Traffic, the game enables players to "examine the challenges that faced Oswald and determine on their own if he was, in fact, the only shooter on that fateful day".

Said Traffic MD Kirk Ewing in a statement: "We've created the game with the belief that Oswald was the only person that fired the shots on that day, although this recreation proves how immensely difficult his task was.

"We genuinely believe that if we get enough people participating we'll be able to disprove once and for all any notion that someone else was involved in the assassination of President Kennedy. The computer ballistics model says it's possible, but players will discover just how hard it is to place those three bullets in exactly the same way that Oswald did."

The games, available to download on the Net, costs $9.99 (£5.35). As an added "incentive", Traffic is offering up to $100,000 (£53,600) for the first person to recreate most accurately the three shots fired by Lee Harvey Oswald.

However, a spokesman for the president's brother, Senator Edward Kennedy, is reported as describing the game as "despicable". ®

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