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War Games

Aired February 04, 2004 - 15:22   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: All right, get your game face on. We're talking about Saddam 2004.
Technology correspondent Daniel Sieberg joins us now with the latest in virtual warfare -- Daniel.

DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, that's right.

Military video games are nothing new. But the creators of this game, called "Kuma: War," are actually hoping to target people who watch CNN, as much as people who are interested in gaming. The idea behind it is putting you inside a mission that's based on real-life events. And you follow along with the military and act it out in your own way.

One of the missions in the game is based on what happened in Mosul, Iraq. You might remember that Uday and Qusay Hussein were cornered there and they were subsequently killed. We can give you an idea of where that all took place by showing you here on our map. This is not part of the game, by the way, but it does help to illustrate where Mosul is.

And now we're going to show what the game looks like. And we're right now joined by Scott Thomas, a resident gamer here at CNN.com.

Scott, you're in the game right now. You're actually approaching the house where Uday and Qusay are. Does it have that sort of realistic feel to you, as you're moving?

SCOTT THOMAS, GAMER: Correct.

Yes, you can see from all the details that it's very urban warfare. And, yes, we are outside their last hold, I guess you'd say, held up in their house.

SIEBERG: And you can do whatever you want, right? You don't necessarily have to follow along with whatever happened historically? The game designers say they've actually used a lot of publicly available information to create these different missions, whether it's satellite photos or intel that's available to anyone.

They're saying it's not classified information. But, Scott, do you have to go through any sort of training in the game in order to approach this mission?

THOMAS: Oh, no, I think that the curve is fairly high. You have to use a lot of strategy in order to complete the missions. But many of the things are very good re-creations of military situations.

SIEBERG: OK. And it's a little bit unique in terms of how it's being released to everyone. It's going to be available online. You pay $10 per month. You can only download it online. And then, every month, the game designers say they're going to update it with new missions you can play based on events that happen, for example, during that month. They might include some historical missions as well.

And, Scott, basically, it is a military-based game. We should say that this is not meant for kids. You can see here that there is some violence in the game. It's not going to be rated because it's only available online, not available in retail scores.

Scott Thomas, thanks so much for joining us to help us out here with the game.

THOMAS: Thank you.

SIEBERG: So, basically, Kyra and Miles, that's the gist behind "Kuma: War," which will be available February 27 and, again, only available online at KumaWar.com.

PHILLIPS: All right, Daniel Sieberg, thank you.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, it's not coming to my house, no way. That's just way too violent for my place.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired February 4, 2004 - 15:22   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: All right, get your game face on. We're talking about Saddam 2004.
Technology correspondent Daniel Sieberg joins us now with the latest in virtual warfare -- Daniel.

DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, that's right.

Military video games are nothing new. But the creators of this game, called "Kuma: War," are actually hoping to target people who watch CNN, as much as people who are interested in gaming. The idea behind it is putting you inside a mission that's based on real-life events. And you follow along with the military and act it out in your own way.

One of the missions in the game is based on what happened in Mosul, Iraq. You might remember that Uday and Qusay Hussein were cornered there and they were subsequently killed. We can give you an idea of where that all took place by showing you here on our map. This is not part of the game, by the way, but it does help to illustrate where Mosul is.

And now we're going to show what the game looks like. And we're right now joined by Scott Thomas, a resident gamer here at CNN.com.

Scott, you're in the game right now. You're actually approaching the house where Uday and Qusay are. Does it have that sort of realistic feel to you, as you're moving?

SCOTT THOMAS, GAMER: Correct.

Yes, you can see from all the details that it's very urban warfare. And, yes, we are outside their last hold, I guess you'd say, held up in their house.

SIEBERG: And you can do whatever you want, right? You don't necessarily have to follow along with whatever happened historically? The game designers say they've actually used a lot of publicly available information to create these different missions, whether it's satellite photos or intel that's available to anyone.

They're saying it's not classified information. But, Scott, do you have to go through any sort of training in the game in order to approach this mission?

THOMAS: Oh, no, I think that the curve is fairly high. You have to use a lot of strategy in order to complete the missions. But many of the things are very good re-creations of military situations.

SIEBERG: OK. And it's a little bit unique in terms of how it's being released to everyone. It's going to be available online. You pay $10 per month. You can only download it online. And then, every month, the game designers say they're going to update it with new missions you can play based on events that happen, for example, during that month. They might include some historical missions as well.

And, Scott, basically, it is a military-based game. We should say that this is not meant for kids. You can see here that there is some violence in the game. It's not going to be rated because it's only available online, not available in retail scores.

Scott Thomas, thanks so much for joining us to help us out here with the game.

THOMAS: Thank you.

SIEBERG: So, basically, Kyra and Miles, that's the gist behind "Kuma: War," which will be available February 27 and, again, only available online at KumaWar.com.

PHILLIPS: All right, Daniel Sieberg, thank you.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, it's not coming to my house, no way. That's just way too violent for my place.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com