It’s a bright November day in Texas. In between rhythmic, careful breaths you look through the scope of a rifle, waiting.

Then you see it: the presidential motorcade making a right turn into Dealey Plaza, in plain view. You see the governor of Texas, his wife, Jackie, and then finally, JFK. He’s got a smile on his face, looking out to the crowd that’s talking with excitement.

Another deep breath, and then … a gunshot, screams, and the president’s body is hunched over in the back seat. You think to yourself, “I shot JFK.”

Last November on the 41st anniversary of the Kennedy tragedy, the Scottish company Traffic released the video game JFK Reloaded on their Web site for download. What’s the going rate for an opportunity to kill the president? The incredibly low, low price of only $9.99.

It’s supposed to be an outrage, playing a video game that lets you re-enact the assassination of a president. But when you see your score of 42/1000, you get frustrated and want to play again. Normally, no one would want to relive this tragedy again, but when you see pixels on the screen it’s a whole new ball game.

The game has predictably been subject to criticism and has not done much to help the video game industry’s argument against claims that games train gamers to become killers. Traffic has defended its game by calling it an educational tool that can be used to prove Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the shooting, reinforcing the findings of the Warren Commission. Then again, Traffic also offers up to a $100,000 cash prize for achieving the highest score for the gamer who can put bullets in the same trajectories that Oswald did. In a way, it’s a digital bounty hunt.

Personal opinions on the game aside, I’m tempted by the argument presented by Traffic. Can video games really become the next teaching tool of history? It’s really not as far a stretch as you might think.

Already, we have books giving history lessons and it’s not uncommon to see the words “based on a true story” in the opening credits of a movie. Each incarnation of media has taken one step closer to bring us toward historic realism. Video games have taken it to the next level. Unfortunately, much like the History Channel and Hollywood, the audience really only cares about war and death.

If Jerry Bruckheimer can produce the abomination that was Pearl Harbor, then it’s no worse to play EA’s Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault, where you relive a date that will remain infamous. It doesn’t matter if you view video games and movies as entertainment or low-level education. In the end they accomplish the same thing by giving you what you paid for.

Perhaps the most disturbing part about JFK Reloaded or any other historically based video game comes from the repetition and desensitization. It doesn’t matter if you’re shooting the president, a Nazi or a zombie, because it all feels the same and you really only start to care when your bullets miss. There’s no time to stop and think, “just what, exactly, am I doing?” The only reason I decided to look up the Warren Commission report online after playing JFK Reloaded was because I was curious how I could get a higher score, and that’s a very unpleasant thought for me.

Maybe not all of us are ready to be put in the driver’s seat, or behind the rifle scope, but technology already exists to show us first hand – and from any angle – what happened. But there are some things it can’t do: make you feel or care. Before we start to tout video games as the new way to archive our history, maybe we should learn how to incorporate human emotion first.

Kiyoshi Martinez is a junior in journalism. His column runs Mondays. He can be reached at [email protected].