Gang, we’ve gotta stop killing JFK

Many video games explore alternate history. But when they start getting into the Kennedy assassination, you know it's gonna get weird. There are a few different games that have toyed with this particular moment in history and, strangely enough, the one that recreates it exactly is also the one that's fueled the most conspiracy theories about who really killed JFK.

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[TheClosetExtrovert]

Alternate histories in games are always about presidential assassinations and never about stuff like "what if the US succeeded in their plan to domesticate hippos"

[RTGame]

Don't you just hate it when you're going about your day and oops! You've assassinated JFK again

[Cuttlefisher]

Playing Metal Gear Solid when I was 10 made me absolutely convinced I was an expert on geopolitics for a time because it had documentary footage in it. Imagine how silly it would be if adults did that as well in the present year! Haha! Ha!

[TheSpyder]

My favorite JFK theory is easily the Oops, My Bad theory. Oswald missed his shots, startled one of the security behind Kennedy who was incredibly hungover, and the agent misfired when drawing his weapon, executing the president. No grand theory, no real second shooter- of course there was a coverup. This would be the most embarrassing fuckup of all modern american politics

[samyocom-piatt]

*TOTK Spoilers* Sorry but killing JFK is the best side mission

[FinnAX]

The only example I could think of that related to this is that Arkane's Prey takes place in an alternative history timeline but the divergence point from the real world is that JFK survived the assassination attempt.

[littlesnowflakepunk]

in the anime Baki there is a scene in which George Bush recreates the Kennedy Assassination in the same location without being assassinated in order to show off his new security detail and how much better they are than Kennedy's, at which point Baki Hanma, a 17-year-old Japanese boy, runs up to his car, picks him up, and runs away with him so that he can get arrested and fight Che Guevara in prison.

[Ancusohm]

Wait, people are claiming the Chevalier de Saint-georges isn't real? No! It's well documented. He was a real person. He hung out with Alexander Dumas (the general, not the author of the Three Musketeers).

[darthbob]

15:30 I am shocked, shocked I say, to discover that a lady named Simone de Rochefort cited a lot of French people in her video essay.

[robertstarnes]

When you said "even a resurrected Oswald probably couldn't recreate that shot in JFK Reloaded, because he's not a Kennedy assassinating robot", it made me wonder. Why has nobody created an Aimbot for JFK Reloaded to prove that the Warren Commission's version of events (or a modern version with a modern understanding of ballistics) was at least technically possible, given the barest simulation of real world physics?

[than]

I used to love playing JFK Reloaded in 2004/2005. One time with a single shot to the driver's foot on the pedal I managed to get the entire car to flip upside down after it drove up an embankment. Like can you IMAGINE if that's how it actually happened in real life?!?!?!

[TheLeggedOne]

Loved the JFK level in Super Mario Sunshine

[kinyutaka]

I played JFK Reloaded, and got close enough to the shots that I concluded that a better trained shooter with a real gun could have done it.

[claycook]

Really disappointed this wasn't a PSA for time-travelers.

[Chris-Moore]

Now do a video on every topic YouTube feels the suspicious need to give *context* to

[warrenrandall]

JFK Reloaded was interesting: I had played a few First person shoot 'em up games at the time and found it was relatively easy to take out JFK as his car moved along the part of the road where he was assassinated. It's easier to hit a target that moves along the line of sight rather than perpendicular, and obviously when it's close enough to see the target. Oswald, as a qualified shooter, would know this even before entering the book depository. It's called experience. If anything it reinforces the story about Oswald just because the Physics adds up.

[Somethingbloody]

I remember when I played Black Ops, at the same time I was reading John Pilger's Heroes, a retrospective of a career of journalism focusing on class, and it's chapters about Vietnam and Cambodia. There's a bit where he talks about interviewing some stoned GI's who were in trouble for "fragging" an officer's tent (COD will fail you for that kind of friendly fire).

I remember playing the level set in Khe Sanh, which was wave defense against hundred of enemies and a bunch of tanks, making you the defensive, outnumbered underdog, and a later level set in Cambodia with you stealing an attack chopper and blowing up a bunch of villages. No mention on the years of bombs the US dropped on Cambodia. Black Ops is so over the top and silly, but I do remember thinking that for some young people, this might be one of their only reference points to the Cold War and that part of history. There's a Kowloon Walled City level, and the KWC doesn't exist anymore.

I also remember doing reading on Chevaliette D'eon, and how her true history was way more fascinating than the joke Unity made her out to be. And she was a rare case of a trans person whose story survived in some form to this day. And I wouldn't have even known about her if I hadn't wanted to know more about this side quest character, who is just a cheap gag of a female character model with a male VA.

Great video, and super interesting to learn about synthetic memory. Also Jacob Geller's "Cultural Legacy of the Headshot" is another great vid that includes JFK Reloaded.

[Sudsyjellyfish]

My “somebody mentioned d’Eon” alarm went off and immediately launched me back to the blissful 7 weeks I spent researching how cool they way they did gender was 😍

[sydneygorelick]

15:40 "this real person isn't historically accurate because they're a European and they aren't a white cishet male" as if people never travelled at all until modern day and as if history isn't incredibly diverse. Since Roman times, people have been traveling all over, from Africa to Europe and back again.

[pilby]

Simone still finding uses for Brian's old wasted paper. props