I really love videogames. I really love them as a hobby and as a job.
At their best, they push me to my mental limit and my dexterous limit.
I find it absolutely incredible - and depressing - that this thread has gone down the way it has. That so many people think its possible to review the gameplay and not the story of a game, or that its truly possible to seperate technology and context is amazing. If it can be done with games, it would be the first time in human history - the first time - that its ever been possible.
An earlier poster used Micheal Moore's SICKO as an example, citing that they didn't read a single review that expressed an opinion about the political dimensions of the film. Which has to be a lie. The film is a political piece, everything written about is political and may sometimes refer to the filmmaking technique as a means to make the political possible.
Now, the original review wasn't great writing, but it wasn't terrible either.
The problem wasn't that it an expressed a political viewpoint.
The problem is that it prevaricated about what it wanted to say.
What it says is: "some gamers may be squeamish about politics."
..and in that respect, its right.
Army of Two is a deeply fascist game. It does promote a mercenary military fantasy and abstract the evil of groups like Blackwater, their inhumanity and waste, into game mechanics. Yes, I've played it. No, I don't care about intent, the same way I don't care about the 'intent' of the Iraq War itself. I care about humans and the conditions under which they live and breathe, and I make my judgements based upon the facts I have. Army of Two, then, is an unethical game, designed unethically. Possibly by ethical and smart people, I have no idea. I judge that by my sense of ethics. It promotes corporate war and does so using a real life setting. Yes, I do think films like Three Kings also go down that direction, but even there a sense of human cost was articulated.
The game could have gone down the road of something like Buffalo Solider and kept ALL the gameplay mechanics, been the same underneath the narrative hood, and been a totally different experience. Because ethics matter. Narrative matters. Context matters. If you don't think so, then I am here to stand up and tell you that you and your opinion not only don't count, but are bad for games, bad for games design, bad for fun and overall tend towards the idiotic on a vast, intercontinental scale. If you 'just don't care', then okay, say that - that you're an apathetic.
Either you believe that game design can be unethical, or you don't, and are tragically, hysterically, finally, mortally, overwhelmingly wrongola. Positively brimming over with wrongability.
I wrote this once:
When game writing is at its best, it puts play before the game. Gaming doesn't need a Lester Bangs. It doesn't need a Hunter S. Thompson. It needs anybody who has the inclination to make simple, human connections between technology and human truth.
..and I still really believe it.