You said "cannot." I'm not sure I have to give you an example in order for you to be wrong about that. If you'd said "has not," you'd perhaps have a point. But then again, Venezuela isn't totalitarian. The extent to which it's a "Communist" country could be debated, of course. You could also have the same debate about…

Communism cannot survive without a totalitarian regime.

I have absolutely no interest in playing Borderlands 2, but I must admit, that is mighty pretty world design right there.

Yep, a Vine-style feature would be so badass.

The dilemma I see is that, in a world where we demand shorter, more compact games, what we're going to get is simply hacked-off features, not a truly "edited" experience. They're going to say "Okay, well, we'll just not do this bit at all, then." With film, it's totally different. They actually do all those bits that…

I'm a big critic of Kinect, too. But at the same time, I do think there are interesting, game-related things that can be done with it. I'm sure that, in terms of accessibility—an area where games are seriously behind, but genuine attempts to change that are finally being made—the Kinect could have some real impact.

Neither do I, to be honest. I'm seriously not trying to be one of "those guys," but the talk surrounding Titanfall makes it sound like it's supposed to be this amazing game with near-universal appeal, and I'm just not drawn to it at all.

It's not the role of art to make you feel "happier" or "stronger" exclusively. It's not all designed to be therapy for you. Moreover, the game offers constant meta-critique of its "heroes." To portray is not to espouse.

Nicely played.

You must have the most uncommon set of friends, and have read a bunch of secret reviews (that no one else has seen) of the game.

This owl is referred to as "kawaii fukurou," I'm sure.

I dunno, I suppose that's possible. All I know is that I rampaged more in Red Dead Redemption than I likely ever will in GTA 5.

One thing I find interesting about GTA 5 is that, for all the talk of unbridled violence, or whatever, I go on self-directed killing sprees far, far less than in previous installments. To be perfectly honest, I think I've only done it once. At the end of a session, I decided to go check out the horse track for the…

Except the best pizza is made in CT. I lived there for half my childhood and never ate a steamed cheeseburger, so I'm not quite sure what that whole thing is about.

So they're delaying the game ... why? If it's not to make sure they get the quality right, then is it just to fuck with players? I'm not sure what you're trying to argue here.

Actually, yes. Those games are telling you that you should want to accumulate these arbitrary material items. Nobody is saying that this is a conscious transmission of ideology. The point is that it's in the game. You are not consuming an ideologically neutral object.

Yeah. I guess my larger point is that I didn't think it was sexually exploitative because it was so grotesque in certain ways that you couldn't really argue that it fit into or advanced some Western body standard, or whatever. I didn't get the impression that the artist was trying to say "This is how a woman should…

I didn't say it was a Japanese art style. It's very much a fantasy style, like you said, sort of a grotesque version of D&D artwork.

But if it's being talked about, it's there. That's kind of the point. No matter how transparent or neutral the ideological blackboard of a video game may appear, it can't help but be an ideological artifact.

Didactic is the word you're looking for. You don't want games to be didactic (i.e. transparently engaged in the act of beating some point into your head). But the thing is, a game can convey meaning without being didactic. One does not equal the other, necessarily.