"State of Emergency" was released awhile ago, but alas, it's a so-so game. It just didn't live up to the juicy press releases.
> Except for military simulation games, rarely do games
> so explicitly make politics part of their gameplay.
Videogame politics is very tongue-in-cheek, salted with several varieties of Geek Humor (TM, Pat. Pending). In Counterstrike, for example, players team up as police or terrorists.
> The more video games appear on the surface to emancipate
> the player, raising his or her status as an active participant in the
> aesthetic moment, the more they enfold the player into codified
> and routinized models of behavior.
But -- every neo-Frankfurt School/Foucauldian critique should have that Brechtian/Benjaminic "but" -- great videogames balance simplicity with complexity, by giving players the freedom to explore a game-world and design their own unique solutions. No set-piece conflict in Half Life or Neil Manke monster mash is ever quite the same.
> Only eight buttons (mirrored in eight bits) are available
> for the entire
> spectrum of expressive articulation using the controller on the Nintendo
> Entertainment System.
Ah, the good old NES -- came out in 1985. Had some great games, too, thanks to Miyamoto-san.
-- DRR