Dean's World

Am I talking about the newest attempt of the left to take away our 2nd Amendment rights?

Nope.

I'm talking about the latest attempt of the right to infringe upon our 1st Amendment rights.

Where is this battle taking place? A little known video game called Mass Effect. It may ring a bell for some of you here because I've talked about it recently. It's a fantastic RPG for the Xbox 360. It's one of the reasons I own a 360.

And now some idiot conservative is using it in his crusade against the 1st Amendment. And what bugs me most isn't that I think he's wrong, or misguided, or just plain dumb. No. What bugs me most is that he is flat-out lying. Here, read this tool's words yourself.

If you've played the game, you know how full of it this guy is. And you should also realize there's no way he could simply be mistaken. He's says things that are completely false. He points to the blue sky and tells us it's green when he knows for a fact it's blue.

But, as a service for those that have not played the game, I will go through this piece of journalistic trash for you.

It's called "Mass Effect" and it allows its players - universally male no doubt - to engage in the most realistic sex acts ever conceived.

First, the man is sexist. "Universally male?" Where's his data? And so what if he's right? That has no bearing whatsoever on the argument at hand unless he's saying male gamers share blame with BioWare (the makers of the game). As for realistic sex: No. I'm sorry but he's wrong. Pop in God of War. You actually get to see breasts in all their glory in that one. Is there sex in Mass Effect? Yep. There is. Is it realistic? I think it's plain to see that by "realistic" the writer means "graphic." And it's not. In fact, it's quite tame by any standard. Bare backsides, hugging, I think there was a hand on some steamed glass once.

Nothing you can't find on television.

Starting with the disgusting idea that one can "create" their own versions of what people look like, removing warts, moles, and bald spots while enhancing - shall we say - the extended features of the game's characters tends to objectify women, sex, and human relationships. Right? We can all agree on this?

No we can not agree!

And the process that he is so disgusted with is called character creation. And I'd think a sane person wouldn't have a problem with it. Except this man isn't sane. If I want to play a short, bald, fat man I can. If I want to make an object of sex I can. If I want to make an average joe I can. If I want to play a female I can. If I want to play a male I can (and I did). The writer of this piece seems to think gamers are only sex obsessed pre-teen males. Well, if he actually even looked at the box he'd see this game has an "M" rating. That means it's not supposed to be played by anyone under 17 anyway.

Then there's the dishonesty behind the game' title. "Mass Effect" sounds like a war game with a deadly virus that is spreading unless the GI-Joes are able to defeat the evil and deadly substance and it's covert war plan.

Dishonesty!? What the blankity-blank-blank-blankity-blank are you talking about? The game isn't called Rainbow Pony Shining Adventure in Chocolate River Land! And that this waste of human space draws any conclusions about what the title means is his own problem. Maybe if he read the back of the game's box he might be a little better educated.

By it's design, kids could ask for it, or for their parents' Best Buy Card to go purchase it with nary a raised eye-brow. Generic, non-descriptive, and relatively harmless.

Kids could ask for a nail gun if they wanted to. Do you want to argue nail guns are designed for kids to use? And it's (OMFG!!!) the parent's responsibility to be the gatekeeper for everything that lands in little Timmy's little Xbox 360.

And the title, Mass Effect, is not non-descriptive. It describes a scientific phenomenon that exists within the game. I do not know if this is described on the back of the box. And, really, it doesn't need to be.

But it IS marketed for the X-Box 360, perhaps the most visually stimulating gaming system ever made. The software for such allows the blending of DVD video, component graphics, and the manipulation of actual pictures so that an alternate reality engulfs the fifteen year old boy playing it without much objection.

I'd say the PS3 is more visually stimulating, but as this guy doesn't know anything about the game he's talking about I don't expect him to know anything about the console hardware either.

And why is a 15 year old playing Mass Effect? I just told you it's clearly marked for 17+.

Now if I have trouble with my son taking his James Bond 007 games a little too emotionally, imagine the powerful effect that hormones add to the mix when the player's own character is copulating like jack rabbits with super-models, actresses, and anyone else they can spend the patience to create, name, and "put into play."

Why is you son's emotional immaturity my problem?

And copulating like jack-rabbits? Where the hell is that in the game because I missed it!

The player can only have sex twice in the game. Again, both times are very, very tame and one of those times is only at the conclusion of persuing a romantic relationship with an NPC (non-player character). So, for that second jump in the hay, you're looking at some 20+ hours of persuit. Not exactly a sex-on-demand game, is it?

If a pre-teen, teen, young adult, or adult male plays such a game in which the women DO submit without choice, are made to appear as Barbie streetwalkers, and perform whatever act can be imagined, what's to stop that same male from assuming that the women in his "other world" shouldn't be forced to do the same.

You frakin' liar. You are a liar and should have your opinion page yanked. Never once in the game can you make any NPC do anything it doesn't want to do. Hell, you can't even get your own character to do whatever you want them to do! And, again, the two possible sex acts do not occur whenever the player likes. If someone comes away from Mass Effect thinking they can get women to do whatever they want whenever they want, they came to the game with those problems in the first place.

And because of the digital chip age in which we live - "Mass Effect" can be customized to sodomize whatever, whoever, however, the game player wishes.

NO IT CANNOT! You stinking liar!

Really, you have no idea how mad this makes me. I love video games. I want to make a living creating them. And to see a fantastic game smeared by some pathetic knuckle-dragging baboon sickens me. Not because he said it. But because there are people out there that will listend to him and never have the oppertunity to see the deceptive twit for what he really is.