First person to guess the hidden message in the subjectline wins. 
I'm usually not on GS anymore but I wanted to see what the to look around GS Gamecube space for what Gamecube games to look for (it may sound like I'm changing my story but both reasons were part of why and this one more so) but instead decided to take a look at the poll, and from that I saw this...
www.gamespot.com/news/6151849.html
I remember playing Mercenaries 1 for a little while when one of my friends IRL rented it and I think it takes place in North Korea. It's quite ironic that I played the original of this, since I don't play many war simulators, at least not many of real wars (I find the whole idea quite distasteful) and though this is obviously fictional, it's still based in a real place and is obviously trying to send messages about it. Now what effect they will have I don't know, but as the site says, it is realistic enough that it might make people think it can happen...
Now some people there say that it's not coming from the government so you couldn't call it propaganda. Well, I think that since it's coming from the gaming industry, which benefits from libertarianism, (pro-business, lack of censorship... since gaming industry is example of big business and loses business from game censorship) it'd obviously have some slant or other against communitarian (authoritarian, anti-business) leaders. But then again you could say the same about many other games, there's lots of these other types of games based in real places. Sure, I remember last time I was playing Goldeneye I was at the Statue Park level where you could see tall solid hammer and sickle symbols as "statues" in three different places in the level... APPARENTLY the game would be trying to EMPHASIZE that it's Communists that are shooting (and being shot by) James Bond...
Now my opinions on this aren't completely developed but I decided I'd make a thread about it here and make a few comments about it.
On the one hand it probably wasn't intended to be propaganda, they may have just wanted to take what they could call "real" to attract the attention of gamers with and spun it to make it more interesting. Or they could have wanted to make people THINK that they were making propaganda to generate publicity for the game outside of gaming sites...
On the other hand like someone in there commented, this will probably only inflame an already sensitive situation either way.
You are a donkey*, Pandemic. 
*Will make more sense to those who know about him from some things on the news a while back...
EDIT:
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North Korea eventually banned the game.
What the hell? Wouldn't NK since it's Communist not provide video games anyway what with people not needing them and time being spent gaming means less doing work for the State?
So long as Peter Stormare comes back as the voice of the psychotic Swede merc, I'm a-ok with whatever situation the developers put us in.
"Sure it'll be easy. Just have to shoot a few bad guys, verify me a General, then I'm gonna order my custom built Lamborghini with diamond crested wheels. "
Wouldn't NK since it's Communist not provide video games anyway what with people not needing them and time being spent gaming means less doing work for the State?
Matt has just made yet another obscenely dumb statment. How long will it take him to find out why? Let's watch.
HINT: GO TO http://local.google.ca/local?f=q&hl=en&ll=35.86166,104.195397&spn=24.83708,55.546875&om=1
Earth to Matt. Communism != Soviet Union
Cyke, you say "another" not saying which statements I've made before that you're calling dumb. I noticed that that comment comes from someone who suggested that something was seriously wrong with me because I deviated from the norm.
I'm assuming from China being in the center when I clicked on that BEFORE minimizing it, that you're referring to China. Well China isn't completely Communist as it does allow a fair bit of free enterprise (part of Xiaoping's modernizations; I'm getting a head start on studying for finals between typing these posts and was reading my History book's chapter on China) and I figured that North Korean Communism would have been more along the lines of Soviet Union Communism than Chinese "Communism" seeing as how N.K is the U.S's enemy and China its trading partner.
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Cyke, you say "another" not saying which statements I've made before that you're calling dumb. I noticed that that comment comes from someone who suggested that something was seriously wrong with me because I deviated from the norm.
Actually, he said that because your statement was dumb. Everyone makes a dumb statement from time to time, and you're not immune from that.
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Actually, he said that because your statement was dumb. Everyone makes a dumb statement from time to time, and you're not immune from that.
No, he's called me dumb before. He's called me a moron for using the bit number to judge a console's hardware power, and he's said things even recently like "please stop making Canada look stupid"
Maybe he is just "saying what everyone's thinking" but no matter how many people are thinking it that doesn't make it correct. If he was referring solely to that statement, I doubt he'd have said "yet another"
[Edit: Switched to EzCodes]
Funny. I loved Mercs 1 and am highly anticipating this release.
Funny how Chavez is acting all dumb/normal like always. 😀
Anyway I find the idea of games being propganda laughable. It's a freaking video game. Do these people honestly have nothing better to do than bash LucasArts? It's not like the government is telling game companies what to and what not to do on a scale like this.
Effective Governments do not concern themselves with videogames. First person to mention America's Army gets shot at.
Well, as much as I still doubt that the game would necessarily be propaganda I still feel obligated to point out some things... it doesn't necessarily have to be from the government to be propaganda. It comes from big business, so you could probably expect that it would send negative messages about an anti-business (?) leader.
I'm sure you'd have heard about the effects entertainment media can have by now. Though frankly I'm not surprised to see the "effective governments do not concern themselves with videogames" statement coming from a republican supporter, as I am quite used to the games-aren't-dangerous mindset being associated with economic libertarians on other sites, such as GS last summer with "Hillary Clinton is left-wing and she's trying to control what we can and can't buy she acts like a commie but this is America" etc...
No offense. o.o
Uh am I supposed to take offense? You're rambling o.o
Sheez. Anyway. Why is it that it's only a republican who thinks governments should be more concerned on things like, oh, I dunno...Running the country? instead of playing PS3. Why is that a Republican concept that governmetns are supposed to, you know, govern.
Someone take away this guy's keyboard =/
[Edited to fix wording and mention a few things that I find it hard to believe I forgot to mention earlier]
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Uh am I supposed to take offense? You're rambling o.o
I just like plagiarizing your previous wording for the sake of doing so.
Edit: Also, it was somewhat of a stereotype of Republicans.
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Why is it that it's only a republican who thinks governments should be more concerned on things like, oh, I dunno...Running the country? instead of playing PS3. Why is that a Republican concept that governmetns are supposed to, you know, govern.
Perhaps I misinterpreted your previous comment, and misworded mine. I didn't mean to say that I'd be really surprised at all to see that comment coming from a Democrat either, or even a non-U.S leftist. I'm just somewhat used to Republican supporters associating the anti-game stance with being "left-wing".
You said that it'd be ineffective for them to concern themselves with video games at all. Well, I think it could be considered part of governing since when they cut off profitability of games like GTASA that helps keep companies like Rockstar from getting too rich off of using publicity for sales, especially since GTA games reward crime... but yeah that's another story.
No, GTA fills a niche of the gaming community, or something like that. Using publicity for sales isn't a crime. It's a marketing technique.
Oh, and as for anti-games being associated with left-wing people?
Hillary Clinton
Jack Thompson
That one senator that I can't remember
What do they have in common? Hating games (And the internet, Jack Thompson. But you're a freaking idiot, I'm not concerned with you.) and being to the left of average. Hmm!
Joe Lieberman.
No, GTA fills a niche of the gaming community, or something like that.
Being the twelfth, thirteenth and fifteenth best-selling games of all time, with a total of 38.4 million units sold (and that's just the PS2 versions) isn't exactly "niche".
Oh, and as for anti-games being associated with left-wing people? Jack Thompson
What the hell are you talking about? Jack Thompson is a self-described Christian conservative and a Republican douchebag to boot.
Also, do I really have to point out that being anti-games isn't exactly exclusive to the left? Check out this Fox News article in which parents are warned in typical shrill fashion of the evils of PSPs, which allow kids to "magically" procure pornographic images "out of thin air". Also, at least four of the main characters on board with Hillary's latest bandwagon are Republicans, including such favourites as Sam Brownback and Rick Santorum. And Republican state legislators have sponsored video game legislation this year in Minnesota, Maryland, Louisiana and Oklahoma, all states which have either enacted or seem certain to enact video game laws.
Seriously, though, there's no discernible pattern. Not everything is separated along party lines. Stop being a partisan windbag.
What I mean is, if GTA didn't exist, another freeroaming game would be in it's place. Hell maybe not a freeroaming game? Maybe jsut a game about killing everything, and drugs, and killing hookers to get money back.
As for the jack thompson thing,
I've only ever heard of him being compared to Hillary Clinton. And Hillary Clinton was left last time I looked...which was a while ago. I don't track politics much. Sorry if I'm not correct. What, did she change or something, regarding your last paragraph?
And to say there's Republican nutjobs is a matter of course. there's Democrat ones too, Mr. Kerry.
But this isn't really the place to get in a Republican/Democrat flamewar (And I use this term lightly. Windbag? Ow. You sound like Bolton pissed. "I find this highly unacceptable...!!!")
And yeah most things ARE on party lines. Sorry.
I've only ever heard of him being compared to Hillary Clinton. And Hillary Clinton was left last time I looked...which was a while ago. I don't track politics much. Sorry if I'm not correct. What, did she change or something, regarding your last paragraph?
Huh? No, I was pointing out that Hillary is joined by dozens of Pubs in her campaign against violent games, and that a half-dozen anti-game bills have been tabled and/or passed in the past year with widespread Republican support. The whole point I was trying to make was that being in favour of government regulation of violent games is not at all exclusive to Democrats and that the Republicans are just as guilty of it. So much so that Sam Brownback -- Sam F'ing Brownback -- is teaming up with the likes of Hillary Clinton to try to ban violent games. You're drawing a line where there is none and using it as an excuse to fling insults at the Democrats.
But this isn't really the place to get in a Republican/Democrat flamewar
If we did it would be your fault. All I'm asking is that you stop pointlessly lacing your posts with obnoxious partisan jabs. Seriously, nobody cares.
And yeah most things ARE on party lines.
Only if you're a sectarian idiot who watches too many vacuous "debate shows" like Crossfire.
SX, I wasn't saying using that was a crime, I was saying that the GTA games reward crime in-game, from what I remember of what I've played. Getting publicity through controversy is a cheap tactic, but not a crime. I've played them before... besides a few minutes' worth of GTA3 and GTAVC, I've played a pirated copy of GTA2 once. How ironic, stealing a game that involves theft. I've felt guilty about piracy before, and I've felt guilty about playing M-rated games before, though the former I've done much more often than the latter. GTA2 is a case where guilt about both, for some reason, cancels each other out. Though in neither case would the guilt last for long anyway...
As for the part about the game legislation, well, different ideologies are authoritarian in different ways, so I guess I could understand anti-game legislation coming from different political groups, for different reasons, and different political groups opposing it for different reasons... I'm just used to seeing dislike of violent games be associated with the left.
Anyway back on topic, where was I? Something about it not having to be from government to be propaganda...
