Metal Gear has always been packed with messages about the genome, nuclear proliferation, etc. Kojima loves his little quips, lol... "Yeah, but you don't know how good a cigarette tastes in the morning." And GTA does take a satrical look at a whole lot of topics. I love the talk radio stations in all of the games of the series, if you listen to those long enough you'll hear a few silly little messages here and there. Fallout... that's one big huge message, hehe. If we expect games to be considered art as films, novels, and music are, we should be allowed to express ourselves. I think that most developers don't express themselves like that because they want to avoid being controversial, unless they work at Rockstar of course
. But I totally see where Jeku is coming from... I don't think *every game* should have a message. If I were watching
Spaceballs and Darth Helmet started talking about how evil Reagan was in the 1980's, that movie would find its way off my list of favorites, hehe. But if I rented
Babel and it were filled with knock-knock jokes and slapstick, I'd want my money back lol.
A good person to bring up here is George Carlin (not because he recently passed, but because he's a really good footnote for this topic I think). I've met people who've disagreed with his views of god, politics, and corporatism, but still found him absolutely hilarious. They don't care because it's still funny, regardless of how much they disagree. He's the polar opposite of, say, Radiohead (yeah, I know, sue me lol)... 90% of their songs have a message, but it's up to the listener if they want to sit down and think about it, whereas with Carlin, you're hearing the message whether you want to or not, and you're only left to decide if you'll take it with a grain of salt or get offended during a standup routine. Brilliant
. Anyway, I think those are acceptable in instances where the expressed views of artists aren't directly involved in the plot. But again, it all comes down to personal tastes I think. Not everyone can sit down and enjoy a movie like
The Good Shepard, but it does appeal to a certain audience.
