Agreed. I'd be interested in a greater variety of games that make me think and that touch on relevant subjects instead of feeding me with the same old escapist genre clichés, but I'd be very sceptical of games with a "message". Games would be an excellent medium for all kinds of propaganda and manipulation, so I'd rather not have someone put their "message" in them. And good books and movies don't have a clear message, IMO, they just offer you new perspectives on things you might not have thought about before and then leave it up to you what you make of it.

Maybe I'd wish for more complex games trying to make me reflect on life instead of just paying hommage to fictional tropes, but I certainly wouldn't want games with a clear-cut message. And I don't agree with the notion that artists have to educate their audience, I find that unappealing and rather insulting. Just because you can learn a lot from other people and their views on life doesn't mean they should "teach" you. I think it should be more about sharing, exchanging ideas, not one educating another.

Oh, and tackling social and political issues shouldn't be confused with making a game dead serious and depressing. That's what I hate about some socialcritical movies, the complete lack of humor. You can tell an entertaining story and still tackle relevant issues with it, you don't need to shove it in my face. A good story can make people laugh and think.

You are going to love Primordia then.

In fact, being the creepy stalker that I am, I hereby promise to gift you whatever edition you want (epic collector's copper-foiled box with an exclusive radium crystal? sure!) just to read your thoughts on the game.

Are you serious? Thanks a lot for that generous offer, but I probably would have bought it anyway ... :D

And I have to admit I still haven't played Resonance yet, I'm still stuck in Blackwell Deception and currently plaing through Da New Guys.

Btw, is anything known about the release date of Primordia yet?

I think Spec Ops: The Line does this quite well, actually. I was also thinking about games like Postal 2, which almost seem to try to subvert the genre; on that note, parody and satire are great vehicles to do this (and address greater social issues) in games too.

Quick question; what is a sexist, ultra-violent "wargasm" game?

Sure, but now you're going to feel guilty if you don't post your impressions, hehe.

Q4 2012.

I don't know, but I want to play one!

(Maybe Borderlands?)

Well, I took the word "wargasm" from Digital Image Design's game of the same name (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wargasm) and used it to refer to violent war games that know nothing but killing with a male-dominated attitude. The women in these games are usually shown as dependent, powerless, submissive sex objects.

I always considered killing an equal-opportunity pass-time. Is there such a thing as "female-dominated attitude" when it comes to it ?
Please elaborate while I nod my head as you desperately try not to sound sexist ;)...

Maybe this is a failing of my human male mind, but what games exactly are you referring too. The only shooters I can think of that might fit your description tend to be more fantasy than reality.

Also I agree with Vestin, when has killing been a predominantly male sport? Or have the women I have met who enjoy FPS and action games been nothing but the fevered dreams of a madman? Or the women now engaged in the defense of their respective countries and communities the world over in the professional armed services?

I'm not sure I really want to get involved in this discussion, but aren't you misreading Accatone's comment? I don't think he meant to say that women don't enjoy aggression, can't be violent or don't play FPS. The way I understand it he's referring to games that depict women rather as helpless victims than active protagonists (like in Duke Nukem perhaps?). Whether a majority of games actually fits this description or not, I can't say, since I don't play that many action games. From what I know there are certainly prominent strong and powerful female characters using violence to get their way, like Lara Croft or Rayne, but then again it's a double-edged sword since they're often pretty sexualized or even sexually exploited.

I can't speak about a lot of recent modern military shooters, but from the ones I've seen women aren't even present in any significant way at all.

Edit: Now that I think about it, you do play as a female character during the single-player campaign of BF3, but the character's gender hardly figures into the equation as you're just there to take part in an extended QTE.
That's kind of the problem with a lot of female protagonists - off the top of my head, the only exceptions I can think of are the new Lara Croft, and Konoko.

You mean in general or just in shooters? Jade from BG&E is another good counterexample, I think, or Carla from Fahrenheit. Adventures, be it Action or Point-and-Click, generally tend to have more female characters who are not that obviously sexualized, like the Blackwells from the identically named series, Kate Walker from Syberia, Sam from Gray Matter, April from The Longest Journey (although the game starts with her wearing nothing but her undies :D), Chrys Liszt from Insecticide, Naija from Aquaria, etc. Also Faith from Mirror's Edge, Chell from Portal and Samus Aran from Metroid, although in the latter cases gender hardly matters.

So there are several examples of strong female characters, it's just that they're in the minority, easy to list because they can be counted on the fingers of one ... um, okay, let's say three hands (compared to hundreds - or thousands? - of popular video games.)

Well, you mentioned the use of violence so I was really thinking more about female protagonists from action games in particular. Outside of that, the range gets much broader of course; my current favorite of the bunch are Rosangela and Lauren Blackwell, but Faith, Jade and Samus (just not Samus from OtherM) are good examples of action heroines too. FemShep is probably the biggest one right now, I imagine.