A new game making fun of Toronto mayor Rob Ford is finding some early success, according to its creators. The free flash game, "Rob Ford: The Game" drops a rotund Mayor Ford into a one-screen platformer made up of Canadian flags. The object of the game is fairly straightforward: collect power-ups like marijuana leaves, crack pipes, and bottles of booze, while avoiding journalists and the police.

The game also features sound bites from Ford, including the infamous comment he made about having oral sex with his wife.

UK indie developer NotGames has launched a new game called NotGTAV, an extremely low-budget PC parody of Rockstar's popular open-world action adventure, set in the UK. The game lets you: harass sheep in rural Wales, raid a LIDL in Swindon and play as David Cameron in London running over liberals and public sector workers," according to Eurogamer.

Twenty-three-year-old Robin Ras, a Dutch game developer and owner of GamesOnly.com, has found a unique way of protesting Russian President Vladimir Putin's anti-gay policies. With the Winter Olympics in full swing at Sochi, Ras thought the best way to make a statement about the country's deplorable treatment of gays was to create a protest game.

The final episode in the Black Friday/Game of Thrones/Xbox One v. PS4 South Park storyline aired last night on Comedy Central and it was as wild, funny, and gruesome as anyone could imagine. There's not a lot we can say about the episode here that won't spoil it for viewers, but we can say that the episode mixes some crazy anime, some outlandish Game of Thrones jokes, and a couple of executive cameos to make for a highly amusing episode.

We'll leave you with this quote from the episode:

"I just want us to play Call of Duty on the right machine."

An amusing edition of comedy site The Onion's "American Voices" gets some opinions from faux men and women on the street. In this edition they tackle a recent study by British researchers that concluded that playing video games even at an early age does not impact a child's behavior. The lede reads as follows:

Virality Farms offers a live action reimagining of the classic Nintendo Entertainment System light gun game, Duck Hunt, complete with a crazy hunter, a smart assed dog, and a duck that can be pretty hard to hit. You can check out the video to your left. A few take-aways from the video:

- Never let your dog hold your gun while riding a four-wheeler.

- PETA might not like this video as both the duck and the dog are exploited and abused.

You can find more Virality farms videos here.

PETA is using the excitement of the recent release of Pokémon X & Y for the 3DS to promote a vegan lifestyle with a new Flash-based game that prominently features a bastardization of Pikachu and Ronald McDonald called Pokémon: Red, White, and Blue (An Unofficial Parody).

The game has Pikachu attempting to uncover conspiracies about the fast food industry in the United States including how food for various chain restaurants in produced.

What better way to end the day than to focus on a spoof of this week's new PlayStation 3 game Beyond: Two Souls. The game developed by Quantic Dream and starring Hollywood actors Willem Defoe and Ellen Page, offers a lot of choices but plays out like an interactive movie, according to some critics.

Well, the faux trailer for the (not) upcoming fake game, "Ellen Page Simulator 2014," promises to let players shape the future Page by letting them make important life choices for her...

What do you get when you cross endless runner gameplay (think Temple Run) elements with an Edward Snowden escapade? You get an endless runner called Snowden Run 3D. The third-person perspective runner was created by Michele Rocco Smeets, who wanted to create a game that highlighted (for the sake of comedy) Snowden's whistle-blowing activities, the NSA's PRISM and mobile phone surveillance programs and his final real-world destination in Russia.

A new web game called "Snowden's Leaks: The Game" (starring Edward Snowden and President Obama) lets players take the man who leaked information about the NSA's spying activities (PRISM and mobile phone data collection) for a spin as he fills up USB drives with secret data while avoiding NSA agents and security cameras using distractions like doughnuts and hiding places like behind the American flag.

Libertarian publication Reason has a new song from resident parody prodigy Remy about the NSA's mobile phone surveillance program called "Tap It: The NSA Slow Jam." The song makes fun of the NSA's PRISM program and its practice of collecting Americans' mobile phone meta-data that was leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

The best line in the song, in my opinion:

"Text yourself about it, let us know how you feel."

You can find the lyrics here.

Here's something you won't see every day: a video showing what a LEGO game version of AMC's hit series about making meth - Breaking Bad - might look like. The parody video created by animator Brian Anderson mixes the popular show's plot and characters with the humor of a LEGO video game with amusing results. On the YouTube page for his video, Anderson offers the following disclaimer:

The following faux game commercial is over-the-top but admittedly funny in an ironic sort of way. The commercial is for "the greatest real time strategy game never made; Chinese Electronics Factory Worker: The Game!"

The best and most cringe inducing quote from the video is when the young boy playing the game proclaims:

"Exploiting Chinese Workers is awesome!"

Watch the video to your left. Thanks to Jamie Stanton for sending us the video link.

Steven Davis dropped us a note informing us of a trailer that, he claims, he made for "some Hollywood producers" who asked him to make a movie trailer mock-up of Namco Bandai's classic arcade game Dig Dug. He calls the film "a fan made trailer" and lists all the materials he used to piece it together. The movie borrows scenes from such films as The Core, Tekken, Reign of Fire, 9, Monsters Vs.

Last week FortressCraft creator Adam Sawkins had some colorful words for Minecraft creator Notch and his community after a denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on his game's website took it offline. It also happened to be the day that Minecraft launched on Xbox Live Arcade. Hmmm. He called the police too. 

Every once in awhile someone creates a parody that is absolutely brilliant, but this music video of Coldplay's "Viva la Vida" built inside Minecraft is quite impressive. The song is performed by TryHardNinja and the world map seems to have been built specifically for the video. 

Zachary Cohn dropped us a note to let us know about a parody of the song "American Pie" called "The Day the Lolcats Died." The parody video was created by Cohn and his partners-in-crime over at Laugh Pong to protest SOPA and PIPA. Cohn calls it "entertaining and light, but with a clear call to action." We agree. Be sure to look for a special cameo from someone very familiar. You can check out the video to you left.

Sometimes when someone says something stupid, outlandish or inappropriate the only defense they can use is that it was "just a joke." That's the tune PETA is playing to backpedal away from attacking Mario for wearing a Tanooki-suit with a press release and a web game called Mario Kills Tanooki. Today PETA tells web site Kotaku that the whole campaign was meant to be "tongue-in-cheek." Gamers found it to be more like "foot in mouth" or "head up ass."

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart takes a few jabs at the Supreme Court's ruling on Brown v. EMA. At first glance it seems like Stewart goes hard after videogames, using several admittedly gratuitous video clips from the new Mortal Kombat game. As the first scene unfolds on the monitor Stewart feigns holding back on vomiting and screams, during the second scene he makes a joke about the female character having a wardrobe malfunction. In between he throws a joke in about Super Mario Boners (a Photoshop of a Super Mario Galaxy cover with a huge fleshy erection).

Stewart's point is one that many are making this week; that sex is even taboo at the Supreme Court and that sexual imagery continues not to be treated on the same footing as depictions of gratuitous violence.

Point taken and noted.

Sony announced its "Welcome Back appreciation program" for PlayStation Network users, and while some found the free game offerings for PS3 and PSP exciting, many in the community are not happy with the selections. While Sony understands PSN user frustration, the company defended the free baubles it is offering gamers.

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe's Head of communications Nick Caplin told Eurogamer: "We've tried really hard to put together a list of high quality BD games, rather than simply offering cheaper PSN titles. The average metacritic rating for these games is over 84 percent, so these are high quality games."

PlayStation 3 owners are each entitled to choose two games from a list of five, which includes Dead Nation, inFAMOUS, LittleBigPlanet, Super Stardust HD, and Wipeout HD + Fury. PSP owners choose two games from a list that includes LittleBigPlanet (PSP), ModNation Racers, Pursuit Force, and Killzone Liberation.

A new game from indie developer Happy Monster Games launches today for Android called "TrickyLeaks." As the title suggests, TrickyLeaks puts Julian Assange and Wikileaks in the roles of antagonists in an all-new puzzle game where you play one of eight evil mega-corporations with plenty of secrets to hide from the world.

The goal of the game is to get all of your secrets back through your pipes before all your dirty laundry is revealed to the world. Throughout the course of the game, you get to play as parodies of real companies like the creator of Mineshaft (Minecraft), Bank of Omerica (Bank of America) and NASO (NASA). You'll even get to see real (fake) secrets leaked from these companies if you fail. The game also features Julian Assange on a bulldozer.. Weird.

The game should be available on the Android App Store now. For more information, check out www.happymonstergames.com.

Team Meat (developers Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes) have responded to PETA's Super Meat Boy parody game on their official blog, saying that, while he sympathizes with the organization’s cause, he takes issue with some of what their game, Super Tofu Boy, takes liberties with. Edmund McMillen thanked PETA for giving his little indie game a dramatic push, though he does not appreciate that they do not understand just what Super Meat Boy really is:

"First off I want to thank Peta for helping us turn Super Meat Boy into a house hold name and of course for making themselves look quite foolish in the process... see (as mentioned in countless interviews) Meat Boy isn't made of animal meat, he's simply a boy without skin whose name is Meat Boy.. but sshh don't tell them that."

PETA is at it again, with another game making fun of something having to do with MEAT. PETA despises meat almost as much as I enjoy a juicy Porterhouse (medium rare), with a side of delicious mushrooms, mashed potatoes, and delicious ponds of gravy..

The latest target is the wonderful indie game Super Meat Boy. PETA has made a Flash game called Super Tofu Boy, which jabs fun at Super Meat Boy's gameplay, storyline and characters. The game offers ten levels featuring the soy-based life-form as he platforms much like our meaty friend, complete with pro-vegetarian messages here and there to drive home the point that meat is bad and vegetables are wonderful. For the record, I love vegetables too.

You can play Super Tofu Boy at the PETA web site.

Source: Kotaku by way of Rodrigo Ybáñez García.

This week's controversy over President Obama's speech to America's school children has morphed into a rather unfortunate online game.

Obama's School Camp comes from Scottish firm T-Enterprise, which often mocks political issues with their Friday game offerings. Today's game challenges players to press letters on their keyboards which correspond to paper airplanes floating toward an animation of the President. Press the right letter quickly enough and the paper airplane disappears. Otherwise, it strikes the Obama character.

The paper airplane imagery seems to be an especially poor choice for a game published today, September 11th. It seems an even worse decision given that the game comes from T-Enterprise, which was the firm behind the now-canceled Rendition: Guantanamo project. A consultant to that game was alleged to have ties to Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Earlier this month GamePolitics reported on a study which suggested that excessive video game and T.V. time may be contributing to reduced vitamin D levels in children.

Funny man Stephen Colbert, however, may have the answer. In the clip at left, Colbert recommends using the "VaxBox 360" to play Tan Theft Auto, thus soaking in gobs of vitamin D-producing UV rays.

Okay, so it's funnier when Colbert says it...

If you want to skip ahead to the game-related bits, they begin at about 3:45 into the clip.

Via: Kotaku

Never far from the harsh glare of the media, the Clintons have once again been in the news of late.

Bill, of course, was recently credited with negotiating the release of two American journalists held by North Korea. Hillary's news was less positive. During a visit to the Democratic Republic of Congo this week, a journalist's misstated question prompted a testy reply:

You want me to tell you what my husband thinks? My husband is not the Secretary of State, I am. You ask my opinion. I will tell you my opinion; I'm not going to channel my husband.

As it turned out, the questioner meant to ask what President Obama thought about the issue, not former President Clinton.

The incident did not go unnoticed by the crew at T-Enterprise. The UK firm offers a new online game just about every Friday and this week it's Hillary: First Blood. In the game, a Rambo-esque Hillary, equipped with an RPG, tank and helicopter, must rescue a trio of journalists from Iran before Bill can fly in and sweet-talk them out of captivity. Along the way, the Secretary of State has to dodge spikes and a minefield.

A recently-concluded strike by sanitation workers in Toronto serves as the subject matter for Trash Wars, an online parody game.

As the Toronto Star reports, the game was designed by Hafiz Kassam, owner of Q-KMBR Games. Kassam told the newspaper:

It just popped into my head. I have made games in the past... just for the sake of making them, but I wanted to (release) something for the mainstream public – something with a message versus just a game.

 

I dumbed [the complexity] down so people don't get overwhelmed. (It's) for people who don't play video games that often.

Indeed, the game simply involves shooting ever-increasing numbers of rats as you stand atop a large pile of uncollected trash bags.

GP: Thanks to GamePolitics reader Trencher for the tip!

New from Addicting Games is the tongue-in-cheek puzzler Where's the Naughty Governor?

The super-easy Where's Waldo? clone challenges player to find visual clues related to the cases of philandering guvs and ex-guvs like South Carolina's Mark Sanford, New York's Eliot Spitzer and New Jersey's Jim McGreevey. Philandering would-be president John Edwards is tossed in for good measure. Sarah Palin  made the cut too, but for quitting her post rather than for extra-curricular marital activities.

As an added bonus (and this lackluster game needs all the help it can get), the Los Angeles Times has an interesting article on the creative process behind Where's the Naughty Governor?:

The quintet [of game designers] quickly work their way through 15 politicians with slippery zippers before settling on five. Sen. Ensign of Nevada is labeled "kinda boring" and tossed out because he promptly admitted his infidelity; mayors Villaraigosa [of Los Angeles] and Newsom [of San Francisco] don't have big enough national profiles; former Sen. Larry E. Craig of Idaho is set aside because his arrest for allegedly soliciting sex in an airport bathroom by tapping his foot could... deserve its own game.

Those making the cut: Sanford, Spitzer, McGreevey and Edwards [Palin was apparently added later]. Dave Williams, senior VP of Nickelodeon's games group, even reaches into the past for one more addition.

"Could we end on Bill Clinton? He's the big boss!" [a designer] says with a laugh, using the video-game term for a final and most difficult opponent.

Having finished Team of Rivals, a study of Abraham Lincoln's politicial genius, blogger Nate Janewit of Tech Industry Guerilla notes with despair that a Spielberg/Peter Jackson film adaptation may be in the works.

Expecting that the movie won't do justice to historian Doris Kearns Goodwin's Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Janewit, a program manager in Microsoft's Bing team, goes on to speculate about what a subsequent video game version of Team of Rivals might be like:

[CUE DEEP-VOICED ANNOUNCER AND IMAGES OF EXPLOSIONS]

ANNOUNCER: From the studios that brought you The Sims and Madden 2009 comes…LINCOLN!

[IMAGE OF LINCOLN SITTING IN A CHAIR THINKING]

ANNOUNCER: Balance the conservative and radical elements of your party…

[IMAGE OF LINCOLN WITH HAND IN THE AIR SURROUNDED BY CROWDS]

ANNOUNCER: Placate the masses with your oratorical skill…

[IMAGE OF SALMON CHASE, PLOTTING AGAINST YOU AS SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY]

ANNOUNCER: Navigate the dangerous waters of political intrigue within your own Cabinet!

I can already picture the crowds of enthusiastic gamers lining up or preordering weeks in advance. For some reason, real history just isn’t as interesting as video games.

A recently-released Xbox Live Community Game (MS recently announced that these will soon be called Indie Games) features President Obama as a side-scrolling, 2-D brawler.

Angry Barry is available for 400 points on Xbox Live. We didn't spring for the game although we did check out the free demo.

Hillary Clinton makes an appearance in the game and the screen shot at left appears to feature Sarah Palin. From the game's XBL page:

Angry Barry is a sidescrolling, political parody, 1-2 player 2D beat 'em up in the tradition of many classic arcade games. Take control of Barry as he tries to take over the Presidency of the United States!