Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) may have suggested that executives of public money sink AIG commit ritual suicide, but animation artist Joaqin Baldwin's approach to the new icon of corporate greed is far more diabolical. More fun, too.

AIG Exec UFO Catcher is Baldwin's AIG-themed take on those coin-op claw machines that one finds in arcades and the lobbies of greasy spoon diners. You know, maneuver the claw to grab a small stuffed animal.

In Baldwin's vision, however, players use the claw to collect AIG execs who are partying on the taxpayers' dime. Trillions of dimes, actually...

Entertainingly, things just don't work out so well with the claw feature.

Although the game is a bit NSFW, AIG hate is so rampant at the moment that even the most prudish of bosses will probably look the other way. After all, the boss is a taxpayer, too.

Via: GameCulture

If you've been laid off, you'll have plenty of time on your hands to play the Layoff game - at least until your PC is repo'd.

The new, Bejeweled-like offering from tiltfactor satirizes the plight of worker bees who are paying the price for the incompetent Wall Street types behind the economic meltdown.

A company press release describes the game, which was developed by Prof. Mary Flanagan, Dartmouth’s Digital Humanities Chair in partnership with the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) Game Design and Development program:

Players play from the side of management needing to cut jobs, and match types of workers in groups in order to lay the workers off and increase workforce efficiency... Players eliminating many workers in a row find financiers and bankers taking the place of working class jobs. The financiers in this game cannot face layoffs.

Prof. Flanagan comments on Layoff:

The game has an unsettling feeling. It is cute and fun to play, but when you realize how frightening the situation is, the game in fact functions as a very dark portent.

Via: Kotaku

It has been a rough week for frenetic financial guru Jim Cramer, host of MSNBC's Mad Money program.

Having been pilloried on several recent episodes of The Daily Show, Cramer opted to appear as a guest, apparently in an attempt to explain himself to host Jon Stewart. Bad idea: Cramer's Daily Show appearance was a disaster.

Financial site The Big Money lampoons Cramer's media woes with Crashteroids, a fun little Asteroids knock-off:

Avenge Cramer’s disgrace at the hands of Jon Stewart by blasting his smug grin into space dust. Defeat Business Insider’s Henry Blodget, a man who once called Cramer “a chair-throwing, self-aggrandizing clown.”

 

Protect Cramer from Fox Business, a network that sneered, “[T]he last thing you need is Jim Cramer.” Shred Barron’s magazine, a publication that has tried to prove Cramer gives crappy investment advice. And, of course, keep the grizzly hordes of bear-market economists at bay.

Via: The Business Insider

I thought I knew my classic games pretty well, but somehow I'm drawing a blank on this particular Atari 2600 cartridge.

In fact, Technabob has uncovered an entire series of parody 2600 carts. Most aren't political, but they are definitely worth a look - and a laugh.

Via: Examiner.com

Over at Water Cooler Games, Ian Bogost writes about Jetset, his iPhone/iPod Touch game that pokes fun at the bureraucratic nightmare that is modern airport security.

From the description:

The challenges of today's airport security make business and pleasure travel increasingly difficult. Security is there to make you feel safe and get you to your plane in one piece. However, today's regulations change frequently and are often different from airport to airport. Now, you too can stand in the shoes of a security agent trying to avert terrorism while getting everyone through a checkpoint quickly...

Play 100 different airports from around the world... Strip search travelers for fun... Confiscate dangerous travel items like pressurized cheese — all inspired by real events in airport security... Game automatically selects the airport you are in or near based on available location services

Jetset is currently available on the iTunes App Store for $3.99

2P Start takes note of President Obama's recently-passed stimulus package by invoking the graphic style of the old Number Munchers game (perhaps some GP readers played it in school).

The artist explains:

I kind of get the feeling this comic might appeal more to The Oregon Trail crowd... Number Munchers was another early educational PC game that a lot of us probably played in elementary school...

 

In any event, we’re not trying to spark a political debate here, it’s just that $787 billion is a staggering number, even for an old pro like Muncher!

Steve Nelson, who has created fascinating visualizations which combine real-world political data with the Second Life metaverse, is at it again.

On his Clear Night Sky blog, Nelson has posted a video which mashes up SL and the 2010 federal budget:

To commemorate the 2010 federal budget... I have installed a new feature at the Capitol Hill in Second Life.

Using the APIs available from USASpending.gov, the Show Me the Money! piggy bank will shower $100 bills down on the Capitol Hill legislative chamber. Each bill has the name of one of the top 50 recipients of government funding during 1Q 2009. The size of the bill is proportionate to the amount of money received, at a scale of $1billion = 1 Second Life meter.

Humor site The Onion asks whether violent games are doing enough to prepare our children for the coming Apocalypse.

Given the number of post-apocalyptic games, it may actually be a reasonable question...

Via: Kotaku

A Japanese finance minister who appeared to be drunk and sleepy during a G7 press conference earlier this month is the subject a new parody game for mobile phones.

As reported by the Telegraph, Shoichi Nakagawa delivered the less-than-stellar performance at left during G7 in Rome:

Now [Nakagawa] has become the latest target of Japan's mischievous game industry. Players are invited to wake a likeness of Mr Nakagawa as he fields questions at a press conference and then let him nap to increase his energy reserves.

Players gain points in "Drowsy Presser by Drugged Minister" if they boost Mr Nakagawa's "support rating" by having him answer journalists' questions. But if the minister is caught sleeping by journalists, he falls off his chair and the game is over.

A just-released online news game allows player to try their hand at saving the economy.

As reported by the New York Daily News, Addicting Games exec Kate Connally describes Trillion Dollar Bailout:

With this game we're giving game players the chance to experience what it's like to make a decision about who to bailout and who not to. Games can help people experience news events by putting them in the shoes of the people in the action.

 

News events are something that really unite our culture, everyone experiences it together, so adding games into the mix of how people are experiencing major national events is just part of what we do. They're not just a silly pass time. It's a form social commentary.

In Trillion Dollar Bailout players are presented with cash requests from corporate executives and average homeowners. It's up to the player to decide how to dole out the bailout bucks.

GP: We initially embedded the game with this story, but - rather obnoxiously - it starts running when the GP page loads. You can, however, click the link to check the game out.
 

While gamers continue to debate whether or not the upcoming Resident Evil 5 contains racist imagery, the Penny Arcade crew has weighed in on the issue with a new comic (left).

Incidentally, in a recent GamePolitics poll on the topic, 83% of GP readers disagreed with the idea that there was racism in the game.

For the full PA comic, click here.

Apple, it appears, takes a rather dim view of political satire - at least where iPhone apps are concerned.

TechCrunch reports that Apple has nixed a seemingly harmless game in which depictions of President Barack Obama and other U.S. political figures jump on a virtual trampoline.

The news comes on the heels of Apple's recent rejection of another would-be iPhone game which parodies December's hurling of a shoe at then-President Bush. That well-known incident was widely satirized via online Flash games.

TechCrunch questions Apple's censorship of Obama Trampoline:

Developer Swamiware was surprised to see its latest iPhone app rejected by Apple, and so are we. The application was a harmless game that let you select a known U.S. politician (both republicans and democrats) and have him/her jump a virtual trampoline...

 

Does the Obama Trampoline app actually ridicule public figures? It’s not obscene or pornographic of nature, so why was it deemed either offensive or defamatory?

Kotaku reports that Japanese publisher Daletto is offering what appears to be a Barack Obama figure as downloadable content for its Street Fighter Online: Mouse Generation, a PC game.

The Obama figure and other DLC characters are available as part of a Valentine's Day update.

The Illinois Senate may have given  Rod Blagojevich the boot via impeachment, but game developer Yanki.JP is celebrating the disgraced ex-Guv's reign with with Pay2Play, a new iPhone app.

The game's website lets us know that this is not exactly a hardcore political sim:

Pay2Play is the game of trading and danger. How much money can YOU make selling senate seats? Head all over Illinois trading your way to success!

You have 30 days to pay back the unions, make tons of cash, and get out of town all before getting impeached! Transposing a trading game such as Dopewars with a slick interface on the iPhone.

Also a gaming first! Alcopops make it to the game scene for the first time. See what Illinois politicians have been so worried about!

The alcopops reference is a dig at a recent Illinois law prohibiting the depiction of the sweet, boozy drinks in games aimed at children - not that there has ever been an alcopop depicted in a video game.

Eager to try your hand at corrupt Illinois politics? You'll have to wait a bit longer. Pay2Play is currently on hold pending AppStore approval.

Via: Kotaku 

A new online game serves as both a parody and a protest of a notorious free speech case in Thailand.

You Have To Defecate Upon King Bhumibol calls attention to the Thai government's imprisonment of Harry Nicolaides. As reported by the BBC, the Australian novelist was given a three-year sentence for defaming the monarchy.

Thai prosecutors charged that a passage detailing a fictional prince in a 2005 novel defamed King Bhumibol as well as the nation's Crown Prince. Only seven copies of the novel were sold.

The Australian government has asked Thailand to pardon Nicolaides.

Via: Water Cooler Games

Shawn Recinto of HeadlineGames dropped by GamePolitics the other day to let us know that a pair of games loosely based on the misadventures of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich are available.

Blago Run, a Frogger-like affair, challenges players to guide Senate hopefuls past FBI and police patrols in search of President Barack Obama's former seat.

Meanwhile, Blago Red Tape Breakout is a Breakout clone in which Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan must get her supoena past rows of red tape in order to serve Blagojevich with impeachment papers.

As George W. Bush turns over the reigns to Barack Obama today, online gamers will have their final chance to zing the 43rd president.

Goodbye, Mr. Bush is a whack-a-mole sort of affair in which players hurl objects at a cartoon version of Dubya which pops up in various locations on the White House lawn. Weapons of choice include eggs, candy and, of course, shoes.

The game, like the man it lampoons, will soon be forgotten. But there is one clever moment. Players who choose Weapons of Mass Destruction to hurl at Bush are informed that WMD can't be found.

Hmmm... Where have we heard that before?

If you'd like to give it a try, click the thumbnail image to play.

Via: Huffington Post

In honor of Barack Obama's Tuesday inaugural festivities, Atom.com has posted an inauguration speech generator.

We'd rate this one mildy entertaining.

The current Gaza conflict continues to be portrayed in game imagery.

Earlier this week GamePolitics looked at Raid Gaza!, a web game which harshly criticizes the Israeli incursion. We also reported on anti-Israeli protests in Second Life.

Humor site CAP News has posted a parody report on Gaza Under Fire, a fictitious Wii game that would allow players to fight as either the Isaelis or Palestinians.

The concept behind the game is that players insert their Mii characters into the Middle East conflict... and then choose whether to go on the offensive against the other side or help protect their own people. The game utilizes both the Wii remote and nunchuck and incorporates updates from the Wii News Channel to keep the game current...

 

Some, like [fictional professor] Spaulding Wang, see the game as an educational tool...

"Rather than try to explain to my daughter something I just don't get, why not have her take Israel's side and blow up some civilians in Gaza, and then take Palestine's side and do the same to Israel," Wang said. "Then she can form her own opinion about who she thinks is right, and share that with her fellow first-graders."

The mayor of Masiu City in the Philippines suddenly finds himself targeted by an online game, although apparently not without some justification.

It all began on the day after Christmas. Filipino blogger Bambee dela Paz writes that she was golfing with her 56-year-old father and 14-year-old brother when the foursome of Masiu Mayor Nasser Pangandaman, Jr. jumped ahead of them. Words were exchanged, and Bambee's dad and brother eventually suffered a beatdown at the hands of Pangandaman and his party.

Fast forward to yesterday when Kick Nasser appeared on the Web. The simple Flash game has only one object: to kick the Mayor and send him flying over golf course-like terrain.

Of course, there are two sides to every story.

Last week GamePolitics reported on Holiday Snowball Fight, an online game which lampooned, among other celebrities, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

Apparently the game, created by PETA, provoked a bit of a dust-up between Palin's people and the animal rights organization. Although details are sketchy, a PETA blog claims that the group was threatened with legal action over the game:

This morning, PETA's Policy Department received a Scrooge-like phone call from someone purporting to be from Gov. Sarah Palin's office threatening legal action against us if we don't play ball...

In real life, the moose and other animals Ms. Palin blows to smithereens don't stand a chance... Though this game is just a bit of harmless payback, Palin's real-life hunting habit is no joke...

The Alaska Report has more, including transcripts of a nasty e-mail flame war between Palin spokeman Bill McAllister and PETA president Ingrid Newkirk. From the e-mail exchange, it appears that the Palin camp claims no knowledge of the alleged legal threat.

GP: Thanks to reader Raymond Martineau for the tip!

As we've found out recently, animal rights group PETA has increasingly taken to spreading its message though the use of video game parodies.

Last month, for example, PETA garnered major attention with Cooking Mama: Mama Kills Animals, a Flash offering parodying Majesco's light-hearted kitchen game series.

More recently, PETA launched Holiday Snowball Fight. The online game begins by having players target fur-wearers like Madonna and designer Donna Karan, and ends with Sarah Palin as the focus of PETA's ire. Palin, of course, is an avid hunter. The 2008 Republican vice-presidential nominee has been criticized by some for taking part in the practice of shooting wolves from airplanes.

One of several Flash games parodying the recent Iraqi shoe tossing incident has been sold on Ebay, according to Reuters.

SockAndAwe was created by Alex Tew, an Englishman. Tew commented on the sale:

We've spent the last three days trying to keep the servers alive and we're meant to be working on our other main startup PopJam. So we whacked it on eBay. It's really cool. From Monday concept, Tuesday launch, Wednesday growth, we've had a Thursday exit -- so it's kind of a micro-Web start up if you like.

 

It was just a bit of fun, a bit of an experiment. It's actually turned out to be a useful fundraising exercise for our start-up, which is good given the present economic circumstances.

An unspecified British media firm bought the game for 5,215 pounds ($7,818).

By our count, Bush's Shoe Dodge (screen shot at left) is game #5 based on the now-famous incident in which an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at President George W. Bush during a recent news conference.

Flash games based on Muntader al-Zaidi's shoe toss have been arriving on the Web at the rate of one per day. The latest offering comes from Atom. It's the second game in which you play as the President with the goal of dodging al-Zaidi's shoes. The other game based on Dubya's perspective is Flying BaBush.

Of the remaining games, in two (SockAndAwe and Can You Throw a Shoe at Bush?) you play as al-Zaidi, while in Bush's Boot Camp players assume the role of a Secret Service agent.
 

On Sunday, an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at President Bush during a press conference.

Within days, nearly a half-dozen Flash games lampooning the incident appeared on the web (you'll find all of them linked here on GamePolitics).

Given the speed and reach of the web, the Amazon Game Room Blog wonders whether browser games have replaced the role of the political cartoon in modern society:

Web-based flash games continue to take over the satirical role that political cartoons once filled... Our country has a rich and scathing history of political satire in cartoon form in newspapers and magazines and anyone who noticed how fast the [various Bush/shoe games] popped up on the Web after the footwear was flung... should be able to acknowledge the potential for this in flash technology.

 

The games are certainly is no works of art, but they were not designed to be awe inspiring. They were instead designed to capture the moment, and immortalize it from a particular point of view that people in this particular time can appreciate, or at least recognize. In a hundred years... these snippets of code will offer a window into the past... it is all just part of a media continuum that stretches forward and back further than we know.

In recent days GamePolitics has reported on the Net's reaction to the recent incident in which an Iraqi journalist flung his shoes at President Bush.

GP reported on Bush's Boot Camp from T-Enterprise as well as some pretty clever game-themed animated GIF parodies.

Over at Water Cooler Games, Ian Bogost has collected a few more Flash games based on the now-famous shoe toss:

- SockAndAwe (screen shot at left)

- Flying Babush

- Can You Throw a Shoe at Bush?

To be sure, none are great art. But the sudden influx of games and graphics demonstrates the intense global reaction sparked by Muntazer al-Zaidi and his flying footwear.

boingboing reports that the Net is rapidly spawning animated GIF parodies of the now-infamous Presidential shoe tossing incident.

Among those posted at the site are several with game themes, including World of Warcraft (left), Pokemon, and what appears to be Mortal Kombat.

The detail in the WoW parody is impressive. Bush is depicted as an elite boss. Shoe-tossing journalist Muntadar al-Zaidi is depicted as the player.Iraqi President Maliki is tagged as AFK.

The animation features authenthic WoW-like combat results as well. Bush is credited with a Dodge for ducking the shoes and al-Zaidi suffers a <Knockdown> when he is tackled.

There are also parody animations based on The Matrix, Monty Python and the Three Stooges.

When last we looked in on Eidos, it was over a little episode that came to be known as GerstmannGate.

The UK game publisher's ham-handed attempt to manipulate GameSpot's Kane & Lynch review scores unfairly cost long time journo Jeff Gerstmann his editor position and nearly brought the site down as outraged veteran staffers bailed one after another.

Recent reports indicate that Eidos is up to its old tricks, this time in regard to Tomb Raider: Underworld. Naturally, the Penny Arcade crew can't resist making Eidos the star of its latest cartoon.

Hit the link for the full version of The Truth is the New Lie...

Video games seem to be increasingly showing up on the radar of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

GamePolitics readers will recall that earlier this month PETA gave props to Sega for ditching a Samba de Amigo commercial which featured a trained chimp.

The animal rights group has once again strayed into the video game habitat with Cooking Mama: Mama Kills Animals, an unlikely parody of Majesco's Cooking Mama: World Kitchen. The new Wii title launches tomorrow. A PETA press release explains why the group is howling mad about the new game:

Majesco's game is so heavy on dishes that are made from dead animals that the only things missing are the blood and gore...

In the original version, players score points for assembling a meal. That also applies in PETA's parody, but with this Thanksgiving dinner, players also must go through the motions of plucking the turkey's feathers, pulling out the bird's intestines, and cutting off the animal's head. All the while, a demonic cleaver-wielding Mama takes delight in the agony. When the player beats the game, Mama has a change of heart and replaces her bloodlust with a craving for tofu-turkey.

Does that qualify as a spoiler? In any case, unlockable content in the parody game include vegetarian Thanksgiving recipes as well as hidden camera footage from a turkey slaughterhouse.

PETA spokesman Joel Bartlett dismisses claims that the parody game is making a mountain out of a mole hill:

We're having a bit of fun at Mama's expense, but there's nothing funny about the suffering endured by turkeys and other animals who are killed for food. With all the delicious vegan alternatives available, there's no need to make the carcass of a tormented bird the centerpiece of your Thanksgiving table.

Although GamePolitics tracked numerous election-themed games during the presidential campaign, we just stumbled across one of more unique and interesting ones.

Steal This Election is slick look at how to use dirty tricks to win the White House. The game has more attitude and atmosphere than most of the other offerings we've seen, which are generally variations on martial arts, FPS or whack-a-mole.

Our only gripe is that the online game is broken. GP's candidate (a Sarah Palin knockoff) won with 182% of the vote. Also, there doesn't seem to be much replayability. No matter which candidate you choose, the dirty tricks are the same. It made sense in the game for my Palinesque character to paint Obama as a terrorist, since that was, unfortunately, an actual theme in the election. It made less sense to have the same tactic available for the Obama-like character to use against the game's faux McCain.

Despite these rather significant flaws, Steal This Election is worth a look if political games float your boat. Let's hope that they fix the game mechanics by the time November, 2012 rolls around.

GP: Okay, that's it. No more election games. Probably...