Over at Fidgit, Tom Chick points out an unusual 4th birthday cake for someone named "Lil Derrick." 

A GTA cake for a four-year old? 

Someone's not paying attention to those ESRB ratings...

Tom found the pic at Cake Wrecks, where readers are hotly debating whether it is a real cake or simply Photoshopped.

The 2008 presidential campaign is getting ugly, what with a John McCain TV spot that paints Barack Obama as a celebrity lightweight in the grand tradition of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton and the Obama campaign fighting back with sharp words about McCain.

Given the nasty political climate, Darren Gladstone of PC World (who clearly has too much time on his hands) decided to use Soul Calibur 4's custom character creator to let martial arts versions of the prez candidates go mano-a-mano:

Barack always struck me as a Jeet Kun Do master: nimble, deadly with his words--and with a pair of nunchucks. McCain? This guy's tough as nails. I don't know if I could've made it through half the stuff he did, so, of course, I have to equip him with the biggest mallet available.

 

Barack has youth on his side, so of course he's dancing rings around McCain... But stand still too long, and the cagey Vietnam vet is gonna deliver a haymaker: his mile-long service record.

Just for Laughs serves up spoof video about a fictitious company engaged in making games with political themes...

Last September game-hatin' attorney Jack Thompson claimed in a federal court filing that a corrupt attorney marked for assassination in Grand Theft Auto IV was him. But then, Thompson says a lot of things...

What seems more clear is that a hybrid car (left) available for jacking in GTA IV is named after a well-known game violence researcher, Dr. Karen Dill of North Carolina's Lenoir-Rhyne College.

As reported by the Chronicle of Higher Education:

The "Karin Dilettante" is a sporty hybrid sedan that appears in Grand Theft Auto IV, the latest installment in the famously violent and sexualized series of video games. "Chicks love electronic gadgets" is the slogan in fake ads for the car.

 

Ms. Dill says she couldn't believe that Rockstar Games, the maker of Grand Theft Auto, had taken the trouble to name a car for her: "I was kind of like, whoa, they actually do care about video-game research."

Dill, who has testified on game violence issues before Congress, apparently took the parody good-naturedly. Reportedly, she was simply relieved to find that she was not portrayed as one of the game's hookers.

Earlier this month British Prime Minister Gordon Brown spotlighted the topic of food waste in the U.K., which he said costs the average household about £8 ($16). Brown's comments, which included criticisms of "buy one, get one free" promotions run by supermarkets, sparked some derision in the UK.

Via the Wasted Food blog, we've learned of an online parody game, Gordon Brown and the Kingdom of the Wasters:

You get to control the British Prime Minister as he tries to recover good food like bananas and cupcakes while avoiding rotten items like fish bones.

 

Apparently, dastardly opposition leader David Cameron is the one throwing away the good food. The goal is to catch Cameron and stop him from giving another press conference. Zelda, it’s not.

With tongue planted firmly in cheek, African American-themed website BlackVoices suggests that video game martial arts action might be just the tonic for the ugly situation between the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

The uproar started with Jackson's inadvertent comments that Obama has been "talking down to black people" and that Jackson wanted to "cuts his nuts off." (video here)

From the BlackVoices commentary:

Maybe this is how Barack Obama and Jesse Jackson can duke out their problems, man-to-man. None of this whispering under the breath. I think this video game is more dignified.

The game play footage is from DC Smackdown, which GamePolitics covered in December, 2007. If you find DC Smackdown objectionable, you're not alone.

We note also that the game's website, dcsmackdown.com, appears to no longer function.

Host Jon Stewart has some fun with Pork Invaders, the Facebook game app released by the McCain campaign last week.

Stewart's comments on the McCain game come at about 4:25 into the video segment.

Steve Napierski of DuelingAnalogs has created a fun graphic which mashes up the presidential election and Mortal Kombat.

Catch the full strip along with the artist's comments at the DuelingAnalogs site.

GP: Big thanks to GamePolitics correspondent Andrew Eisen for the tip...

WoW is popular fodder for satirists these days. This time, it's The Onion with World of World of Warcraft...

Can't wait for this one to launch!

Via: Destructoid

This video uses the music from Bright Eyes' When The President Talks to God to parody anti-game activist Jack Thompson.

The new lyrics were penned by Super Columbine Massacre RPG creator Danny Ledonne and singer/guitarist Cory Antiel, who performs the song.

Here's a great video from Super Deluxe for frustrated WoW widows...

Via: Los Angeles Times

It seems that American politics is not alone in its use of silly fighting games to attract eyeballs.

British political blog Three Line Whip has a bit of a rant today over A Kick in the Balls.

The web-based game pits Justice Secretary Jack Straw (last seen on GamePolitics bashing Sony over the Resistance & Manchester Cathedral flap) against Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families Ed Balls. Of the game, Three Line Whip blogger Iain Martin writes:

How juvenile. The Tories have made a computer game... in which Justice Secretary Jack Straw can be manipulated to assault Ed Balls. So much for David Cameron's talk of a responsible society and his plea for an end to the violence of the video-game culture. This is an outrage, why can't politicians focus on the issues?

GamePolitics revealed yesterday that a New York Division of Criminal Justice Services (DJCS) presentation on video game issues listed a well-known hoax site as a parental resource.

That news has apparently caused a bit of a stir among political types in Albany.

The Staten Island Advance, citing the GP article, reports that state officials will remove the hoax site Mothers Against Videogame Addiction and Violence (mavav.org) from a listing of parental resources which appears at the end of the 24-minute presentation:
 

One story on the hoax site, "Video Game Violence Makes Teens Aggressive," shows a phony brain scan, with the outline of a tiny machine gun superimposed on the image of a brain...

John M. Caher, a spokesman for DJCS, said officials are in the process of editing the video to yank the hoax Web site reference...

"We firmly stand by the core, overriding message of the presentation: Parents and guardians need to know the types of games that are available, and use their own good judgment to decide if something is right for their child," Caher said.

Gov. Spitzer's office referred media questions back to DCJS, which prepared the video. Prior to the GP story, however, Spitzer was squarely behind the presentation, saying:
 

I commend the staff of the DCJS...This presentation gives parents and educators the information they need to make smart decisions about the games their children play. 

A representative for State Senator Andrew Lanza, who heads a New York legislative task force on violent games, told the Advance that Lanza had no role in the preparation of the video.

GP: We note that some of our readers mentioned the GamePolitics story in comments to the original Staten Island Advance coverage. That surely helped get the attention of New York state bureaucrats and is an example of grassroots gamer action at its finest - well done!