So Tired Of Saving The World ...

Seriously. I just finished Half Life 2: Episode 2 (late to the party again, I know) and - while I felt it could easily have been shorter and involved less aimless wandering down corridors - it was an incredible experience. I was moved, I was shocked, I was pumped up ... generally speaking, a good time was had.

My only problem is that I look at the swathe of new releases and we have ... well, a whole bunch of games involving similar themes of killing aliens, killing mutants, and generally saving the/a world.

Oh, except on the DS an Wii, where I can pet ponies, dance or play pub games.

Can you imagine if movies were like this? Where's the Juno of the games industry? The Garden State? The Superbad?

I'm not talking about games as art. We've done that. We've reduced complex social situations to lines and squares and felt very self-important about it (not that I mean to take anything away from The Marriage, it's a great milestone in the exploration of the emotional content of games).

I'm just talking about the very simple act of NOT BLOWING THINGS UP OR RUNNING OVER HOOKERS IN A STOLEN CAR. I know this might be a risk. Over the decades, we've trained our so-called "hardcore" gamers to love nothing more than a little ultraviolence. We know it sells. It sells because we made it sell.

But are we, the creative people working in supposedly the newest and fastest-emerging media, so shallow that that's all we have to offer the world?

I know sex has been handled horribly in games in the past, but you can't say movies haven't done the same and that doesn't mean they gave up.

Please, someone make a game that isn't "for girls", "for post-pub play sessions" or stupidly violent. Consider it a dare.