I now have a newfound appreciation for Kevin McCullough, conservative blogger and newly promoted funnyman from TownHall.com. 

But wait - TownHall.com does not use humor as a means of conveying their political message! Or do they? Unintentionally, Mr. McCullough has become the laughing stock of the gaming community, with his wholly uneducated, fantasy-filled rant on Mass Effect. And for those of you like me, who have actually played the game (because it is glaringly obvious that Mr. McCullough has not), one cannot help but laugh harder as you read the laundry list of complaints that Mr. McCullough mentions about the game. They are so galactically far off, I can only assume that the entire blog is parody.

Here are some particularly funny ones:

"It's called "Mass Effect" and it allows its players - universally male no doubt - to engage in the most realistic sex acts ever conceived. One can custom design the shape, form, bodies, race, hair style, breast size of the images they wish to "engage" and then watch in crystal clear, LCD, 54 inch screen, HD clarity as the video game "persons" hump in every form, format, multiple, gender-oriented possibility they can think of... Starting with the disgusting idea that one can "create" their own versions of what people look like, removing warts, moles, and bald spots while enhancing - shall we say - the extended features of the game's characters tends to objectify women, sex, and human relationships. "

Upon reading this, I called in sick to work for the rest of the afternoon and popped in Mass Effect, creating another career. This time, I did it more slowly and deliberately, because I obviously missed the parts where I was able to custom design the "breast size of images [I] wish to engage". Granted, I had created 2 careers prior to this, but I must have done it too hastily. Maybe the Konami Code would work here and I would be treated to this hidden universe where I could play God with virtual alien races, give them all enormous endowments, copulate with them in HD clarity, and follow it all up with some pie!

Yet my only options to configure my new virtual succubus were facial features, and none of them were related to warts, moles, or bald spots (well, the latter might be true, if you call giving John Shepard, the game's protagonist, a close buzzcut). Surely, had Mr. McCullough spent the 75 seconds I did in creating a custom female character, he would have realized that you simply cannot do what he claims is present in Mass Effect. So, unless BioWare is holding out on some Hot Coffee type goodness that only Mr. McCullough is privy to, his statement has to be a joke, because otherwise, its a lie. And I find it hard to believe that a journalist would actually stretch the truth to "sell" a story (and if you cannot detect the sarcasm in that last statement, email me and I'll be happy to deconstruct it for you).

Next:

" "Mass Effect" can be customized to sodomize whatever, whoever, however, the game player wishes... With it's "over the net" capabilities virtual orgasmic rape is just the push of a button away. "

Another statement that must be a parody of the game's content, because there is not a single moment in the game where people are sodomized, perform sodomy, commit rape, or otherwise violate other NPCs (for the Mr. McCulloughs out there, NPC is short for non-playable character, which the entire game is comprised of, debunking your other lie that the game is played "over the net") with the push of ANY button. Yet in Mr. McCullough's version of Mass Effect that he received (because he certainly must have educated himself on the product he is critiquing by actually playing the game, right?), NPCs are "Barbie streetwalkers" who, upon my button taps, become my intergalatic concubines.

I want this version that he got, because it sounds much more fun than the version I got. I do love my version immensely, but one has to admit - his sounds much more interesting.

Read the rest of his entry for the remaining hilarious comedy. There simply is too much to list here.

But what is his point, really? In the middle of his "interpretation" of Mass Effect is a slanted message describing the depths of virtual depravity that America's youth have descended into, with technology being a primary contributor. Now, I am not in the business of preaching morality to the masses (and for the record, I am a Christian), but Mr. McCullough seems to want to argue for government's intervention in a grand effort to "save the children". Again, I will not argue why it is the parent's responsibility to monitor their child's behavior, or the fact that the back of the Mass Effect box has "Mature 17+" on it, or the fact that I now regularly get carded in GameStop when I buy an accessory with a Mature rated game's main character on it. It's the same tired argument fanatics like Jack Thompson like to make, eschewing the more practical, logical suggestion that (gasp!) parents actually participate in the lives of their children!

But in the end, it is easy to see that Mr. McCullough's main goal was simply to drive some traffic to TownHall.com by using egregious lies, truth-stretching, and the latest in conservative buzzwords. He got his traffic. Unfortunately its the wrong kind, because as people who have an ear to the gaming community, we know the extent to which Mr. McCullough fabricates the game's content to prove a point. The average visitor to TH probably does not, althoug here's to hoping that one of them reads the blog comments.

Well done, Mr. McCullough! I can't wait to see your next act.