America stands at a precipice, friends.

If we take one wrong step, we will plunge into an abyss filled with Lenin-quoting vampires, atheistic secret police, world serfdom, and rampant inflation.

If we take the right step, we will enter a new age. Jesus and Friedrich Hayek will descend from Heaven, routing the atheists with gold-plated .45 revolvers of love. King Odysseus and Queen Penelope will rule over an America reborn in the image of Ithaca, dispensing justice to the Leninist vampires who would steal Telemachus's birthright.

But there's a problem. It is pitch black at the precipice. Which way shall we step?

What America needs is a guide: a man who can show us the light, lead us into the new era of respect for individual rights, freedom, and ample quotation of the collected works of Burke, Locke, and Friedman. Away from slavery, cannibalism, and Marxist Che-quoting vampires.

That man is Dr. Elliot McGucken, visiting instructor at the Seaver College of Business Administration at Pepperdine University, and inventor of the patented (pending) "System and Method for Creating Exalted Video Games and Virtual Realities."

Dr. McGucken recognizes that video games are a force in this world, a force which can be used for good, or evil. Where Dr. McGucken differs from past video game designers, such as Richard Garriott, Sid Meier, Warren Spector, and the guy who wrote Leather Goddesses of Phobos, is that he intends to introduce the element of moral choice into games. To show players, and therefore America, that each of us, at all times, has a choice between good and evil. A choice between quoting the collected works of Hayek, and those of the insidious communist Mao Tse-Tung!

But McGucken's work doesn't stop there. McGucken also proves that choices have consequences. Whereas in pre-McGucken era video games, the choice between shooting a communist space invader and not shooting the communist space invader had no consequences whatsoever, under the patented (pending) McGucken system, the player's choice, upon meeting a woman of low character, to quote the work of Ayn Rand or Thomas Jefferson, as opposed to that of Mikhail Bakunin or Joseph Stalin, may be one of earth-shattering consequences. Quote Rand, and the player (and by extension America) will convert the loose woman into a God-fearing virgin warrior for freedom and justice, suitable for marriage. Quote Stalin, and the Earth will be consumed in a holocaust of communist vampire slavery!

Every time.

McGucken's patented (pending) System proves that by playing video games the McGucken way, America's moral fibre will be regenerated, and the nation reborn. Play them the old-fashioned way, and, well, best not to think about that.

Don't believe me? I understand that McGucken's concepts of video game design, choice, consequence, and opposition to communist star vampires may prove difficult to understand for those who've not been exposed to the System. Perhaps these diagrams and flowcharts, from the great man's patent application, may prove useful:

Begins to make sense, doesn't it?

Now you understand why Elliot McGucken is quoted by the New York Times as an expert on art, video games, and many other things besides, and you're not.

I for one look forward to the day when I can make a difference, shooting communist space vampires under the patented McGucken system to promote freedom and Jesus, rather than shooting them mindlessly as I've done in the past.

Via Metafilter.

Update: I see that I am not alone in my appreciation for the McGucken Plan for the Betterment of Loose Women, America, and Video Games.

Last 5 posts by Patrick Non-White