Raises the question. Begging the question is to assert something as proven that hasn't been. I weep for the future of this concept, as nobody on teh intarwebz ever seems to use it as designed any more.

Have you decided to take him up on his offer next time you're in LA? If it would result in another audiofile as fun to listen to as this one, by all means sir, do it, and thank you for this one.

Also...what about the movie? Was it any good? And what's known about its wider release? Anything yet?

Enjoyed reading it. The way I saw it there wasn't much to go on about "who won", and that's perhaps the wrong way to frame it anyway.

It seemed to boil down to ideals vs. reality, where you were the realist and he the idealist; what teh intarwebz can do and might enable vs. what it actually seems to have done and seems to have enabled. Facts on that, either way, are pretty slippery.

I'd have to say I fall more on your side of the equation there...and that's of course my opinion, not a fact. Unfortunately, I'm as biased as anybody else. I wish that merely recognizing it could make me feel as though I've transcended it.

I'm not sure if I'll have the bandwidth to take in your book anytime soon, but I think it's the Lord's work you're doing in exploring the topic, at least. I find it and its related issues very very interesting.

Any chance of seeing you at Powells in Portland, Oregon?

I confess that to date, the GTA series and "sandbox" subgenre hasn't really appealed to me. But it'd be nice to hear from some intelligent adults here who play as to whether or not this one is worth shelling out for, or if renting it would do the job.

I rented one of the previous installments once, couldn't really get into it (on gameplay; I have zero issues with the content).

I've tried another game in the genre also that I played to completion, but my feelings on it were mostly the same.

Just not sure that sandbox games are my thing. But I'd consider giving GTA IV a spin on some good recommendations here.

It was pretty good. I would say that it suffered from a serious lack of about 15 minutes worth of Iron Man ass-kicking, though.

Of course, even though I love me some Zacharek review, I know that if there HAD been a few more solid giggle-inducing asskicking effects-heavy scenes, Ms. Zacharek would have panned it. I remember the Batman Begins review, Steph. You flew pretty wide of the mark on that one.

Great review. I have to say, though, what pushed me into deciding to buy a copy was the sophisticated arguments of tomreedtoon, though. Mission accomplished, tom.

You do know that among gamers, "toon" is the term for a massively multiplayer or role-playing game character, right? So your screen name is probably getting you confused with an actual fun-loving reasonable human being, albeit very momentarily. Just a heads-up.

In other gamers-are-also-adults news, Gore Verbinski, the director of Pirates of the Caribbean, just got picked to be the director for the movie adaptation of Bioshock. Thank gawd, now that it's going to be a movie we won't have any problems with people confusing that with reality, going around and killing little mutated girls and the like while spouting off Ayn-Randisms!