A sea of protesters chant tired slogans and wave handmade signs on the National Mall. They decry the state of the the union, they dance to country music pumped out of bookboxes. It’s a right wing Woodstock, and it’s the last place in the world you’d expect for a video game to be announced.

The people clap as a doctor, who has just finished giving a speech decrying health care reform, descends from the pulpit. A man wearing an over-sized stetson and an American flag as a cape takes the stage. A crew of cameramen rush to the front, their equipment emblazoned with a familiar red white and blue logo.

“Hello my fellow Americans. My name is Johnny Maxwell. And I work for a little company called Fox News.”

The crowd roars enthusiastically. Someone bangs a cowbell.

“There’s a war happening here right now, people,” he begins. “Not just in Iraq. Not just in Afghanistan. But here, in America. And it is a war that we at Fox News can’t fight simply by being the most fair and balanced news network on the planet. We must entertain as we enlighten, for that is the only way that our message will reach a new generation of patriots. That’s why I’m here to unveil our latest project over at Fox News. Our first video game.” The crowd is silent. Maxwell raises his right hand, more than prepared for this reaction.

“…but a different kind of video game. You wont see guns and drugs and violence towards women. No sir. This is a game in which one steps into the shoes of the very people we’re trying to stop, so that young men and women can witness the fruitlessness of their ways, and see a future not far off from our own. One that can be avoided if people like you and me don’t stand up to be counted.” Maxwell does a little ta-da motion to the big screen behind him and scrawled in rainbow letters is “Grand Theft Liberty”

The crowd goes wild. Someone is really banging on that cowbell back there.

Maxwell smirks and leans into the mic. “The game has you playing as young, liberal, juvenile delinquent. Isn’t that a tautology?” A few of his aides politely laugh. He savors the punchline for a second. “And slowly you’re enlisted by the Obama administration to destroy copies of his birth records scattered across the continental U.S.”

Gameplay footage plays behind him. It seems to play a lot like it’s namesake, 3rd person over the shoulder camera, except the protagonist looks like a PS1 rendering of Rivers Cuomo running around a gray monotone cityscape.

“But that’s not all you do. In this mission, you see here, we have the player escorting a unwed, pregnant teen to a family planning clinic, fighting through Pro-Life protesters. Look at the detail on their signs.”

Footage starts to play of the protagonist storming into a group of white protesters, brandishing signs as crude clubs. Though Maxwell doesn’t make note of it, the protesters are surrounded by an angelic white aura. The footage skips forward to the end of the mission, in which the player fails to deliver the pregnant teen package, and she is carried away in a golden chariot by Glenn Beck.

“The crowd rendering is something we spent a lot of time on,” Maxwell continues, now sitting at the edge of the stage. “We wanted to show Americans, real Americans like you and I, who are banding together. These are people who are being torn apart by an administration who is furthering a radical agenda. We think that by tricking young men and women, many of who I see out here today, in the shoes of a radical liberal, they will see just how much damage can be done and swear it off forever.”

A young man, who had been listening attentively up to this point, raises his hand. “Hi. My name’s Chad Winters. I write for Eurogamer. Just to clarify your statement: did you just say ‘tricking’?”

Maxwell stammers. “No. You just said that. Can we have security come down here…real quick? We’ve got a fellow who…” A swarm of star-spangled jumpsuits descend upon Winters. When they get off, the only thing left is a DSi. The crowd hoots. Maxwell clears his throat. “Where was I?”

Footage of the character screen is played. Maxwell continues: “From here you can customize you characters. Everything from Ira Glass thick-framed glasses, to tattoos of Nancy Pelosi can be applied to your budding anarchist.” Maxwell points to a bar on the side of the character. It’s a gauge with blue on the left end and red on the right. “That’s the American Values meter. As you spread the liberal agenda, you go from ‘with us’ to ‘against us.’”

At this point, a bald man dressed in all black climbs on stage and hands Maxwell a controller. He holds it upside for a moment, whispers something offstage. He corrects himself and begins to play a level. He dies instantly.

“Oh, now. See this is good that I did that. ‘Death’ – if you want to call it that – results in a trip to the hospital. And here we included a robust system of consequences for your actions. If you push the liberal agenda far enough, you have to take part in a ‘Death Panel’ minigame everytime you go to the hospital. You have to argue for your right to live through a quick time event. Neat, huh?”

The game freezes while reloading the level, and Maxwell covers up the time by shooting Fox News t-shirts out of a air cannon. A teenage girl proudly holds up a poster of Obama with a Hitler moustache, screaming “Hit the target! Hit the target!” The technical error is eventually rectified, but the crowd has already moved on to a tent selling whip cream covered funnel cake.

Maxwell is unphased. “Bill O’Reilly himself has agreed to voice himself in the boss fight. Which he will win.” He also hints at several other prominent Fox News talents that “may or may not” be involved, but doesn’t want to “give too much away.”

“And now I end this demonstration…with some fireworks!” God Bless the U.S.A. plays over the PA system. Red, white and blue explode spectacularly in the fading light. Maxwell leads the group into a sustained 30 minute chant of “U.S.A.”

After the protest, when all the mobile homes mobilize, the game’s lead developer, Aaron Zarovski, smokes an entire pack of Parliaments out behind a red, white, and blue circus tent. A pair of young men, not a day over fifteen, their upper lips barely moustached, ask Zarovski about the game.

He lets out a little laugh. “Honestly, mate, they just took what we already had for Postal 3 and gave us a shit load of money to put more American flags in.”

Written by Hardcasual’s Canadian correspondent Filipe Salgado.