Excerpt from my review of the new Persuasive Games release "Fatworld" -- an ambitious piece of "procedural rhetoric" that aims to leverage the computer game genre to deliver a series of important points.

I had high hopes. I really, really wanted to like it much better than I do.


I wanted to write a review that discusses the game's educational potential, its elegance, and its rhetorical effectiveness at using the game format to communicate a message about health (and politics, economics, and lifestyle). 

I wanted to say I loved the isometric cuteness of the game world, and that the puffy menu bars and the bloated cartoon hand that serves as the mouse pointer fit wonderfully with
the theme of the game. I wanted to praise the Govern O Mat, where you can select food-related legislation and click the "Bribe" button to influence a politician. I wanted to try to work restaurant review clichés into my review.

I did not want to do what I'm about to do instead.