I knew Harvey Smith would be fired up when I recently interviewed him about "Black Site: Area 51." But this fired up? "'Area 51' just bored the sh-- out of me, and I was like, 'How can we make this interesting?' "

He'd told me for months that the first-person-shooter he's overseeing at Midway Austin wouldn't have garden-variety bad guys. But I didn't know his we-created-our-enemy Saddam/al-Qaeda stand-in would be so red, white and blue: "What we have in 'BlackSite' is a delta-force assassination squad hunting down and killing members of an Army training program. So on American soil, Americans are fighting Americans, basically.""

Over at my MTV News Gamefile column today I've got the story on how Harvey Smith tipped the coffee table and transformed the old-hat Roswell paranoia of the "Area 51" franchise into what may be the most politically volatile game of the year: "I kept looking at this game and looking at this material and just not feeling it, until one day I realized there is completely an angle. And in an hour it all flew into my head."

He talks about internal resistance, the temptation to make "Daily Kos: The Video Game", and just what games are really teaching players:  "The way games are framed, it's practically propaganda. Most games are framed with, 'Hey, these guys are really bad and we need you to go out and get them.'"

He's got a new definition of video game evil. And he's got a new mandate to make a video game with the political teeth you often see bared on TV, in the movies and even pop music --  but so rarely in games.

Check out the story at the link above.