Video games have become a platform for activism. Games for Change, an organization set up to help promote games designed to bring attention to global conflicts, the environment, poverty, and other political issues, provides links to plenty of these so-called “serious games.”

Like Darfur is Dying, winner of a contest that tasked conscientious programmers to create a game about the Darfur genocide. It gives players a glimpse of what it's like to be a Darfurian refugee foraging for water, facing such dangers as being kidnapped and either recruited or raped by Janjaweed militias.

And Climate Challenge, from BBC Science & Nature. If this infuriatingly difficult exercise in managing the policies, resources, and diplomatic relations of the European Nations as they relate to reducing carbon emissions doesn't convince players of the difficulties involved in creating a greener world, nothing will.

What you won't find at Games for Change is The Torture Game 2. This free game, available at a variety of game portals, including Newgrounds and Play Flash Arcade, has as its objective the torment of a hanging man. Players are provided with a small assortment of tools with which to hurt him, including guns, ropes, and spikes.

I'd been vaguely aware of the game for a while, and, without playing it, had idly wondered what its intent might be. Surely, its designer was trying to say something. Was it meant to call attention to the Abu Ghraib scandal? Alleged tortures in Tibet? Purported mistreatment of Chechen detainees by the Russian government? 

According to a recent MSNBC article, the game's developer, a 19-year-old South African named Carl Havemann, had no such noble ambition. The story quotes Mr. Havemann as saying the game is “something simple and pointless meant only for entertainment.”

I have no qualms playing games designed solely to entertain. And I understand the role violence can play in making video games fun—PlayStation 3's audacious and comical downloadable game Pain, in which players catapult a hapless idiot into buildings and billboards, has consumed more hours of my time than I care to admit.

But, after trying The Torture Game 2 for myself, I'm of the opinion that it lacks anything resembling entertainment. Over the course of a couple of minutes I drove spears through the dangling man's body, fired a shotgun at his wrists, and combed his legs with a razor. The game is cheap, humourless, buggy, and utterly purposeless. At best, it's a little distressing. At worst, it's depressing, considering that the game has been played nearly a quarter of a million times on Newgrounds alone, and has a user rating of 4.29 out of 5.

The Torture Game 2 may have no intended meaning, but the message derived by this game reporter is that, sadly, we live in a world in which this sort of software has an eager audience. Perhaps it's time someone made a serious game about that.