I don't know if this is funny or just plain ridiculous: a video game created with the good intention of raising awareness about the consequences of immigrant reforms.

In the game, you play as an illegal immigrant teenager, who is trying to stay in the US, and is being chased by immigration officers. ICED is the name of the game. ICED = I Can End Deportation. Por Dios!

The game rules and premises are really offensive:

If you make good choices - for example, not jumping the subway turnstiles or stealing from convenience stores - you'll earn points that will keep you on the streets.

Players can also boost their points by walking into a language center, by recycling or by correctly answering questions along the way. The more points earned, the fewer immigration officers chasing you down.

Stealing from convenience stores?? "Don't shoplift" is also mentioned. Apparently the creators of the game think that immigrants need to be told that stealing and shoplifting are bad things to do, and you'll suffer consequences if you choose to do them.

And just to be clear, a game doesn't give you points for not doing something that you usually don't. If the player is earning points for "not stealing", it means that stealing is the expected behavior from an immigrant.

"This is virgin territory,"said Mallika Dutt, the executive director of Breakthrough, the game's developer. "You can watch a documentary, you can watch a video story, but there's really no other way that you can get into the skin of another person and actually see what it's like."

Sure. This is so much cr*p, I won't even comment it. Oh, one last thing before I send you to The Miami Herald, where you can read more about this cr*p: you can't win the game.

No matter how well you play, or how good is your behavior; your character will be deported, put back in detention or returned to the city, where you have to start over. ICED stands for "I Can End Deportation" - but in the game you can't. Go figure.

Right there's where they lost me. They say this game is "the first of its kind in that it's really taking a stand on an issue". I guess the stand they've taken is "Never mind, you'll be deported anyway".

Video game tries to draw sympathy to migrants' plight