Yes, you read that right.  PETA, apparently none too happy with people breeding turkeys and killing them to stuff ourselves on just for a holiday, has gone and put up a gruesome web game: Cooking Mama, The Unauthorized PETA Edition: Mama Kills Animals.

I’m guessing their idea is to so badly gross out the kiddies that they no longer want to eat a deliciously prepared dead animal.  There’s plenty of blood and guts (in cartoon form of course) to delight the sicko in all of us.

Oh … wait … that can’t be right, can it?

Well, hell.  Maybe it can.

If you like cartoonish blood and guts and sick twisted preparation of a Thanksgiving feast, it’s actually kind of funny.  Though I’m thinking they could have worked a little harder on making the interface.  Some of it is quite a challenge, not because it’s actually challenging, but because the instructions are vague at best and don’t show up right away.  I guess that adds to the replayability?  That or the frustration was an intentional psychological push.

But so as you grossly prepare your Thanksgiving feast with Mama, you get rewarded with different PETA movies that I guess are meant to make you like eating animals even less.  And wallpapers.  And eventually you get rewarded with a bonus round of preparing a tofurkey.  (Which I’ve cooked one before, and they’re not stunningly great, but not a bad solution for the vegetarian in your family.)  PETA is trying to turn us away from meat.

Meh.

If they think so.

Let’s face it, a Thanksgiving turkey feast is tradition.  A cute video game isn’t going to make any impact one way or the other.  And frankly, I think PETA really did the opposite of what they intended to on this one.  If you don’t mind a little sicko, it’s a cute game.  But then I’m an adult, and used to help Grandpa ax off turkey heads by holding them down on the stump and then setting them free to run around headless, squirting blood everywhere, on the nice fresh snow.  Certainly not a childhood delight, but at least I always knew what my food was.  Frankly, I think any such lesson for kids these days, be it in cartoon game form like PETA is offering, or in real life experience, is good for the kids.  Yes little Suzie, that’s where your hamburger comes from.  Yes little Timmy, these cute little chicks grow up to be dinner.

After all, when the apocolypse comes, they’ll still know how to make a Thanksgiving dinner.  And isn’t that what really matters?

I think the bigger concern here is actually, what happens if your child enjoys this PETA game a little too much…