Blogging the experience of gameplayhttps://www.gamelog.cl/gamers/GamerPage.php?idgamer=1305https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=4415I got to the hell level today but died and didn't feel like going back and doing it again. There were a few things that really bugged me before that level though. First, there was Dylan's "trip down memory lane" in the lighting booth. It looked like it was trying to build sympathy for the guy, and I think that makes it pointless. The game, while I don't think it should exist anyway, shouldn't try to make me feel sorry for the kids who went into their school and started shooting people. The second one was Eric's "memory". He not only got really pissed about some girl not liking him anymore after he lied to her about being in college, but then he talks about how people purposely try NOT to invite him anywhere. According to him, people would have is number and refuse to invite him because he was that "weird-looking Eric kid", and that sounds just whiny to me. These kids made every day out to be the worst day ever when maybe all it would've taken was them reaching out; almost everyone hates high school, so Dylan and Eric should've sucked it up and finished like the rest of us do. After that, they never have to see any of those people again if they don't want to. Their "noble" act of saving the kid from being beaten up by the bullies and killing them doesn't make them look any better, and when Dylan, I think, says to his english teacher something about not liking his papers right before shooting her, that is just messed up. I don't think anyone has the right to kill another person because that person is depressed; if you want to die so bad because you're life is so crappy or whatever, kill yourself, but leave everyone else out of it. guess no one can keep the designers from making a game like this, but I can't understand why they would want to. As far as I know, they weren't involved in the incident at all, so why would they want to involve themselves in a way that the survivors and victims' families would be completely offended by? To a victim's family, everytime they see the little pixelated Eric or Dylan shooting someone, for all we know, they are seeing them kill their lost family membe again and again. I have no interest in knowing why the people who made the game did it or why they went about it in this way, but I'm just glad I'm done. Also, I was happy about the last level when it was harder to kill the hell beasts because of the crappy gun, and I was content when one of them ended up killing me. It is my just revenge against myself in a way for playing as them when they killed all the students in the school.Tue, 26 Oct 2010 18:49:56 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=4415&iddiary=8288https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=4415I think the game designer is making a statement about the violence in video games affecting everyday life. In the game, from what I could actually read, Dylan says that he turned the Doom game into a bomb remote. I think it is pretty clear, the message he is trying to convey. The kid turns a video game, or an experience or information from playing a video game, into an extremely dangerous weapon, or the intent to shoot up a school. I don't think video games were responsible for Columbine; I think the kids were messed up in the head and so depressed that they thought it would be cool to take all the people that they hated and resented down with them. I finally got past the planting bombs in the cafeteria part of the game, and I found that it is much harder to get out of the school (before the weapons) than get in. Those hall monitors follow you until you leave their "area". I hope the scene on the hill before they started killing people was not to make me feel sorry for the guys that did it because it just made them seem whinier than me. I remember high school; people get depressed about stupid, pointless things and everything gets blown out of proportion. I don't know what was going on in those kids' lives in real life, but after pulling something like that, I don't care at all. The game also has an extremely prominent problem with stereotypes and images; I guess the designers decided that since most people would be more freaked out/disgusted/intrigued/etc. by the main focus of the game that they would not notice the rigid stereotypes shown. It's like they thought: "oh hell, we're already making a video game about Columbine, no it's not about the students running from the crazy people with the guns; it's about the crazy people with the guns. Why not incorporate stereotypes!" The characters of the same "classification" are all the same person; they have some kind of "munchkin" and an "openly gay" very flambouyant kid. Some of these "characters" have special talents. The Church kids can sit and pray, regaining health and healing those around them some, and the Prom Queen can cry, which somehow heals her. The jocks don't hav special talents, but they are the hardest to beat I think, especially when there's more than one of them you're against. Hopefully tomorrow something different happens; it's very repetitive. The only surprise every once in a while is when there are a cluster of students instead of just one, but those are rare and also fairly easy to beat. As far as premise, this game is messed up, and as far as being strictly a game, it sucks.Sun, 24 Oct 2010 18:55:47 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=4415&iddiary=8238https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=4415So, I just downloaded the game and started playing. First of all, I can barely read the font it uses, so that makes it pretty hard to know what I'm doing/being told to do by the other guy. Some of the words blend together, making it impossible to differentiate betwen words or letters. Unfortunately, this game requires me following the other guy's instructions right now and I have no idea what to do. I went into the cafeteria, after a few tries down the hall, and didn't know what to do. I don't remember seeing a "directions" page, and I clicked "N" because that was like my menu, hoping to find the bombs I was apparently supposed to be planting somewhere in my inventory. Unfortunately for me, I couldn't find them, so I have been wandering around randomly clicking, hoping it will tell me when I do something right. I do know I'm not supposed to pull the fire alarm yet; that got me caught. It looks like a Pokemon game, if there was a Pokemon game for PC, and it involved shooting other Pokemon because you feel left out. I'm pretty happy it looks like a Pokemon game because any more real-like, and I would've been trying to give it a negative score becaue that would be even more messed up. I think it's pretty safe to say that these kids were messed up, and they shot up their high school. I don't think there needs to be a game about it; I think we all know the story. I don't know right now if I'm ever (in the next 2 days) get out of the spot I seem to be stuck in, but if I do, I'm sure I'll have more to judge it on tomorrow.Sat, 23 Oct 2010 22:37:29 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=4415&iddiary=8233https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=4339After the final day of gameplay, I saw no improvements. I think it’s safe to say that I will be giving up on the game. I was baffled by how much the “n-word” is thrown around in conversation, and as a derogatory term, in the game; how could more people not have been upset about that? People chose to debate and argue over the Hot Coffee mini-game, which is also bad, but they seemed to overlook the overuse of a word that is extremely offensive to people. People get suspended in schools for saying things like that, and this game is exemplifying the behavior. I’m not saying that kids are all influenced by the games they play, and after playing this, they will want to go do drive-by’s or graffiti walls. However, the constant usage of a word can lead someone to add it to his/her vocabulary, and that word pops up a lot in this game. I don’t understand where the creators came up with some of the ideas for missions they send the player on. In one mission, I had to spray paint into someone’s eyes and beat him up in order to get away from him and pass the mission. I’m sure it could’ve been done without spraying the paint, but it was a requirement. Later I had to drive the fellow gang members around to perform drive-by’s on the rival gang members. While I was not required to do any shooting, I had to keep the car in tact so we could go hit another group of them. Did they talk to real gang members for ideas or just sit around and think about what one would hypothetically do in a gang? Either way, it practically shows me I do not want to get tangled up in a gang or upset one. Playing the game for three days straight, heck I’m sure you could see it after one day, I think it’s pretty obvious that this game is riddled with unethical choices, but my biggest problem with it is that it doesn’t allow you to make the right choice. It presents you with a situation and makes you do something bad or illegal because that’s the only way to earn respect from fellow gang members and advance in the game.Tue, 21 Sep 2010 19:01:54 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=4339&iddiary=8104https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=4339After playing on Day 2, I have to say I have not noticed any improvements in the game. One of my missions today required me to drive my friends around so they could do drive-by’s on rival gang members. It prompts the question: why do we even need a video game about being in a gang? GTA: San Andreas doesn’t do much good to show that the gangs are actually the bad guys. It takes place in a town apparently run by dirty cops, and when you do something illegal, like stealing a car or killing someone, it’s fairly easy to outrun the police. They even stop looking after a while. The game shows thugs getting away with murder, doing drive-by’s, shouting profanities, and picking up hookers; it doesn’t show them getting put in prison or deciding to leave the gang life behind. Even after their friends are shot and killed, one would think a smart reaction to that would be to get out while you still have your life, but instead they take that as a means to get revenge. One major thing I did notice about the police though is that you do not want to get caught by them. I found this out the hard way as I was bludgeoned with a nightstick while I was on a bike. They shout profanities and racial slurs at you while you’re trying to get away, but if you go back to fight, they call for back-up. If that happens, you better be able to run/drive fast. I think the idea of dirty cops is used to help some players feel more at ease about playing as a gang member, as the protagonist. They are the obvious choice for the antagonist in that situation. Women have played an insignificant role in the game so far, but they have been around. I’ve noticed that the only women you ever see even walking around in the game are prostitutes and very old women, so they have a slightly skewed idea of women. I’m surprised to see the old women honestly, but I didn’t even see any of them until about forty-five minutes into the game. The prostitutes are (obviously) walking around the entire map at night mainly, and they don’t seem to be bothered by the police or anyone else. Now, after two days, I do still not like the game. I’m stuck on one mission toward the beginning, so maybe that’s why my patience is dwindling. Either way, it has one more day for it to redeem itself. Mon, 20 Sep 2010 20:54:30 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=4339&iddiary=8088https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=4339Having never played any GTA games but always hearing great things about them, I figured it would be an awesome game. Now that I’ve played it for a while, I must say, I’m not impressed. I think it’s one of those games/game series that gets hyped up too much, so there’s nothing to surprise you, just a lot to disappoint. The game is filled with menial tasks, like tagging the buildings. I don’t want to do that 100 times. I think it’s fairly easy to see that the main characters in the game have a Relativist mindset, seeing as their ethics seem quite specific to them and their gang. They may believe their morals can be right, but I think the line has to be drawn somewhere, like with murder. The main characters the player cannot control (Sweet, Ryder, and Big Smoke) will kill someone wanton if that person is in the way. This means that the player, too, can do this, but I tried to avoid it because it got the police chasing me. The police are introduced as the bad guys within the first five minutes of the game. They pick up the main character, CJ, and arrest him for “killing a cop” even though he had not done anything wrong. It was an obvious case of racial profiling, even though one of the cops was African American too. They weren’t only racist toward CJ though in the cutscene. One also shouted at the Hispanic cab driver then apologized and said “no offense” to his Hispanic partner. Once they threaten him to behave because they’ll be watching him, they throw him out of the police car in the neighborhood of his rival gang. The game portrays all gangs in a narrow, negative perspective; they never do anything legally. They can’t get a cab (and pay for it) or call for a ride. They have to carjack a car if they want to get somewhere in a hurry. They can’t talk to anyone unless the person is in the same gang. They’re always graffiti-ing buildings and fighting for territory and members. They also are out to kill all other members of other gangs, no matter what apparently. So far, I don’t see the point to the game, and I definitely don’t see what all the fuss is about.Sun, 19 Sep 2010 15:43:54 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=4339&iddiary=8071