Blogging the experience of gameplayhttps://www.gamelog.cl/gamers/GamerPage.php?idgamer=1487https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=4820For my last session, it was finally time to enter the school with some guns, and I did not know what to expect. I entered the building and approached another guy. Right away it zooms into this scene in a hallway with a cartoon boy. It says a Prep type boy has crossed you. You pick which weapon you want to use and it takes a certain number of health points away. Not very exciting, in fact extremely monotonous. I repeated this with different people in the cafeteria and other hallways. Again the different students all had types like jocks, nerds, popular girls, church girls and so forth. The game really makes use of the typical high school stereotype groups. The whole killing thing is so simplified down to nothing. In the beginning of the game there is a quote: “The purest surrealist act would be to go into a crowd and fire at random.” Andre Breton. But when I was playing the game it was the exact opposite, it was so boring and computerized, I felt no emotion while playing the game. Overall this game was pretty boring to play, and I did not enjoy much of it at all except the soundtrack, although it does bring up some different ethical dilemmas.Wed, 12 Oct 2011 11:44:12 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=4820&iddiary=8936https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=4820My second session, I picked up where I left off and was on my way to the high school to start. I entered the school, and planted the bombs where I was supposed to: near the vending machines in the cafeteria, and left. I went up to the hill to meet Dylan, and we chatted so more about life and why we were doing this. Again, the boys were pissed off at the world and this is what they had to do to make it better, and start some sort of a revolution. More 1990s music, Radiohead’s “Creep” from Pablo Honey and “Fake Plastic Trees” from The Bends, was playing in the background. Both are pretty depressing songs about negative thoughts, suicide, and simply feeling lost in society. I thought wow; I didn’t realize at first how much 1990s music may have played into the heads of Dylan and Eric. Eventually we realized the bombs were not going to go off, so we packed our weapons, including Tec9s, Pump and sawed of shotguns, and an assortment of guns. This is where I left off for my final session.Wed, 12 Oct 2011 10:59:01 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=4820&iddiary=8931https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=4820Mayers Gamelog entry #1 So I started playing my first session of Super Columbine Massacre RPG. It’s an older game, so I guess I didn’t expect it to be amazing, but Super Columbine is a really basic looking game. It reminded me of my old Pokemon games on my GameBoy Color back in the day. It starts out as you waking up as Eric in his room. I played around in the room, turned on Nirvana and found the game Doom. These were two pieces of media from the 1990s that were somewhat controversial. Doom was a very violent first person shooter for the computer, and Nirvana had its own issues with Kurt Cobain tragically committing suicide. Both of these are relevant to the game, and I thought it was interesting how the game very purposefully had them in the game. So I called V over to get really for the biggest day of our lives. I explored the house a bit more there really was not much there. V got there and we had a very depressing and angry dialogue. From reading the conversations, the game is definitely trying to show that leading up to the shooting, they were going to have no regrets, and no cares about the outcomes. They blamed others and their angry had built up. Sadly in their minds this was the only solution.Wed, 12 Oct 2011 07:16:57 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=4820&iddiary=8921https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=4780Michael Mayers GAM228 Zagal Entry #3 For my third gaming session of GTA San Andreas I decided to go back to doing some missions. Progressively they were starting to become more and more violent, particularly the mission when CJ raids the crack-house and murders a group of rival gang members, and then the drive-by mission in which you ride with your three closest gang members into enemy territory and gun down multiple groups of rival gangsters. This invoked me to explore the gang concept a bit more. First I started in CJ’s home turf. I went up to the groups of guys in my gang dressed in green and studied them. They are all casually and openly holding out guns, passing a blunt (of what I assume to be marijuana), and cussing at each other. I was taken back by this, because it was just happening nonchalantly in the game. As mentioned in my previous gamelog, you gained respect by killing rival gangsters during missions. So I decided to take this out of the missions and do it while I saw the groups of gangsters dressed in purple as was driving in free roam. I would easily run them over and sometime get out and use guns on them. I picked up their guns and money, and continued looking for more. Eventually the rival groups were noticing me and didn’t take too kindly to me being on their turf. I thought it was worth taking note on how the environment CJ is in was evolving based on my actions, because now these groups would just start shooting at me. I was beginning to see how important the theme of gang life is to San Andreas. Everyone in the gangs had the matching colors, drugs and guns are no big deal, and even most of the radio stations blast gangster rap music from the time period (ex. Today Was a Good Day by Ice Cube). And after playing for a while I feel like the game itself ties the whole gang mentality with African American culture, which I think is unethical to do.Wed, 28 Sep 2011 10:38:12 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=4780&iddiary=8838https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=4780 (This entry has been edited1 time. It was last edited on Wed, 28 Sep 2011 02:38:00.)Wed, 28 Sep 2011 02:37:45 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=4780&iddiary=8827https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=4780I just finished up with my second session of playing San Andreas. After doing mostly missions during my first session, I decided I would play around for a bit and explore the free-world concept that the Grand Theft Auto franchise is best known for. I had acquired multiple firearms in a few of the previous missions, so I thought lets use them. I remembered from a previous mission we unsuccessfully held up one of the pizza parlors, so I wanted to try it without being in a mission. So after I robbed the restaurant, I went to get back in the car I was driving, before I knew it I was confronted by two cops that had already jumped out of their squad car and started shooting at me. I locked my target onto both of them and shot them with my submachine gun and got into their car. After that my wanted went up to two stars and more cop cars were chasing me. It was very easy to get away, the cars are very durable and need a serious beating to actually become non-drivable, or start on fire. Eventually I got pretty bored of just being chased so I pulled over, got in a shootout and got gunned down. I continued to roam after I got released from the hospital. Just after a while of exploring it came to me how some crimes are a non issue while anything with direct contact with the police you have problems, furthering the negative connotation the game has on cops. For example you can just run over numerous amounts of people and nothing would happen, but if you nick a cop car while driving, they will just start shooting at you. I thought this was just unbelievable. The open world of San Andreas I thought was pretty cool though. You are given so many options for how to spend your time. You can buy new clothes, tattoos, go to barber shops, increase your strength at gyms. I thought he ability to completely personalize your traits, appearance etc was really cool.Wed, 28 Sep 2011 02:02:00 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=4780&iddiary=8826https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=4779So, I started playing Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas for the first time today. When you first start playing it starts you off in the story mode. You assume the role of CJ Johnson, who is on his way home to Los Santos from Liberty City (GTA III), because he had found out his mother was murdered. On his way to his old neighborhood from the airport, CJ is picked up by a group of cops that he’s apparently familiar with. They tell him that he has been framed for the murder of an official, and treat him with the least amount of respect possible. Eventually they kill him out of the car and CJ is forced to bike home. I find it interesting how before you even use your controller, the game gives you a strong negative feeling towards police in general. It makes you feel like they are corrupt and always against you. The other thing that I immediately picked up was the stereotype of urban black culture. CJ is dressed in just a tank with his pants sagging down, your can see his underwear. Also his neighborhood is a complete ghetto, with groups of gangsters standing on the corners, and prostitutes walking around wearing virtually nothing. I don’t know if they are trying to accurately portray that kind of neighborhood from the early nineties or they are just doing to make the game feel more like a Mature rated game. I started following the path of the missions with CJ. There were very basic objectives to complete: such ride your bike away from your enemy, drive here and kick something up, go with Sweet to spray-paint some graffiti of your gang signs. The missions were probably geared towards helping the player learn how use the controls and get used to the gameplay. But, I also believe these missions serve as a way for the player to enter CJ’s new life, the life of being a gangster. You just become enthralled in this new culture that I continue to unwrap. I’m looking forward to some newer more exciting, because right now they are pretty boring.Tue, 27 Sep 2011 16:55:59 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=4779&iddiary=8803