In my next sitting of San Andreas, the mood was quite different. I had explained to someone about my assignment currently and it turned out that he had never played the game before, not even a single Grand Theft Auto. I had decided that this would be a better time than any to show him the twists of the game. This time, I picked up from where I had saved, so pretty much everything was available to me so I could show him everything.
Shockingly enough, I still remembered some of the cheats to get certain weapons. And it is interesting that Rockstar allowed game. It is possible that they even though that it's extremely difficult to complete the game legit without cutting a few corners. I guess one could argue that there is a hint of ethical egoism in the fact of using cheats and utilitarianism. I get the most happiness from using cheats and it does benefit me.
Aside from that, I decided to show my friend exactly how free you were to do different things in this game. I decided with the classics on how I can just go around and shoot people and run them over. What I found interesting, is that running over people, even if I do it in front of a car, gave me absolutely no stars, but when I got out, the very first person I shot, I got a star. It's a little hyprocritical, and honestly, shows the flaws of the police, especially the LAPD. However, it is possible that Rockstar was trying to show that the LAPD just simply remains oblivious for their own well being and trying to show a little how it really is in those neighborhoods.
When I paused the game to explain something to my friend, I had noticed the colors, and I forgot that even after the mission, you were allowed to take over other gang's territories. I didn't remember the exact process, so I decided to explore this with my friend and explain this to him. When we had entered an area, it did dawn on me, that I had to trigger a war with the gang who's territory that I was in and then I would have to defeat waves of the gang that would attack and eventually would claim the area. It is interesting that I need to initially kill a certain amount of people to start this war. I essentially don't have a choice at this point for if I don't claim the territory, they will attack my territory and the more territory that I lose, the more respect I lose from my neighborhood and with that, the less back up I will get from my gang if I were ever to get into one of these territorial wars. I understand that this game if fake and all, but essentially, although Rockstar might be stereotyping slightly, that it is probably how it works for the most part in that area. Of course, I would never have any idea, and maybe Rockstar is doing that partially for entertainment purposes, but I will probably never now.
After showing my friend a few of these gang wars (I was able to pretty much obliterate since I had all the weapons that I needed through cheats), I decided to show my friend another feature that I used to enjoy a lot. I first needed to get a cop car, so that would automatically get me at least one star, but just being a good person for a little while makes those go away, which brings up another interesting point. Simply not causing anymore trouble after getting a few stars or losing sight of the police, you simply are off the hook, almost as if they were too lazy to chase you. Again, probably another fault of the LAPD and although it might a little exaggerated, I'm sure there is some partial truth in this concept. Aside from that, after finding a cop car, an interesting feature is essentially you can be a cop. You can chase down cars and if you manage to blow the car up, with the “criminal” in it, not only do you not get stars, you also get rewarded. Essentially, you're player can forge being a police officer. Originally, I had thought of nothing of this for only I was just an early teenager when I was playing this game, but now that I think about it, it's a pretty bold statement on Rockstar's part. I mean, in my opinion, the more broader message is that it's saying that anyone can be a cop, but who knows. It's possibly showing, in a somewhat of an extreme fashion, that the LAPD doesn't really care how long criminals are taken care of, as long as they are. I've never been to Los Angeles, and more than likely never will, so I do have to rely at least a little on Rockstar's interpretation. But also, I need to factor in that Rockstar needs to make a game that is entertaining and offers a lot of features, so maybe Rockstar is just spinning the truth in order to remain entertaining, I'm not 100% sure.
After, I had decided to complete a few more missions and I found one fairly intriguing. I had to hunt down the enemy Ballas to again do them a lesson. Essentially, do a drive by on them. Again, you are left with this choices. If I do not kill these people, who I like to point out at this point were doing pretty much next to nothing, I will fail the mission. Again, I would argue that this is a very common theme throughout the entire game, a sense of choice of doing what most would consider “bad” to do essentially what is considered good in this game.
Another major point that I took away in from this session is how you play the game depends on the scenario that you play it in. If one were to play this game with friends or someone, like in my context, doesn't play the game, you like to just mess around in the game and simply do whatever. However, when you are usually playing by yourself one tends to play usually by the main storyline and of course once awhile likes to mess around, but usually will stick to the campaign. At least this is true in my case and I feel that is true most likely in quite a few other cases. Also, as described earlier, cheats do change the game and illustrate the concepts of utilitarianism and ethical egoism. I mean, is it right to use cheats in a game, despite the different scenarios?
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