|
Doabarrelroll6's Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (PS2)
|
| [January 26, 2012 12:30:24 AM]
|
My last of the gamelogs was more about reflection than anything. The missions presented to me were a bit bland and I’d rather just linger in the artificial world than have my time drained capping fools for Big Smoke. As someone who has played this game before looking back on it is certainly a different experience. I feel that through the narrative story, characters, and setting the game tries to emulate two movies Friday and Boyz N The Hood. Both movies offer up a healthy serving of gang violence and troubled times. While Boyz N The Hood is a more realistic, provoking, and visceral film, Friday is more about childish antics, smoking weed, and cracking jokes. San Andreas is one of the most perfect marriages of both the two movies and the two themes. It has the ability to grip you with a tight and very engaging story and gives you the ability to mess around, or as Ice Cube in Friday puts it, “walkin’ up and down the street all day playin’”. For the start of my playing I began attacking my own gang members and seeing what their response would be. I began with a simple fist fight. Many times the gang members would run away from the conflict, not wanting to hurt one of their own. Other times they would fight back. Then I used a firearm to see what would happen. Almost instantaneously they would run away, not a single one drawing their own weapon. Curiously when I stole a car from a gang member he promptly pulled out his uzi and emptied the entire clip into the back bumper as I sped away. Being part of a gang requires the members to act as a family or a brotherhood but unfortunately when you kill one of your own in the game nothing usually happens. All the other people in the world virtual world you kill will result in negative consequences for the player, on most occasions, but killing your own brethren is completely overlooked. Another thing I did was wait until an ambulance arrived at the scene of someone who had just been killed in the game. This was a very interesting position because as soon as the medic inspects the victim they miraculously come back to life. First I shot the medic as he exited the ambulance. I felt morally and emotionally troubled by doing this; not only will this poor man die, but the man who was going to revive him is now dying inches away from him. Next I shot the medic immediately after he revived the victim. The recently revived victim dashed away, leaving his savior bleeding on the pavement. To me this was an issue; essentially I was playing with the lives of innocent civilians in the game more poignantly than if I had just ran them over on the street. I somehow felt a lot more responsible for their murders. The gamer is emotional drawn into the world because the main character has so many aspects that make him so much more life-like than say a Sonic The Hedgehog game or Mario game, especially when this game was released.
add a comment 
|
| [January 23, 2012 11:24:39 PM]
|
I started off by attempting a mission for two crooked cops in the game, Tenpenny and Pulaski, the two of which overlook gang violence throughout the Los Santos neighborhood. Tenpenny tells you about a “difficult moral situation” that he has been put in regarding a shipment of arms from Russian dealers to another gang The Ballas. Essentially what Tenpenny and Pulaski want to accomplish is equilibrium between the gangs so they are kept at constant struggle and no one gang gains more ground than the other. This offers a difficult moral environment for CJ to interact in. With the lack of intercession the police hope that the gangs will kill each other off incrementally. After I drove to the mission I was quickly killed by the Russians because I couldn’t remember the health cheat offhand. After being revived I decided to take over some territory for my gang. I went to the nearest area controlled by The Ballas and began shooting some members lingering around. It is also interesting that if I killed exactly 3 it would initiate a gang war and 2 or less would have no result whatsoever. After blasting through 3 waves of 15 or so red-clad Balla members the territory was mine. I was really surprised after this that I did not gain a single wanted star from the police. I proceeded to take over some more territories marked on my map each without any lawful consequences. Upon my running around a bar at the top right of the screen appeared marked as “fat”. I forgot that this game has many elements of character customization, such as the amount and the type of food you eat can result in different levels of “fat” which the avatar will in turn go to represent. Implemented also, is the ability to gain muscle by working out at the gym and many other highly customizable and built-in features. In this respect the player has much control over what his avatar will ultimately look like through his/her actions in-game. Moving on, I decided to test more of the authority’s potential by causing some mayhem in the game. I started by beating up a cop and shooting a few civilians which resulted in one star. I was extremely surprised that the next wanted star I gained was from stealing a bicycle someone was riding down the street. That’s where this game sometimes perplexes me; many times the punishment does not fit the crime.
read comments (1)  -
add a comment
|
| [January 22, 2012 01:11:03 PM]
|
Grand Theft Auto San Andreas is definitely a game my friends and I know our way around. While spending hours rampaging around with oodles of weapons, jetpacks, and crazy customized vehicles, it was definitely a grand humorous experiment. On this gamelog I loaded one of my previous files that I haven’t touched in about 4 to 5 years and started a mission in the game. The mission required me to recruit fellow gang members to kill a prominent member of a rival gang, Kane. You are led by your brother, Sweet, to the destination with a carload of gang members all carrying uzis. As I arrived at the cemetery, where I had to kill Kane at a funeral, I drew my double uzis and proceeded to kill all of the rival gang members highlighted by red target symbols. I killed Kane and ran out of the cemetery towards a getaway car where I was congratulated by Sweet and the other members. The result of this murder seemed uneventful as we rode back to the neighborhood. Nothing had progressed or changed within my character, only another mission was available. I believe Rockstar Games wanted to show the futile and unprogressive nature of gang violence through these missions. The rest of my time I proceeded to re-explore the nostalgic virtual streets of Los Santos. I began senselessly killing pedestrians to elicit a response from the cops. I was surprised at how much violence I needed to cause to get stars, a lot more than I remember when I was younger playing the game. For instance, I started a fist fight with a biker in a crowded hospital parking lot and after I killed him no one even noticed or responded. I even kicked him on the ground a few times and still nothing. Even while killing two cops and a few handfuls of pedestrians I still only had two wanted stars on me. I also sped around in different vehicles testing the driving out compared to GTA 4 and Saints Row 3. Upon doing some vehicle testing I hit a hooker with my police motorcycle, to which she skyrocketed upward and out into the virtual blue yonder.
add a comment
|
