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Broachwala2's Grand Theft Auto - San Andreas (PS2)
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| [April 19, 2012 12:09:04 PM]
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After playing this game a few times this will be my last entry. My player is starting to hate a lot of other gangs and is starting to get reputation as an “up-comer” or someone who is starting to change the way things work around the area. But, I am also starting to see a lot of betrayal. The characters that I thought had my back, during all of the gang wars, turns out don’t really care too much about CJ. I am trying to build up my gang as much as possible but as I do this I continually get shot at by other gang members in the street. In my last discussion of this game, I wanted to bring up accountability and politics really. It seems that you really have to watch yourself throughout the game because at any time your gangmembers could have a habit of turning on you or even the people closest to you could be against you. I think Rockstar has done a good job really exploiting this idea of fending for yourself. Just like Red Dead Redemption when the main character is left behind from his gang, I can start to see some similarities in CJ’s gang as well. I think that you expect to have characters who will always have your side on things but then you realize that they really don’t. This is where accountabililty comes in a little bit too. For example CJ’s brother was basically used and then taken away, and really he was the only person that CJ could trust. Using that same example I can start to see spurts of politics within gang members being taken in place. Rockstar is making some characters that are truly selfish. Those characters love the gang they are in but only if it benefits them at the end. It is starting to become prevalent that many of the people around CJ are there to either prove something to other people or to take advantage of CJ in general.
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| [April 19, 2012 07:57:22 AM]
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My second entry is going to be based off of violence and choice. This game is known for its violence and is popular because gamers have the ability to use a character to really express a sort of freedom. I kind of got bored of the game a little bit and was a little tired of trying to finish my mission so I decided to go around on a killing rampage. After killing three people I quickly had two stars on me. And as you continue to kill the stars will continually rise. But, to get away from the police you have to run and hide so that your stars go down and you don’t get shot at by every police officer on the street. The question that quickly arised for me is whether this choice of shooting another person or officer was a good choice or bad choice.
Did this choice have a moral connection at all? I started to think about this as I realized the people who I killed in the game. I killed three regular citizens and then I ran away to get rid of my stars. Then I started again but this time I shot a few police officers down. Although this is only a game does choice of shooting an officer ever reflect at the choices that are made in real life? Of course holding a real gun and shooting it compared to pressing a button on a ps2 controller are completely different but are the ideas the same? Then I started to think about how Rockstar created choices for CJ in the game itself. In the beginning of the game you really do not have that many choices because the game is pretty much laid out that you need to get help from a few of these people before you could really go on your own. Rockstar doesn’t give you that ability to really go off on your own and become an instant success and if you think about it CJ in the very beginning of the plot is really only making these choices because he wants to find out the truth of his mother. So because the reason of his actions are different from the reason of his neighbors actions or his brothers actions would that make CJ a better person overall compared to the other characters in the game?
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| [April 18, 2012 10:40:25 PM]
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This is not the first time I have actually played the game. I bought it when it first came out on the ps2 and I thought it was amazing at the time. But after revisiting it the first time since I played this game; it was really hard for me to focus. I could not get over the fact at how my controller on my ps2 was not wireless and how the graphics for the game were so not up to date. But, after getting myself adjusted to the game and after running around for about ten minutes trying to figure out how to play the game again, I realized that the game is so much more than meets the eye. I was running around the neighborhood and the town and ran into a lot of people that were affiliated with gangs. I quickly remembered that this game works off of connections and using the people around you to finish the missions would be the best way to get myself back on track of a GTA life style. But, as I used CJ’s friends or buddies to try and solve more missions and to try and build the character up, I paused to realize that Rockstar really did a number in contrast to stereotypes and gang members. All you have to do is take CJ for example. CJ starts off wearing a white tee and jeans that sagged. Right there you get this “scummy,” or “drug-dealer” type feeling with the character. You get the feeling just by the way he dresses that he just got out of jail and is looking to start trouble. Then you look at his neighborhood street and you see that it is somewhat nice compared to the other parts of San Andreas but it also has this lower-class/bad area vibe to it. Something that really stood out to me is CJ himself. The main character is black compared to the other GTA games when the main character was White. The first stereotypical comment that popped in my head was why did the character have to be black? Was Rockstar trying to say something by creating a black character? Then it hit me a little bit more when the character was broke and was working himself up the chain through more broke people. You see in Vice City the main character was White. But, the area that the main character was in was a lot more appealing then Liberty City and the people that you work for in Vice City were somewhat bigger players in the “drug-dealing game” than the players that CJ does missions for.
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