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Jan 20th, 2009 at 12:44:44 - Grand Theft Auto - San Andreas (PS2) |
This will be the second time that I have played San Andreas for a half hour session. This time (for a laugh) I attempted to play the game without causing any harm to others and trying to keep morally just throughout my playing time. I found this to be a little bit more tough than I was expecting. This concept made me question the moral values of the game (along with pretty much every other aspect of the game).
I decided to start all over again, but this time I did not do the missions. I rode the bike around for a little bit, stole a car from a parking lot (I tried to stay within the law, but its fairly tough). After driving at a normal speed and following all the traffic signals and other road laws I realized that this was very boring. As the character you do have a choice whether or not to break the law, but you have to break the law to beat the game/make the game fun. This brings up many questions about the games integrity and place in todays world considering games such as Fable that let you choose if you want to be immoral or not.
Walking around buying food, getting haircuts, changing clothes, and obeying the law just is not fun in this game. There is no motive to the game if there are not police chasing you or you are doing the missions (which involve breaking the law). I just got extremely bored walking around seeing the same character models over and over again. Morally, this game is worthless, but it works as a sandbox game. One must realize that this is a game and even though it is more fun to walk around shooting hookers, it is not that way in real life. Next time I am going to spend my entire half hour causing havoc and compare these two experiences (I have a feeling the next gaming session is going to be a great deal more fun).
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Jan 19th, 2009 at 22:46:05 - Grand Theft Auto - San Andreas (PS2) |
Today was my first of three sessions for Grand Theft Auto - San Andreas on Playstation 2. I have played this game before, but it has been a few years since the last time I have played it. To be honest, I feel that I was a little more shocked this time around then since the last time I played it; I picked up on quite a bit more of the anti-moralistic (and racist) values of the game. Overall the game was a fairly decent time waster, but I felt that there were several aspects of the game that are a little over the top.
For this session I decided to follow the missions a little considering I never did that when I used to play it. The first mission was just a cinematic sequence (which I skipped), but it lead straight into the next mission which was a bike ride involving a drive by shooting. After this short mission was completed I continued to the next mission which consisted of me getting a haircut, buying pizza, holding up the pizza shop, and driving my friend home. This is where I decided to stop doing missions.
After just messing around for a while I realized that it is not too easy to keep yourself out of morally questionable situations. It is easier to drive on the sidewalk and take out every pedestrian than it is to drive on the street, and the consequences are usually minimal. Along with the missions, being morally correct was somewhat of a bore. I found myself beating random people for money, shooting at cops, running people over, and just causing as much damage as I could more often than anything else. I found this to be a little disturbing considering how easy it was to get away from the police at most times. After killing about seven police officers and running over countless pedestrians all that happened is my car caught fire, exploded, and I magically appeared in front of a hospital with full health (a loss of money and weapons, but it seemed like a fair trade). I am not one to bash video games for excessive violence, profanity, or the occasional mercy killing, but this game takes it just a step too far (especially with the racism). It seems that the older I get, the more aware of these problems I become. Next time I think I'm gonna try to stay morally correct in my half hour session and see how that goes.
Game play wise, it was a fairly decent sandbox game, minus the physics engine (but that did kind of make it more comical). The bike riding took a little getting used to, but it was fairly intuitive, along with the rest of the game. The button layout was simplistic and did not take too long to master, but it did seem a little lacking. Considering how old the game is, the graphics are not too bad, but when it came out it was just another stale Grand Theft Auto game with more racist characters. I feel that this series should have ended quite a while ago, but it continues to push out a few new games a year on different consoles. The obvious attempts at creating controversy has become almost offensive to its audience considering the lack of concentration on game play. Overall it was a fun game, but it does lose its luster within the half hour.
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