Sunday 5 October, 2008

On my second trial of GTA: San Andreas, I strayed away from the missions and attempted to get into any trouble that I could. While walking around the “open world” the real core of violence, racism, and profanity occurred. However it wasn't the use of this language, and violence that bothered me, it was the lack of consequence for these actions.

On one particular occasion of street roaming, I came across a car that I liked, so I simply hit the triangle button and pulled out the driver, slurred a series of profane insults, and hopped into the drivers seat and rode away. While driving this car, I speed past red light after red light, on the wrong side of the street, with no regard for the pedestrians that I hit or the cars. Eventually my car caught fire so I left it to explode. Bored with driving I decided to terrorize the people walking by me. One of the men I assaulted happened to be a cop and after several attempts to run I was ‘busted.’ With no real effects to my status (I lost a few bucks which I made back by beating a man to death and taking his wallet) I was released in front of the police station. A few more car jackings and a couple of assaults later and I finally was ‘wasted.’ No worries though, because I was then returned to the world without any real effect to my personal status.

Games have always been able to stretch the realm of reality and allowed the players to preform actions they normally wouldn't be able to preform, but there has always been consequences for actions. GTA: San Andreas takes away all consequences and allows the player the ability to do whatever they desire. There are no lives, no end-of-game-you-lose. You never have to take responsibility for your violent, racist, obscene actions and that is where morally the game is lacking. Games will always have violence, but they should also show there are consequences.

Yes, some games in this case GTA, do present a false sense of reality, usually to keep the player playing the game, which can have adverse effects on less mature audiences and gamers.