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Saturday 17 April, 2010
I continued my play of San Andreas by tackling the numerous missions that are presented to me through in-game cellphone calls. Icons appear on the radar at the bottom corner of the screen indicating where I should go. Driving controls are pretty responsive overall, but I found that the Playstation left-analog stick sometimes got me into trouble steering. As an Xbox 360 owner, I have grown accustomed to the 360 controller, so I thought the Playstation controller was a bit more sensitive. This was a minor gripe, though, as this did not completely prohibit me from successfully.
One of the first main missions ("Tagging Up Turf") has players driving around to different locations indicated on the map and spray-painting over rival gang tags. Getting from point to point was easy, and the only minor obstacle was Baller gang members attacking me once they saw me tagging their turf. These gang members would immediately either open fire on me or begin to try to beat me up. I am not an expert on gang culture by any means, but I do feel that this type of reaction among gangs is not altogether unthinkable. Giving players control over these situations does encourage gamers to take part in violent actions, as it is either fight back or die.
The second mission I played was "Cleaning the Hood," where players join up with in-game ally Ryder to clean out drug dealers that are negatively affecting Grove Street, CJ's hood. This is a pretty violent mission, as I was forced to beat to death coked out rival gang members, leaving dead bodies and pools of blood on the floor of their house. Players really have no other choice but to kill all of these men, as the mission cannot be finished unless done so. I can certainly see why many have scorned this game for its violent nature, yet the age-old argument can be made that it is still only a form of entertainment and not a promotion of such actions.
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