Blogging the experience of gameplayhttps://www.gamelog.cl/gamers/GamerPage.php?idgamer=857https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3468In this game log, I would like to look back over all the elements of SCMRPG, and analyze its violent aspect from an ethical perspective. I have already discussed that SCMRPG is not the typical violent computer game. Far from it, the game tries to explore the psychology and emotions of the Columbine murderers and translate directly to players through the game. Violence in the game, from a player view, is not very graphically depicted, much like Pokemon and the FF series. It does not make the killing any less realistic however, you could view many dead corpses on the ground that you as a player have personally created. That is some serious exposition to the world of the murderer. If through all the original well-developed cut scenes and story, players still cannot grasp the point to the killings of innocent bystanders, then SCMRPG probably have failed from an ethical stand point. Why? Because as said previously, the artful exploration of how the murderers feel, their reasons and hatred, their surroundings, their environment, all of this contributes to what separates this RPG from so many other violent game. Killing in this game is not necessarily a means to an end, but an end in itself. In so many other games, we are given missions, and quests to do, many of which involve killing. Although as a player, we do not feel any hatred towards the NPCs, we do those missions to advance further. Not quite so in SCMRPG. You could choose to kill the helpless bystanders, if you truly feel the hatred that those murderers were feeling, which were so elaborately depicted in game, through cut scenes and stories. Or you can simply walk past them and concentrate on completing the game, upon which the game becomes a rather meaningless act: you're not really playing it, you just want to complete the game and get it over with. (This entry has been edited1 time. It was last edited on Wed, 05 Nov 2008 12:25:47.)Wed, 05 Nov 2008 12:25:19 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3468&iddiary=6509https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3468My last gaming session got me to the part where Eric has to plant the bombs within the cafeteria. What terrible camera explanations, it took me 20 minutes to figure out how to get through the whole hallway into the cafeteria, even then I made the mistake of forgetting to take the bomb from the car trunk, and having to get back to the parking lot. Why can't the bomb just be placed in our inventory slot at the beginning anyway? Maybe the act of taking the bomb out of the car trunk is rather meaningful to the game designer? Possibly. I find that hard to believe however after all the bombs got planted, and the game moved into its slaughter stage. Every single person can be slaughtered (or as the game so cleverly put it: "knocked out"), while I as a player felt no sense of revenge or satisfactions in killing them. The whole experience was not meaningful in anyway, just a kill-fest. Based on such meaningless kill-fest, we can question the morality of the game. Though it is likely that we criticize the game for being highly immoral, illustrating the act of murders, yet so many other games out there do almost the same thing and can get away with it. Super Columbine Massacre RPG is just under more criticism simply for its theme. (This entry has been edited1 time. It was last edited on Wed, 05 Nov 2008 11:33:34.)Wed, 05 Nov 2008 11:09:52 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3468&iddiary=6497https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3468My very first impression of this game is, wow, it certainly is not your typical game. The game theme itself is provocative and controversial, being about the Columbine shooting. Starting the game, I'm even more startled that I will get to play as one of the murderer. It was very interesting right at the start to see how things would continue from there. The first 30 minutes, there weren't much actions going on. But I was thankful for that (I wasn't yet ready for all the shootings to come). The game in fact lay a pretty elaborate storyline that attempts to explain the psychology of the murderers. The cut scene and the angst songs all add to the experience of being an oppressed teenager who's soon to blow up. At this stage, this game is really a work of art in its powerful ability to invoke emotions upon players. I have to wonder however if all this psychological exploration is simply our one-way hypothesis in trying to explain the Columbine massacre. If that is so, is it at all ethical to base the whole story and reasoning up front upon this not-so-clear explanation of the massacre. Is society really to blame for the massacre? (This entry has been edited1 time. It was last edited on Wed, 05 Nov 2008 10:52:40.)Wed, 05 Nov 2008 10:17:20 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3468&iddiary=6490https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3402Once again I come back to GTA to resume the mission. This time, my first mission is "Sweet's Girl". Sweet and his girlfriend is surrounded by the Seville, and I have to control CJ to get him out of trouble. Fair enough, I thought it was simply a fetch and run type of mission. I couldn't be more wrong. The game does not allow Sweet to come out until all the Seville who are surrounding his place are eliminated. I was faced with a choice between killing several people from another gang, saving Sweet and his girlfriend, and ignoring the mission and spare the lives of those people. Obviously, to continue with the mission, I was forced to go with the first choice. Had it be a real choice in the real world though, I'm puzzled as to what would be the ethical answer. Do you kill several people to save your brother and his girlfriend, or do you value multiple lives over one life?Mon, 06 Oct 2008 14:59:55 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3402&iddiary=6411https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3402Giving GTA: San Andreas another go today, I decided to pause doing missions and simply move around the city of Los Santos to find somethings to do. Immediately I was made aware of how bad of a driver I am in the game. It could be me, but I suspect that the game engine and the layout of a virtual city makes it very hard to drive a car around without bumping into something a few times. My casual ride turned out to be quite a bit rougher than I expected. I have yet to become accustomed to driving in GTA, so my speed control was terrible. I bumped into other cars, I ran over and injured a few people. At 2-star wanted level, the police chased me around, and I managed to hide from them long enough to get a paint job to escape going to jail. The weird thing is: I managed to get a 2-star wanted level a lot faster than when I was working on the missions, and I wasn't even trying to. This prompts an interesting ethical question about goodwill and its outcome. According to Kant, even if a person's best effort at doing good should fall short and cause harm, the good will behind the effort is still good. I did not have any ill-intentions while driving, yet I caused accidents and the police turned on me. It seems that Kantianism and the categorical imperative does not apply in the game. (This entry has been edited2 times. It was last edited on Mon, 06 Oct 2008 00:18:31.)Sun, 05 Oct 2008 22:54:19 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3402&iddiary=6352https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3402Today I played GTA: San Andreas for the first time on the PC. The main playable character in the game is Carl Johnson, and most people call him Carl or CJ. The opening cinematic shows CJ coming back from Liberty City after learning about Mama's death through Sweet (his brother). He came back to find his gang in total disorder. It seems that players will have to guide CJ through the various missions to strengthen his gang once again, and also find out about Mama's death. My first reaction is that although "GTA: SA" is just a game, emotional attachment and relationship plays a strong emphasis, especially in the core missions of the game. The gang members tell CJ so themselves: "Respect has to be earned, just like money." Sweet is unhappy about his sister Kendl's relationship with Cesar, who is the leader of a rival gang Varrios Los Aztecas. Sweet, himself is a powerful character, who is extremely loyal to the gang and the hood. Loyalty certainly plays a major part in the game. Sweet even demanded that CJ wears green to show his affiliation with the gang. All of this leads me to believe that the game will possess a very powerful storyline to be revealed later on. As expected of a game about gangs like GTA, swearing and racial slangs are also thrown around incessantly, which made me cringe a few times while playing, having never played the previous GTA games before. My personal favorite quote though is from Officer Frank Tenpenny: "I can shit on you from such a height, you'll think God himself took a crap on you." Violence is displayed in every other scene and mission in the game. Soon after CJ came back to the neighborhood, he and Sweet got attacked by the Ballas. Guns are brandished and shot freely, and NPCs can be beaten to death with very little consequences. This aspect of the game was exactly what discouraged me from purchasing and playing the previous games in the series. (This entry has been edited4 times. It was last edited on Sun, 05 Oct 2008 22:55:44.)Sun, 05 Oct 2008 20:07:38 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3402&iddiary=6334