Blogging the experience of gameplayhttps://www.gamelog.cl/gamers/GamerPage.php?idgamer=950https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3643My third session playing Super Columbine Massacre RPG was spent walking through the school, trying to end the game. I made my way through all the rooms, encountering the same five or six various characters and attacking them. This got extremely repetitive, as it was exactly the same thing is did for my second session as well. This made me want to get through the game even faster. After about twenty minutes of making my way from classrooms to the cafeteria, I eventually made it to the library. At this point I was so sick of attacking people that I was taking more time trying to avoid people than I was trying to get through the game. Eventually I made it to the back of the library where a shoot out with the cops takes place. I’m then given a choice to continue killing people or ending it. I can’t image why any one would want to keep killing, because I couldn’t find anything enjoyable about it. The game play was just extremely simple and repetitive, and just helped to confirm my original thought that this game was made to shock people. After the shooters took their lives, I was shown a series of photographs of the aftermath of the shootings. Seeing all this was extremely sad, and it just made the game seem even more trivial and ridiculous. When placed next to the reality of the shootings, the game just seemed even more pointless. I thought the game was over, but then Dylan shows up in hell. I think this was a pretty obvious was of saying that the developer did no condone what the shooters did and he thought they were supposed to go to hell. It seemed like an easy way of getting himself off the hook for making a game that exploited a terrible event just to shock people. I didn’t make it to the end of the level, but I’m sure I wasn’t missing out on much. After finishing my last session, I was glad that I was finally done with this game. Sat, 21 Feb 2009 18:46:38 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3643&iddiary=6823https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3643My second half hour started with Eric and Dylan waiting for the bombs to go off. When the bombs fail to do so, the shooting spree starts. Kids appear in the parking lot, and whenever you bump into one, a “battle” begins. Each kid you attack is a high school stereotype, including pretty girls, jocks, nerds, and religious kids. This is probably meant to show how the two shooters didn’t single any group out, they just decided to kill everyone. The interesting part is that you encounter one kid in the parking lot who Eric tells to go home because he likes him. I think there could have been a chance here to expand on this, but its over with one line of dialogue. I moved from the parking lot to the school, where you can attack more of the same kids in the hallway and the classrooms. The fighting is turn based, but you have weapons and the kids don’t, so its pretty one sided. You can choose to manually select your weapons, or just go through automatically. The fighting gets pretty repetitive, so I just kept using the auto button to move through the fights faster. At this point in the game there really isn’t anything to do besides move around the school killing people. There is no dialogue with any of the other characters, which is another missed opportunity to explore some of the reasons for the shooters actions. After playing this far in the game, I’m starting to feel like all this game was meant to do was shock people. The game really doesn’t delve to deep into the shooters motives, it just portrays them as two decided to kill people because “life is war.” Maybe that’s the point, but I don’t think that is saying too much. I still have one more session left, so hopefully I can find out if there is more to this game than just shock factor. Sat, 21 Feb 2009 10:34:29 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3643&iddiary=6818https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3643When I discovered that there was a video game based the Columbine massacre, I was surprised at first, by when I thought about it for a second, it seemed obvious that someone would exploit a major event in our society like Columbine to gain attention. Basing a video game off of Columbine is an easy way to gain attention as a developer, but really all its there to do is cause controversy. On the games website, the developer says that the point of the game is to put yourself in the shooters shoes, to try and discover what motivated them to do what they did. So as I started the game, I tried to do just that. You play as Eric, one of the two gunmen in Columbine. I spent the first half hour of game play gearing up for the shooting, collecting various items from Eric’s house. I collected a Marilyn Manson CD, an antidepressant prescription, two large duffel bags, and some bombs. After meeting up with Dylan, the other shooter, I headed off to the school. Before I left there was an interesting cut scene where the two shooters make their last videotape. In the scene, I thought it was pretty obvious that Eric was supposed to be made out to be more remorseful because he keeps apologizing to his parents, while Dylan just talks about how everyone deserves to die. I don’t remember if this was really the case, but it seems the developer is putting more of the blame on Dylan. I spent the rest of the time sneaking through the hallways to plant the bombs in the cafeteria. This was actually harder than I thought it would be, and I kept getting caught by various hall monitors. Eventually I got all the bombs planted, got my weapons, and made it back to the parking lot to save my game. So far, the game has not done much to impress me. Obviously the game play itself is not going to be to in depth, but I thought the game would at least try and raise some more questions on the shooters motives. All it does it spit out quotes about “life being war” and “everyone must die.” It was all pretty obvious to me, just the same stuff that we heard in the news coverage after the massacre took place. For my next half hour I should be getting into the actual shooting, so we’ll see where it goes from there. Fri, 20 Feb 2009 00:47:09 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3643&iddiary=6814https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3546San Andreas round 3: For my third session, I chose to play past the first couple missions in order to open up the game a little more. The farther you play in a GTA game, more and more features are made available to you. Having progressed a little farther in the story at this point, I was able to access some of the newer features that were added to San Andreas Some of things I was encouraged to do were go to the gym and work out, eat food to gain health (but not too much or I'd gain weight), and find a girl to date. I did not like the addition of these features because I saw it as an attempt to make the game more realistic, which is not what GTA is all about to me. This game is meant to be anything but reality, because in real life I would never drive my car onto the sidewalk to smash a group of rival gang bangers, or run around trying to kill as many people as I can before the cops get me. I don't want to play a game that lets me do so many bad things, things that are frowned upon by any contributing member of society, and then have to go work out in the gym in order to impress a girl. This game is not meant to be reality, and these features are an attempt by the developers to blur the line between video game and reality, and for a game like San Andreas, I just think that is a bad idea. All in all I don't think much creative effort was put into this game. Like I said before the story and dialogue is uninspired, and it seems like it was done to piss people off. The game play is almost identical to the previous games in the series, with the setting being transplanted to a west coast city filled with stereotypical gang banger characters. The developers tried to add a few new features to the game, but in the end I think they took away from being able to just have fun playing the game.Wed, 21 Jan 2009 07:58:41 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3546&iddiary=6688https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3546San Andreas round two: I started up the game today and quickly realized I forgot to save my game. Seeing as how the missions were kind of disappointing my first time playing through, I decided to take advantage of the sandbox game-play that first brought the GTA series widespread popularity. I spent my second half hour exploring the city, and having played GTA before, I knew the quickest way to get around was to steal one of the many cars around the city. Driving around is fun, and it's pretty obvious that the developers are encouraging you to cause damage as you cruise around the city. The streets are crowded with cars, and smashing into one, with the the exception of a cop car, has no penalty. The sidewalks seem to be the best way to get around, with any obstacle you hit, especially people, flying out of your way. If you don't follow the missions, it's pretty obvious that the only point of this game is to cause damage and kill people. I made my way around the city and the only thing for me to do was see how many people I could kill without dying or being gunned down by the cops. This was fun for a little, but without a lot of money and weapons, I found myself getting bored pretty quickly. While previous games have relied on the mafia and cartel as their inspiration, this game is clearly inspired by the early 90's and the emergence of west coast gang bangers. CJ is part of the Grove Street gang, which is comprised entirely of the stereotypical black gang banger character. One of CJs friends is even animated to look exactly like Eazy-E from the rap group NWA. The other gang I encountered was made up of stereotypical latin characters. I think the developers were just trying to poke fun at some of these stereotypes by making them so obvious, but it just seemed uninspired to me. Tue, 20 Jan 2009 16:06:25 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3546&iddiary=6642https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3546Today I played San Andreas for the first time since it was released. I've played all of the Grand Theft Auto games, and this one sticks as my least favorite. It's also the only game out of the series that I did not play all the way through, and as I'm replaying it now I am definitely remembering some things that I didn't like about the game. My main complaint was with the actual story of the game. The whole plot seems forced, and I feel like the writers were definitely going for shock value in this game. The GTA series has always been known for its graphic content, specifically the fact that players can spend hours running around a virtual city, killing people, stealing cars, buy hookers, killing them to get your money back, and so on. I enjoyed this part of the game as much anyone else, but it was the story of the previous games that actual drew me into them. They were actually well thought out and I found myself wanting to know what happened next. In San Andreas, I just didn't really care. I spent my first half hour moving through the first couple missions, which consisted of me riding away on a bike, getting a haircut, and driving someone home. Interspersed throughout these boring missions, were snippets of dialouge that was pretty much all curse words. That stuff doesn't bother me, but I felt like it was there just to be there, and I don't remember any of the other games having that much profanity. Besides the profanity, the clip of CJ being framed for a cops murder also stuck out to me. I know it plays into the story, but it just seemed very obvious that the game was just setting up the stereotypical corrupt cop vs. gang banger scenario. Rather than have some character or story development, CJ just jumps right into gang banging and beating up crack dealers, saying over and over "I'm down." Maybe I'm just expecting to much from the game. Or it may be that because I'm older now, the shock value of this game just doesn't impress me like it used to. Either way it just seemed like this game was made with the sole intention of pissing people off, and not trying to create a world where you actually want to do more than run around and kill people. Tue, 20 Jan 2009 00:11:39 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3546&iddiary=6634