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Mar 29th, 2014 at 14:41:26 - Super Columbine Massacre RPG (PC) |
These entries are on the same day because the site was down.
On my second time playing the game through I decided to treat it solely as an RPG and try to ignore the real world factors. Doing this I noticed that the game play was very tedious almost as if the creator did not want you, the player, to finish the game. I tried to kill all the people that I could, but after clearing several rooms I became bored and decided to finish the game only to wind up in Hell. I noticed that there was only one member in my party and was curious as to why only one of the gun men made it to the worst possible place. I learned through online forums that you eventually do find your other team member and that you end up hanging out with the devil. The game seems to have mixed messages. One being that if you do bad things that you will go to Hell, but that if you are bad then it is not a bad place?
Another question that I asked myself is, "Why did the creator choose Columbine?". There are plenty of other school shootings that have happened in the US. I understand that it was the deadliest to have happened up until that point, but when you draw upon such an event and use a medium that is considered to be for entertainment then it changes the audiences focus and reaction. Using a Utilitarian view, the pain and sorrow that the victims and family and friends of the victims had to go through seems to out weight the potential benefit of trying to create a serious game based on the specific event or even to try and understand the gunmen and their reasoning as to why they did what they did.
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Mar 29th, 2014 at 14:22:13 - Super Columbine Massacre RPG (PC) |
First off playing this game made me feel gross. The reason that it made me feel this way probably had to do with the fact that the bones of the game is a JRPG. I really enjoy those types of games. The character sprites and the story line are the only things that really were changed. However, I feel that this game could have been done a slightly different way. By making it an RPG it causes people, at least me, to focus on gaining XP to level. If the leveling and XP mechanics would have been altered to some other mechanic then I feel that there would have been a much better moral high ground. I feel that the game in its current form was the creation of an immature mind.
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Feb 5th, 2014 at 11:03:07 - Grand Theft Auto - San Andreas (PS2) |
During this play session I decided to explore. I did not complete any quests or missions on purpose. I just wandered around the map. I was looking at the different scenery and the various NPC that wander the world of San Andreas with me.
While meandering the map I was trying to think about the symbolism in the game. I figure that the developers chose the setting they did more to connect with Americans than to make an ethical statement. However, The designers used certain images and symbols to evoke particular reactions in the players. As we discussed in class the creators put everything into the game for a reason.
First of all the setting of the game is in the slums or ghetto of a large metropolitan area. The character that you control is black and so are his friends. It is interesting that the developers chose to follow the character that they did. There are other minorities that might have been just as enticing. The deep history of blacks in America is a juicy ethical topic. Even though they have equal rights they have had to fight in order to get their natural rights.
The slums also have NPC that are drug dealers and hookers. Now it is not to say that other parts of the town do not have them, they are just not as noticeable. This leads to a feeling that there is a dual moral, one for each of the two different areas, a higher moral in nicer parts of town and a lower moral in the slums. Or that the people in the slums are not as concerned about what others think.
It was an interesting experience just driving around the game. Granted I got shot at a lot for going places that I shouldn’t be, onto other gangs turf I think. Also seeing the different emphasis that the architecture can make, for example your starting neighborhood is run down and trashy. The houses are at most two stories high and run down. In the city things are new, there are skyscrapers and everything. I think that the creators wanted to show that regardless of what you see, fancy or run down, there is always corruption and crime.
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Feb 3rd, 2014 at 14:27:10 - Grand Theft Auto - San Andreas (PS2) |
In this play through I wanted to see what the game would be like if I were to use cheat codes. GTA has very few rules and even those seem to be flimsy. Driving around I ran a red light and clipped the rear end of a car. I did all this with a police officer following right behind me. The officer did not right me up he merely honked his horn at me and continued on his way. Granted Grand Theft Auto would be nearly impossible to play if the law enforcement busted you for everything. Also it is not what the game is exploring. This incident gave me the idea to play with cheat codes enabled. I wanted to know if it would change the game in anyway because the game is about doing whatever you want. Drawing from the thought that the developers only put things in the game that they want to be there, I figured that they see it as okay to use “cheat” codes.
I could not manage to get some of the codes to work. When I finally did get the codes to work the game play did not really change. I still could do whatever I wanted, I just had more freedom and power to do what I wanted. By enabling the codes it made completing missions easier and I was able to see more of the storyline. Usually when I use codes I feel like I am ruining the game. This was not the case with GTA. The game already felt like it was unreal with the things that are allowed and by enabling the codes it just felt like I was extending the games functionality. I did not feel any guilt at all with the codes enabled and that sort of made me feel a little bummed that I didn’t get that feeling that I was ruining the game.
On a different note. The other day in class we discussed the ethical framework relativism. I know that relativism is not a workable framework, but applying it to GTA makes sense. In the game there are different gang factions and it is interesting that when you kill them your character does not show any signs of remorse or regret, the same seems to be true for the other gang members. The ethical framework that seems to exist in the game is a mixture of social contract, relativism, with a dash of do whatever. Getting respect from my gang for doing various things. So the social contract seems to be with your gang. That is why I suggest that it is both social contract and relativism mixed. Now it might change if I ever progress in the game, but I really have no interest in GTA.
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nathan.nash has been with GameLog for 10 years, 10 months, and 7 days |
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