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Oct 6th, 2008 at 00:04:57 - Grand Theft Auto - San Andreas (PS2) |
As I proceeded through the rest of the introductory missions, I discovered as with the first three and the opening cut scene they all still present the player as a victim. Never does the player go on the attack or do any of the things he does out of greed or human desires. They present him as an honorable guy doing what he has to for his family and friends. They are careful to ease into crime. While the player has been shot at he has not stained his hands with blood, gotten revenge, or done anything that couldn't be justified. As a matter of fact most of what he has done thus far has been running for his life, further cementing this idea that the world is against you and methodically trying to absolve you from caring about any actions taken against entities in this world.
In the mission “Cleaning the Hood” the game tries to paint the main character as a moral warrior. Cleaning his neighborhood of drugs. It plays much more like a case of doing the wrong thing with the right intentions, which doesn't make it any less the wrong thing. The player goes out for some vigilante justice and assaults a number of drug dealers to unconsciousness with a baseball bat. While cleaning the world of drugs is a great cause, it would seem rather unethical to depict this as an effective way of achieving this goal. Considering while the game is careful to tell you that you are not killing these people you beat up, it fails to mention the potential brain damage and death that is likely to result from such beatings. Not to mention the prison involved. When I was arrested in the game after beating someone with a bat, I respawned outside of the police station seconds later. This taking a rather lax position to prison. A crime like this would involve charges like attempted manslaughter, assault with a deadly weapon, and would put the player in jail for some ten or more years, with good reason too.
Lastly, in this game session I found myself torn on the subject of racism. Initially I assumed the way that blacks are portrayed in this game was racist. It assumed they were all gangbanging thugs or drug dealers and dressed them and wrote them in very negative stereotypes. Then something occurred to me that hadn't before. The main cast is a perfect model of NWA as they appeared on the Straight Outa Compton album and models their behavior after that of the characters in their songs. CJ is MC Ren, Ryder is a picture perfect Eazy E (replace San Andreas on his hat with Compton), and Sweet is Ice Cube. While this does not justify the game series history of racism controversy, especially in its jokes, I question how much of what many perceive as clear unethical racism are simply unrecognized parodies or in this case homages to admired recording artists.
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Oct 5th, 2008 at 23:25:29 - Grand Theft Auto - San Andreas (PS2) |
I returned to San Andreas this week, a game I haven't played in almost four years. As the opening cut scene enfolds the player is robbed and subsequently framed then blackmailed by a corrupt police officer. By putting the police as the main villain and antagonist early on, the game presents a world where morals are much more lax than most others. It seems to desensitize the player early on to the ethical violations they will perform later in the title, by presenting them as a victim doing what they must to get by in a mixed up, unjust game world. It hopes the player will come into the experience assuming if justice is not present, if the police are immoral, then why should I care to be?
I find it worth noting however that this part of the script is not without its merit. It is important to acknowledge that as much as this is just a rip off of movies like Training Day and as much harm as it may do to the players moral compass within the game world, it does make a fantastic attempt at educating the player to the reality of police corruption in areas of poverty. The fact is that this was often the case in Los Angeles during this time period especially amongst the then infamous Rampart CRASH unit. As a person who very familiar with the injustice and mistreatment of corrupt police, I feel that this is an incredibly brave move risking the controversy that may result from taking a clear moral stand on this issue and including it in a product consumed by millions of people.
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