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wickedgod's Grand Theft Auto - San Andreas (PS2)
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| [October 6, 2008 09:16:29 AM]
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As the game continues, you are given a number of missions that you must complete to progress through the game. You are usually given a choice as to what mission you would like to do next, but ultimately, you must complete all the missions (except those that are optional, which I haven't played long enough to get to). Each mission you complete, you gain respect and money as a reward and every mission involves some level of illegal activity. So the game follows this idea of rewarding bad deeds that are done. Now, from a strictly entertainment point of view, I find no problem with this. However, looking at it from a more critical angle, I feel that this game gives the impression that they only way to gain respect from fellow peers, is to do harm in society. A young kid playing this game, who has no sense of how the world works might view this as the correct way to interact with others. The flip side of that coin is very apparent with the 'M' logo on the front cover and the ESRB content rating on the back. But another problem arises when I think back to when I purchased the game, that the sales rep didn't ask to see my ID to verify my age. So it would seem that the rating system is only as affective if it is actually enforced.
GTA San Andreas seems to follow this idea of 'kill or be killed', which is no surprise since many video games on the market now days follow the same goal/objective. Now, I've never beaten this game before, but I have beaten the other GTA games in the past and I remember that by the end of the game, your character is 'on top of the world'. The baddest guy in the neighborhood that no one will mess with, but the only way to get there is to follow that same idea, 'kill or be killed'. Case in point, during the "Sweet's Girl" mission, CJ's brother is pined down at a hotel and it is up to you to get him out of this bind. You show up and there are 4 to 5 different ballers and you must kill every one of them to save CJ's brother. After you have saved him, you jump in a car and race back to your hood to avoid being killed by the backup ballers that come to the scene after you killed everyone.
None of the GTA games follow any kind of moral or ethical code. This is apparent on how the characters do not value life. Because they do not value life, a society like this could never survive. It remains of a passage in the reading we did when there was no consequences for killing others, then there would be no trust and no central form of society. Only when a small group of people agree not to harm one another will there be any sign of progress or structure of society.
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| [October 4, 2008 08:37:41 PM]
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So my second day playing San Andreas and I am starting to remember why I use to play these types of video games. This game was fun to play sometimes, not so much to try and beat it or progress through the game, but to sometimes just vent some of my frustration out by destroying as many things as I could. Or something else I use to love to do, was to see how many stars I could get and see how long I could last before I got killed by the police. Fun stuff.
Now, back to the actual game play (with the story line). I wondered if any else noticed the lack of religion that is in this game? The first time I realized this was at the beginning of the game when the character Smoke says its like in the 'Good Book', which of course is referring to the Bible. Then, CJ's (the main character) reply is "What *****in book?". This was interesting to me as when I think back to it, it almost seems like foreshadowing to the idea of a world without religion or moral consequences. I don't think this cut-scene really made a very big impression on me the first time I saw it. I was just really wanting to get to the game play and wasn't really focusing on the cut-scene. However, during the game play, I got this feeling of absolute freedom within the game. This feeling that I could do anything with no consequences; a world without morality. Interesting.
On another topic, I also found it interesting as CJ moved through the start of the game, he is driven by this idea to reunite the 'ballers' (his gang). What I found entertaining was the part where he goes to the crack house and kills the drug dealers because the drugs had taken over the lives of many of his old gang members. For some reason, this shows a close relationship to the idea of Kantianism. CJ has this good will to try and make sure no of his friends are hurt by drugs so he, goes out and kills the drug dealers. Because this appears to be CJ's good will, would this make it moral? Is it immoral to kill criminals? Is this not what we do when we use the death penalty ? Very interesting.
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| [October 3, 2008 09:25:39 PM]
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First off, Grand Theft Auto - San Andreas is a very nice game for its time. The game play is good with the open world experience and the feel that you can do anything. In fact, the whole Grand Theft Auto series is very good. However, Rock Star doesn't appear to be pushing the envelope with game, but that's not what this 'blog' is about. I am going to talk about two themes that are easily seen from the very beginning: violence and stereotype.
Please be aware that I haven't played this game in a long time and that when I started this assignment, I started the game from the beginning. The first thing I noticed when the game opened up with its opening scenes were the stereotypes. The main character starts off with his slang language, cursing, and low-class attire. Mother had not only died but was murdered and it is up to your character to find out who did it. The scene moves from the airport to a cab ride that is interrupted by the San Andreas Police who also appear to fall into a typical stereotype; crooked. But it doesn't end there, one of the police officers yells to the cab driver to move on and calls him a "grease ball" (I think, I could be incorrect on the name but I think that is what it was). Just another thing to add to the quickly piling stereotypes.
Something else I want to discuss for this entire is the relation to the violence and Utilitarianism. The character in the game is a part of a gang that must go around his neighborhood doing deeds (good or bad?) to help to try and better his gang or community. If he is able to increase the overall state of happiness to be more than the unhappiness, than by a few of Utilitarianism, he would be considered morally just. I know that sounds bad, saying a person doing destructive acts to be morally just, but if you take the neighborhood at the beginning of the game and look at it in a way were all the gangs are always fighting each other, then everyone in the city is going to be unhappy. The only way to have a happier city, would be to eliminate all the other gangs within the city until there was only one left. Many of those within the city might be better off (happier) with the city. This would be true, of course, if the only remaining gang was not a terror on the citizens of the city. If they were, we would need another gang to step in and replace them (perhaps the cops?).
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