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arizonatea's Grand Theft Auto - San Andreas (PS2)
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| [January 20, 2009 05:47:52 PM]
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For my last time playing this game, I’ve decided to forgo all missions, and randomly hit people, and steal their cars. This allowed me to pay more attention to the reactions of the people surrounding me. When I was playing the missions, I didn’t really pay attention to how people where behaving and what they were saying. I’ve noticed as I was randomly hitting people, or jacking their cars and doing other illegal things is actually good for my character. My respect increases, my health increases, and my wealth increases. In the GTA world, everything we stand against in reality is condoned in this world, because its fight for survival. If you don’t do anything to harm others, they end up harming you. But if you fight and steal, your skills improve which helps you survive. You do “bad” things, and you survive. I’m sure there are situations where your personal ethics and morals don’t come into play, because it comes down to your basic, natural instinct of survival. In GTA, the “hood” is the place where it comes down to your natural instinct of either kill or be killed. I remember when I was being shot at, I would hijack cars and run people down. All that matters is my survival.
Not doing the missions takes a lot of the pressure away, because I don’t have to follow the radar map or pay close attention to the movies and what the characters were saying to me. I’ve mentioned in my previous blog how confusing the other characters were, but now that I wasn’t consumed with the missions, the behaviors of the people weren’t that confusing. When cops were driving by, usually there was a car chase, which explained why the hookers would scream. Cars traveling at fast speeds, being chased by cops, usually meant there was no safe driving and people would end up dying. The characters were extremely aggressive, because the environment calls for it. You have hookers walking around every corner and street, drug dealings going down, and cops everywhere. If you could mind your own business and avoid people, it’s hard to do. Eventually you’ll have to run into them, or they’ll catch up to you and beat you or shoot you. It’s an extremely aggressive environment, and minding your own business doesn’t really apply. Without having to follow the missions, I ended up being the aggressor. I would rob people, and jack the cars.
I have come to the conclusion that GTA: San Andreas, or any version of GTA is not my cup of tea. The video game is extremely violent, and the missions seem ridiculous. I don’t really play video games. As I mentioned in my first blog, playing GTA for the first time is like me being thrown in the deep end of the pool, and told to swim without knowing how to swim. The first and second time I was playing the game, I was still learning how to control my character and completing the mission. By the second time, I quit. I don’t really understand the concept of GTA, I read the back of the cover, and it seemed like it had an interesting plot, but playing the game, I don’t see how that applies to the missions, or rather I don’t see how the missions apply to the plot. From reading the back, I figure Carl is trying to “right” the city, but the missions are asking Carl to do the exact opposite. They want him to be as immoral, and as corrupt as everyone else in the city. The missions seemed pointless compared to the plot, but if I had played the game first, then read the cover, I would have said the plot doesn’t really go with the missions. In the defense of San Andreas, I didn’t get too far into the missions and game, so I may not have seen everything San Andreas had to offer. Just based on first impression, I thought the video game was pretty pointless. I’ve come to the conclusion that I am not a gamer, and that GTA: San Andreas is a video game that allows its players to be as violent, cruel, and immoral as much as they want while completing pointless missions.
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| [January 19, 2009 10:27:59 PM]
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On my second time playing San Andreas, I continued my mission to follow Sweet. I ended up going back my house (Carl's house) and I was suppose to change and clean my appearance up. But my character didn't have any clothes, so I was confused, but then I realized I can steal some clothes. After Carl left the house, a movie was shown, where he had a phone call from a friend. I couldn't really understand what he was saying exactly, but I understood that I had to watch my back, since the “top dog” is no longer my friend. Throughout the course of the game, I had to drive, which also took me awhile to get use to. My control over my character only improved slightly meaning I know longer was moving in zig zag directions or traveling in circles, but I still continued hitting light poles, running into walls, and running people over.
There is this mission where I'm suppose to tag the walls to also gain respect. I’ve realized that it would be impossible for me to finish this mission, since I’ve died three times. Once a cop attacked me from behind, and as self defense I sprayed the cop. The cop ended up calling back up, and I was shot to death. The second time I died, I had driven the car over a bridge, and it flipped and blew up. The third time I ended up dying was because I was shot at in the enemy’s territory. In the end, I never gained respect. Now thinking back on it, I didn’t really think about my actions and what the consequences would be after I have completed those actions. Tagging walls allows for increase in respect, but in reality, you’re really damaging people’s property, and you can’t gain respect like that.
From what I have seen, the characters are violent. If they're not shooting at me, then they're threatening me. The people I've met are black, and extremely ghetto. I noticed that as I'm passing people, I hear either threats of violence if I don't leave them alone, or people telling me to leave them alone, and other vulgar stuff. I see a lot of prostitutes walking down the street, and once a while, I’ll see drug dealings going on. Cars would randomly honk as I’m passing them or there would be random drive by’s. As cop cars drive by, there would be screams coming from hookers. I found the characters really confusing, because one minute they seem angry, another scared. I never know what to expect from the characters. Their actions and reactions to what could be my presence or presence of others. I’ve had people threaten to hit me, and actually punch me a couple of times because I was walking past them. I still don’t pay much attention to them, since I have a mission to accomplish. After dying three times, I’ve decided to call for a break. I’ll probably forgo the missions next time, and pay close attention to the by-standers.
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| [January 19, 2009 04:52:25 PM]
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Today is my first time playing GTA: San Andreas, in fact its my first time playing a video game on a PS2. I have to say, I was confused and startled. As the game loading, I was playing controls and joystick, to get the feel for the controller. Before I knew it, I, or rather Carl, was walking into a wall, and there was a blue arrow pointing at a bike. I was suppose to get on the bike, and go to CJ, but in reality, I had difficulties maintaining the bike and riding the bike. I ended up running over a police officer, then hitting a light pole. Needless to say, I failed. It took twenty minutes for me to arrive at the destination.
After I arrived at CJ, a movie was played, and I was confused. Profanity was used, I was threatened, and I could barely understand what was going on. Before I knew it, I had to follow Sweet on a bike. Let's just say biking is hard. It was when Carl hit a wall, and ended up biking in circles did I realize I've played long enough. I was shot at multiple times, chased by cars, and yelled at. While I was being shot at, I ended up stuck on a grassy field, where it took me a really long time to get out of. It took about twenty, thirty minutes to get to Sweet's location.
The first time I played this game, it took me about 50 minutes to finish the "missions." I had a hard time controlling the joystick, so throughout the entire game, Carl was running and biking in zig zags. He also ended up running alot of people over, hitting alot of walls and light poles. I didn't notice the behaviors or characteristics of the people around me, because I was distracted on how to control Carl properly. Maybe the next time I play this game, I'll have a better control over Carl. My first experience playing GTA: San Andreas has been interesting. I don't really play video games alot, so I felt like I was pushed into the deep end of the swimming pool and told to swim.
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