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Jinaud's Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (PC)
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| [January 21, 2009 01:34:21 AM]
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The Grand Theft Auto series is a very violent series of games. Ground breaking, I know. But the question is, is all of the killing in the game that you do always immoral? Now obviously, picking up a hooker, doing you're business, then running her over to get you're money back is wrong. But I'm talking about the killings that the game wants you to do, in the storyline. Previously, I talked about how the vengeance creates more vengeance in a never ending cycle of 'justice'. But that was a very general view of the city itself. From CJ's standpoint (and it probably would look the same from the viewpoint of many individuals in San Andreas) his constant fighting, killing, and stealing have a purpose. All's fair in war, and the constant gang fighting in the city could certainly constitute a war. Now often the actions in war can be seen as horrifying, even disgusting in a time of peace, but during war (pick any Revolutionary War, WWI, WWII, Korea, any really) the soldiers are trying to survive as well as maybe make things better for their families and future generations. Let's just avoid the issues that the Iraq war raised, things like blood for oil or whatever for now. Now from the standpoint of a soldier, is what CJ doing wrong? He is attempting to carve out a better existence for his friends and family. In of and itself a pretty fair and just goal. However, he ends up (is almost forced to actually) pave a path of blood in order to get to his goal. Just as in the scene with Officer Tenpenny framing him, he is forced to do many of these things. So in a time of war, do ethics change? Obviously the answer's yet, but should they change? What is the limit that ethics are allowed to be stretched during war. Over the past century we have created laws for warfare, in order to make it more 'humane'. Apparently it's okay to rip a guy's entrails out of his body and leave him laying there bleeding to death, but it's not okay to suffocate or poison him with a chemical agent. The only real difference between CJ's 'war' and an official war,is that his doesn't have a political backing. Although later on in the game when he begins to work for much more richer and more powerful businessmen, it can be said that even this difference fades significantly. I think the answer is that yes, the way you view ethics should change dramatically when you start sending people (or are sent) to a battlefield to fight, kill and die. Just like when the bombs were dropped in Japan during WWII, normally innocents aren't allowed to fight, but here it was allowed, even considered an act of heroism. Now obviously not all of the murders CJ commits can be rationalized this way, but a good many of them can be.
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| [January 20, 2009 07:28:48 PM]
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The city of San Andreas, and it's current situation reminds me a lot of Gotham City. It's a city (with suburbs and such) of almost complete corruption, where crime runs rampant throughout every rank of it's people. For example the police. They come looking for Carl solely to get him under their thumb early. They frame him for the murder of a police officer, which they most likely caused. In the game, you can commit a hit and run in the presence of a police officer, and the 'heat' will die down rather quickly. In fact, a single murder only nets the player a 1 star crime level, the same as petty thievery. With all these problems with the crime system, it falls to the inhabitants to police themselves. Which turns into gang wars rather quickly, with everyone getting together to try and defend their 'turf'. A lot of it comes down to family and friends defending each other. Which isn't a bad goal in and of itself. But this goal leads to people killing each others friends and family in order to intimidate or gain vengeance for past grievances. However, vengeance doesn't work as a system of law, since the punishment for even a minor grievance can be a very painful death. Which results in more vengeance. Impartiality is completely removed from the equation, and in the end the 'right' party comes down to whoever has the biggest guns, and the least qualms about using those guns.
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| [January 20, 2009 05:13:25 PM]
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Okay, so the very first thing that you notice about the game is the consistent stereotyping. It's completely obvious, not even bothering to hide it. The main character, CJ, is a stereotype as well, however, he's somewhat different than the others. No, I don't mean that he is 'special' in the way that he is the main character and therefore better or worse or more important or smarter than the other character stereotypes. He is, but what I mean is that as a stereotype he is special. In America, we like to pretend racism is a dying lifeform,even though it remains fairly prevalent. A very odd trend in racism is the lightness of skin. For example, an African-American would be more likely to be discriminated against than someone who's asian, simply because his skin is a darker shade. A lighter skin-toned African-American generally tends to experience less racism both from outsides groups, and from his own group, than a very dark skin-toned person. This less obvious trend continues with GTA, in that CJ is a lighter skin tone than his brother and all the other African-American characters that you meet (at least in the beginning of the game. Is this lighter skin tone supposed to make him easier to trust or like? Or is this merely a coincidence that the lightest toned man in the beginning of the game is considered supposed to be more important than the others?
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