I didn't realize that I was supposed to log on this game based on three different occasions, so sadly I just played GTA San Andreas for an hour and a half straight. During this period I "died" about 7 times, most of them self inflicted (especially by provoking others.) I spent most of my time just re-familiarizing myself with the literal boundaries of the game, seeing which buildings I could enter and what the purpose of that ability was, appraising the differences in the different style of cars I could steal, and testing the waters of the other gang territories. I found slightly offensive the drastic differences in the different gang territories, seemingly characterized by race. The main character is CJ, who perfectly filled the roll of the stereotypical African American thug by his clothing, stride, and especially the little sound bites which interact with his immediate surroundings. In his gang territory, many of the pedestrians are wearing his gang colors and look exactly like him. They meander around slowly, mumbling seeming positive words to CJ in passing, or sitting around chatting and smoking, or shooting at foreign intruders in their space. They never are seen doing anything constructive, unless you count defending the borders of their gang territory. On entering foreign gang territory, physically identical members of another racially characterized gang (in this case I believe they were projecting the Hispanic stereotype,) come running from every direction shooting and yelling, forcing me to fight back and recruit some of my friends to help, or flee for blocks until they stop chasing me. I found this troubling because as the main character you were presented with a dilemma where the only two choices were to fight back and kill as many members of the opposing gang that you needed to to defend yourself, or to be a coward and sprint away. There was no room for negotiation. Basically I just find the stereotypes presented to be more like caricatures of such common stereotypes, making it all the more harmful and portraying a "world" where such blatant hostilities and separatism exists and are so clearly and devoutly enforced with no exceptions.
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