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jm831's Grand Theft Auto - San Andreas (PS2)
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| [April 18, 2010 05:43:30 PM]
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Third and final day of playing Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. I started playing today’s round by going to the gym as I was not looking forward to more of the same gameplay. The most frustrating experience was “Drive-By.” “Drive-By” required me to drive the car while other members of the gang leaned out of the windows and shot at members of the Ballas gang. I had to replay this mission several times because I kept failing at it. I had a hard time driving at the right speed. For difficulty purposes, the game was designed so that it would take more shots to kill a rival gang member than to destroy CJ’s car. I don’t know why this frustrated me. I mean, “reality,” “realistic,”“realism,” and other variations of the word “real” went out the window a long time ago. But it was still a frustrating experience nonetheless.
This mission in particular was an interesting personal experience. Here I was getting frustrated because I couldn’t murder quick enough. As I posted previously, GTA desensitizes me during the gameplay. During the last part of “Drive-By” before I was chased by the cops, I drove through the park and ran over, backed-up, and re-ran over the remaining members of the Ballas gang. I don’t know what was going through my mind at this point, only that I wanted those guys dead and it better be fast. After running over these human beings, I was chased by the cops until I had the car spray painted.
One of the other missions I did was sneaking into an old Army veteran’s house and stealing his guns with Ryder. Instead of going in guns blazing, the game had me sneaking in wearing a ski mask. Except for the bright green shirt and bright green jeans I was wearing, it was a nice idea on the part of the game to not only make me a tagger and killer, but to make me a burglar as well. The mission was simple enough. It was interesting to note that the man I was stealing the guns from was not only white, but a Vietnam veteran who has a Confederate flag in his living room. This is another example of the continuing stereotypes involved in this game. In addition to CJ and his game being stereotypes of poor African-American gangs/ neighborhoods (based on their dialogue, dress, radio stations in the cars), Rockstar and others involved in the game automatically assume that all Vietnam vets are either state’s right advocates or racists. I highly doubt it is the former, based on the other characters involved in the game.
I found Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas to be a desensitizing exhibition of violence and stereotypes. While CJ was probably thrust into his situation and the police are as corrupt as they come, I still cannot see any justification for CJ’s actions. I’m not sure how the rest of the game plays out or if everything comes full circle, but how this series continues to sell is beyond my understanding. During gameplay I wasn’t bothered by the serious lack of morality involved; it was when I reflected on what I just did for a period of time did I realize how immoral GTA is.
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| [April 17, 2010 11:57:17 PM]
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Today I continued doing some of the missions in San Andreas. The first one I had to do as CJ was drive to get some tacos. While eating in the parking lot of the restaurant, a rival gang drives by and checks CJ and the others out, so the others tell me it’s a “drive-by” and I’m supposed to closely follow them so a gun fight can begin. I thought it was rather silly, especially when I drove by numerous police, firing guns and breaking traffic laws without being stopped. It is possible that the police are that corrupt to allow it to happen, or maybe the programmers just didn’t bother to program police activity in during missions. However I still found it ridiculous. After the rival gang’s car is on fire, I was supposed to get out and kill the members of the rival gang. I only had to kill one because their car blew up and killed the others. Again, I’m not sure if it was programmed like this. In order to kill the remaining gang member, I picked a gun dropped by one of the other members. I didn’t really know how to fire it – I learned a little bit later during a different mission – so I accidentally hit a whole bunch of innocent people on the street, plus the gang member. Succeeding in this gained me money and “respect” points.
This mission was disturbing to me. I violently killed someone (and innocent bystanders) from another gang simply because they looked at me. In truth, I think the entire concept of the game is absurd and it’s because of missions like this. While it’s easy to declare all senseless killings are wrong, I know there will be people who feel compassion for CJ because of his poor neighbor and murder of his mother. These people would probably say that he was sort of “forced” in gang life based on his situation. I’m not saying this isn’t true for real life gang members, but as someone playing this game, it’s hard to feel any sort of compassion for CJ. Sure, his story probably happens in real life, but how can I as someone playing a videogame really feel for him? For one thing, the graphics and violence are very cartoonish. In this sense, the game almost desensitizes me while playing it. It is not until after I’ve finished playing the game and think about what I just played do I realize the immorality of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.
I also learned how to build muscle in the game and change clothes. The exercising in particular felt more like a palette cleanser. It was relatively simple to lift weights, run the tread mill, and cycle on the elliptical. It was a nice change of pace from all of the violence. However, I couldn’t work with the boxer until I gained more muscle. Once I was able to speak with him, it was back to the same old thing: beat him up. So, once I did, I learned some new fight moves that will “cause my damage to [my] enemies.” Once again, back to the cycle of violence.
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| [April 13, 2010 03:45:24 PM]
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This was my first playing GTA: San Andreas, however I was prepared for the infamous violence, language, and other things characteristic of the series. In GTA: SA, you play as Carl Johnson, an African-American man who has just returned home to Liberty City. Carl feels completely like a stereotype. He lives in the ghetto, has a basketball hoop next to his house, and is a member of a gang, the Grover Street Families. Carl uses crude language, mainly curse words, when speaking to friends/ members of the gang and when he he’s arrested by police. Interestingly, the police are racist by their racial profiling. While Carl had been arrested before for crimes he DID commit as a gang member, the police nonetheless assume that he has returned to continue gang operations, when in fact he has returned after the death of his mother. It’s important to note that these policemen are probably corrupt. After all, they do literally throw Carl out of the squad car, purposely in a rival gang territory. But this does not excuse Carl for actually committing crimes when gameplay begins.
It’s very hard to describe the ethics of the characters through how much I’ve played the game. While Carl is the protagonist of the story, it’s very hard to describe him as a “hero,” let alone a moral agent. Excluding the sympathy he has for the death of his mother, Carl nonetheless continues to be in a violent street gang. When asked if he would be willing to do stuff for the gang, he says, “I’m up for that shit.” Certainly, moral absolutists would consider Carl’s actions always wrong. But, Carl didn’t ask for this situation. This isn’t to excuse his actions. Killing someone with a baseball bat and destroying property via spray paint are wrong actions. A relativist from Carl’s perspective would say, it is a part of his life/ culture because of where he is born, how he was raised, and so on, while an absolutist would say he’s always wrong. I think he really falls somewhere in the middle. He shouldn’t do the things he does, but he is nonetheless trying to make a living and help his friends who are as close to him as family.
I only played through a few missions. I found the cutscenes that introduce the game to be fairly dull, to be honest. But, when I actually got to playing the game, I found that it was simple enough to control things. However, other elements of the game surprised me, such as eating a proper diet, exercising to increase stamina and so on. I’m not sure if the intent of the game makers was to increase the difficulty of gameplay or somehow try to make it realistic, showing that even though we consider people in gangs to be some form of “sub-human” because they do things like traffic drugs, kill, and steal, gang members are still human beings who have, in some cases, been thrust into their situations.
This entry has been edited 1 time. It was last edited on Apr 18th, 2010 at 17:45:37.
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