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randomness's Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (PC)
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| [July 28, 2011 11:35:17 AM]
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For my third time playing Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, I decided to ignore the plotline and explore the game for myself. I was extremely disappointed in the lack of meaningful content outside of the main storyline and in other content. I understand that there are missions for driving an ambulance, driving a car, apprehending suspects, etc, but they all have the same thing in common. Namely, they all merely seemed to have the player practice his driving skills. If I wanted to play a game like that, Id play a racing game, not a game that is supposed to be about people in the 'hood. I found the ratio of number of pedestrians to type of pedestrians extremely odd, since there are many people walking the streets. Many of them look exactly the same to me, and shows a lack of creativity in the design of the game, in my opinion.
Due to my dislike of the driving system, which basically seems to be 'use the arrow keys, and if you hit someone, keep going,' I found myself biking around the neighborhood randomly trying to see how far I good get in a good jump onto the highway without the bike falling over. That was fun, since I could try timing it with a car going by. I also got bored from this, and eventually just stole a car and went on a rampage through the city. I guess that that may be one of the issues with the game that others raise, showing kids that when they dont have anything else to do they should wreck stuff, steal stuff, kill people, etc
My overall opinion on the game seems not very complimentary, and thats mainly because thats how I see it. I disliked it because I don't like single player campaign type games due to the lack of; a) mutability, the AI has a limited number of choices, and often the player doesn't know why it makes one over the other, b) social contact with other people, games are often more enjoyable (at least for me) when there are other people I can play with and / or chat with as I am playing. This game does not seem to support either, though as I didn't go through all the options, I cannot state it as a certainty.
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| [July 27, 2011 10:20:34 PM]
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For the second day of play, I found myself back at the save point I had made when I first played the game, as my computer seems to enjoy stopping the program in middle of operation. Therefore, much of my playtime was spent completing the missions that I had already completed, and therefore was much less enjoyable than my first playthrough. I found it odd that the player could kill random people, but could not kill (it seemed) the pizza place owner. While I was attempting to kill him, it occurred to me that the game is extremely unrealistic in some ways, while attempting to be realistic in many others.
As an example of how the game attempts to be realistic, the first time a car runs someone over, the person is usually merely injured, as opposed to killed. This is true for any car that isnt moving fast or that hits the pedestrian in the body as opposed to any vital organ. Another example is the way that when the car drives over a bleeding body, only the wheels that went through the blood leave reddish tracks, and only for a short time. Finally, the game tries to be realistic in the way that it shows the interaction between the main character (CJ) and his friends.
The game is unrealistic in several ways. First, when someone gets hit by a gun, they take many more shots than neccessary to die, while in real life a single shot that is well placed would be all that is needed. The probable reason for this is that if the single shot killed CJ, it would probably not be a very enjoyable game. When someone steals a police car, there is little to no chance that he is going to 'apprehend the suspects' which is what the mission given when one steals a police car is. Similiarly, stealing an ambulance isn't the sort of thing that someone who would waste his time picking up injured people would do, yet that seems to be expected. In addition, while the game seems to make a point of the racism shown by police and or others in positions of power, but takes it to extremes which basically makes the point null. What I mean is, that when a policeman shoots his fellow policeman, he is removed from being an example of a normal policeman, and therefore the showing of racism by him is not unusual.
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| [July 26, 2011 10:55:52 PM]
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There are a few things that come to mind from my experience of playing Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas for the first time, earlier today. The first is what I liked about the game, then what I don't or find it lacking, and finally, how I feel that the game addresses certain moral questions.
When I began playing Grand Theft Auto:San Andreas, I was pleasantly surprised by the way the games cutscenes managed to invoke sympathy for the protagonist, and communicate names and the situation. It seemed like the game was onto a good start in my books. The game is very clear as to what the controls for movement are, and as to what your objective is going to be. This helps people that sometimes aren't great players or thinkers still have a lot of enjoyment from playing the game.
There are a couple of things which I disliked about the setup of the game, however. The main issue was that once a player fails at the mission, it doesn't remind the player what he is supposed to do. This can lead to a lot of wasted time as the person may or may not remember what the requirements for the last mission were. Another issue was that you are given orders to follow someone that you can overtake and stay in front of easily, which makes first time players confused, as they do not know where they are headed.
The game begins with the moral question of how policemen or other humans should treat other people that they have some way of coercing. It continues with the question of how far one should go to be with friends and to fit in. To add to the mainline questions, there are the side moral questions raised by the vigilante and paramedic missions. New players commonly end up running more people over while attempting to get to the suspect or the target area than the people they are supposedly saving. These questions seemed to be important to me, as my time ran out to play today.
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