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John Oremus
Log No. 3
The third time I played Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was an experience that was not all-that different to the second time I played it. There were a typically high amount of small missions for members of the crew that all involve a degree of violence (sans the low-rider competition mission at the Mexican church). The game’s concept of health was one that I found particularly interesting, and it is the theme that I want to look into a bit more in this post. Health is another aspect of the theme of a lack of consequences that the game. When CJ “dies” he just goes back to doing his usual tasks. Besides the loss of about $100 dollars each trip to the hospital and the loss of any possessed weaponry, CJ is the same. Another interesting concept in the game is the literal health bar. Unlike most games where the character regains health as the game goes on the player has to actually purchase food in order to regain health, which is something I hadn’t experienced in a game before. It adds a degree of reality, if not a degree of comedy because the health comes from either a pizza restaurant or a chicken stand. The gym was another interesting concept that the game offers the player. Gamers have the option to actually work out various aspects of their body that enhance the certain skills like durability, speed, et cetera. It was an interesting rub in the game, I did not utilize it that much because I was more interested in the actual gameplay, but I did find it funny in a tongue-in-cheek stab at realism on behalf of the game. The choice to work out mirrors the ethical choice everyone goes through with regards to real life. Do you take the time out in your day to work out and get healthier? Or do you continue going about your business? It’s something to think about and, if I were playing the game under normal circumstances, I would probably do it.
To be honest I got a bit bored of the game the third time around, there is a high degree of aimlessness and repetitive dilly-dallying and doing different tasks for other people instead of your own desire to find out who killed CJ’s mother. I thought that I was doing all of these things in order to gain information about it, but the plot is a lot more drawn out than that. The first few hours of gameplay seem to be totally dedicated to acceptance and chauffeuring, which is a bit of a bore after a while. When I got annoyed with the lack of meaning I found myself exploring the depth of the map, which was a lot more fun than the gameplay, to be honest. The map is extremely fun to play around on because of the size and realism of the area of California depicted (having recently spent time in California, I can attest to the accuracy).
As a wrap up I would say that I am moderately likely to return to the game in the future. Would I rather play NBA 2k or FIFA than this? Probably. But that is not to say that the game is not good, in fact I would say the opposite. The compelling time in American history shown in the game is reason enough for me to return to the game.
Rating (out of 5): |
