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DGOMEZ17's Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (360)
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| [April 24, 2013 11:34:21 AM]
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Donalisa Gomez
GAM 228
4/24/13
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (Game Log Assignment 1 PT.3)
I was finally able to complete a mission, yes! Ok, anyway, I think this game is changing me. Well, not changing me, but changing my behavior to suit that of the game’s lifestyle. In my weekly reflection on Rauch and Utilitarianism, I found a post online about whether or video games make people violent; for example, Fable with being a game of constant killing (as I’m told) and whatnot.
Grand Theft Auto has an effect on me as a player. After the entire jail and cop episode I went through, I got even more violent towards the “people” I encountered. I got more “ballsy” almost. This was true in two situations: stealing a car, and hitting women. So, the first situation was when I got out of jail, had no idea where I had to go, so I started running around, stealing vehicles, and dodging cops/civilians. However, after a while, I got annoyed with not having a goal in sight, and not doing anything productive. I eventually totaled the car I was in at the moment (because I can’t drive in video games, at all) so I stole a new one; however, I did not realize who was driving it—I did not even care, actually. It turned out to be the enemy gang, the “purple shirts”; nevertheless, I successfully stole the car. They shot at me, but I got away *win*. After this, every time I saw someone is a purple shirt, I ran them over. Why? I’m not completely sure myself. According to Kant and Utilitarianism, I would be a great unethical person.
I didn’t stop with the murder of several enemies, no, I went on to beating innocents. That prior feeling I had of not wanting to harm civilians and get busted by the cops again disappeared; I could care less what happened now. This could be because I’m not very good at the game in general, but I think it’s because of the game’s influence over my (in-game) behavior. So, when I was back to walking around aimlessly—t ying to find my house again—I wondered if I could randomly hit people I walked by (why? I’m not so sure myself). The first one to pass by when I thought this was a chick wearing a bikini top and short shorts… perfect target. What I thought was strange was what she said afterwards “You ain’t gonna hit this b#tch, b#tch”…nice. Further strengthening my argument that GTA depicts a severely stereotypical “hood life”. Anyway, back to the cat fight; I was surprised that she started hitting me back—I expected other “people” in the game to just ignore your (the player’s) existence, but no. And I accidentally hit a guy while fighting the woman, so it ended up being two against one; I ran away. What struck me the most afterwards was that I wanted to do it again. The next “hoe” I saw, I wanted to hit her and have a squabble. Or even the guys; I had no problem throwing hands (fighting) with however came my way.
It was as if GTA was changing my personality and behavior into that of a person (CJ) who is living this lifestyle first hand (going to jail, dealing with shootouts, disrespecting life/women/etc.) However, as soon as I was done playing and stepped away from the controller, those feelings were gone; I didn’t become that person. When I was talking to a friend about how I did in the game, I told them about stealing the thugs’ car, and I felt accomplished. When telling them about how I was bored so I beat up random guys and women, I felt like “maybe I shouldn’t have done that”, but I didn’t feel bad when I was doing it. It was as if, during the game, that behavior was normal or expected of me.
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| [April 23, 2013 11:03:06 PM]
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Donalisa Gomez
GAM 228
4/23/13
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (Game Log Assignment 1 PT.2)
Feeling more determined today, I wasn’t going to stop playing this game until I cleared a mission. So, after the main guy, CJ, gets busted by the cops, finds out his mother died, and ends up rejoining his “gang”, him and his guys go for a bike ride…yay~ During this, they are (or at least I was) attacked by an enemy gang in cars, and I got shot a few times. For some reason, escaping a near death instance really gives you the urge to get a haircut, so the next stop was the barber shop. I found it funny that the barber guy was kind of a douchebag about how CJ left town or something—saying that he hopes he’ll stay in town longer this time—and how the main character, CJ, says nothing during his entire encounter with this man. I think this may be to shed some light on the kind of person CJ is; my take on it was that he’s a little bit of a jerk-off who left his mother and family behind for some personal reasons, but never kept in contact (not even realizing his mother died) and is going downhill from there what with all the gang affiliation. Maybe the game is trying to say that black men in the hood are destined to suffer and wrap themselves into this lifestyle that they can never escape? I’m not sure.
Anyway, after the barber shop, I had to go buy some great $2 pizza…awesome. Then the guy I was with tried to shoot up the place because of some beef he had with the joint, but that didn’t end well and we had to run for it. The first time I tried this scenario, I ended up flipping my car and it blew up; fun. The next time I tried, we actually got away; although the white guy followed us with his rifle; scary. The next thing I had to do was go spray paint something, but on my way there I ran over a cop. Shortly after, once his reinforcements came, I crashed into a cop car and flipped it over. Nice one, me. Needless to say I was arrested, but what struck me as odd was that the police accepted—or more like stole—a bribe from me, so I was able to get out of jail after about twenty seconds; hard time in the joint.
As I continued to play the game, after getting arrested, I noticed something strange: every time I was passing a cop car, I would change my current behavior. For example, I had no car when I first got out, so I was running around with no clue as to where I was supposed to go or what I was supposed to be doing. Suddenly, a cop car would drive past and I would stop running and walk until they were out of sight. Strange, right? I didn’t realize this the first time I did it, but I soon caught on to it. Another example was after I had stolen a car later on; I was speeding down the street—crashing into everything and everyone along the way—until a cop car pooped up in the distance. I would immediately slow down, abide by the traffic lights and, once they were gone, I would go on about my merry way.
I wonder if this is a sort of unconscious reflection on my actions. When discussed Kantianism in class, we talked about how breaking the rules are wrong, no matter what the outcome will be. Like with the old woman crossing the street example (only in my case, it was a cop on the sidewalk), both car A and car B ran the red light, but car A hit an old woman. After I hit my “old woman”, I reflected upon it and tried to show proper conduct and behavior when driving thereafter. Not saying that, “oh, I hit a cop and got arrested, so now I’ll never hit a person again”, but that I regretted my action of “hurting” someone and would rather not do it again; staying out of jail and keeping my money is a plus, though!
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| [April 22, 2013 10:24:37 PM]
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Donalisa Gomez
GAM 228
4/22/13
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (Game Log Assignment 1 PT.1)
Honestly, I dreaded playing this game. I believe I played one similar to this game before; “Streets of LA” or something like that. Anyway, I spent about ten minutes trying to figure out how to use the controller, and still struggled throughout the game. I’m an extreme rookie at video games. Now, be that as it may, I still managed to play this game for about 30-35 minutes; successfully…not so much.
One thing I instantly noticed about the game was that the main character was African-American. He immediately is involved with something sketchy—as suggested by his persona and clothing in the beginning of the game—and gets busted by the police when he is going on about his business. Of course, the cops are shown as being pompous, “dirty” cops who arrest him for no (apparent) reason; other than being black and walking around seemingly suspiciously. Now, I myself live in Englewood, so seeing this kind of thing is no shock to me. Cops pull “drug dealers” all the time, search their pockets, take their “stash” (be it money or actual drugs), and kick the guys to the curb. How do cops rob gangsters? It happens.
Another form of stereotypical imagery in GTA is the depiction of hood women as ignorant minorities who all seem to be risqué prostitutes. Gee, thanks GTA. I found it funny that—because these women and civilians in general were depicted in such ways—as I continued to play the game, I held less and less concern for their well-being. When I was driving a car for the first time for example, I hit several “prostitutes” and crashed into many buildings and held no remorse whatsoever. Does this make me a bad person? No, because whenever I drive my sister’s car (or ride in anyone’s car) I’m always nervous about women with their kids running into the street and do everything in my power to avoid it. But GTA makes it seem like it’s almost OK to do such things; as if you as the player is expected to behave as though it means nothing to run over someone due to the setting, the story, the characters, etc.
In class (recently?) we talked about putting the gay in “gaymes”. I feel as though GTA: San Andreas attempt to do the same thing, but with the stereotyping of blacks, money and women. I honestly feel as though when deciding to represent a certain race/ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation in a game, it is important to think about “how” to go about doing that. A lot of the times, the easiest (and often the best way) is by using stereotypical images. GTA is no exception; there is an over generalization that gangsters are black, have shoot-outs, get harassed by the cops, and steal cars and bicycles alike. The same goes for women. In GTA, female characters are overly sexualized and the first woman to speak in the game (a black woman) is given the role of an ignorant “b#tch” as stated by one of the other men that was around at the time. I think this further shows how the makers of this game have chosen to represent (overly stereotypical) interpersonal relationships between black people; man to man, man to woman, etc.
Although I had a rough start, middle, and end, I ended up enjoying myself a bit while playing this game. I think the only thing I enjoyed was making commentary on the things I thought were dumb, and the commentary on my horrible playing skills made by a classmate. I look forward to getting better in the future; will I ever play this game after these game logs are finished….maybe not.
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