Tuesday 15 January, 2008

GAMELOG ENTRY #2
GAMEPLAY I was realizing that I was killing a lot of people and not getting caught for it. It made me think if this were ever to be real it'd be horrible, yet it was okay for me to do this because it was in this fantasy non-real game world. I was realizing the people I was beating up on the street were mostly bums or prostitutes or men with nicely dressed clothing. I would kill them for "fun" and take their money because I was bored. I avoided beating up cops because I clearly wouldn't want to get arrested and targeted vulnerable-looking people to attack. After doing that for a while, it was weird to realize this was entertaining me. After I was playing, my friend decided to play and would do the same thing but would laugh at what he would be doing, which made me realize it was even weirder to do that for a couple of laughs even though it was a videogame.
The characters are interesting because as I was driving around with my ice cream truck that sells crack, prostitutes and bums would approach the truck and would run to the truck. It was interesting to see that men in suits also approached the truck. It was interesting to understand that the only women in the game were the strippers and the prostitutes. The game was fun to play because I liked driving around in different cars, listening to the music in the background, running over people and smashing into cars. There is a structured story to the game by completing missions but I chose not to complete the story missions and to do other tasks.
DESIGN
The game itself has a very urban, tough feel to it by the choices of music, styles of cars, the assignment/missions that one must complete and the people that are put out in the streets. The game consists of many stereotypes with the characters that are a part of the game in the way they speak and even the radio DJ's exaggerating Spanish accent voice. The fact that the only females in the game are prostitutes and strippers also says a lot about the feel of the game, who plays it and what it is saying for society.
The game creates a lot of different challenges by including police to patrol the areas for no "harm" to happen. If you start killing people at times, gang members will fight back and react to your shootings. It keeps people interested because it takes place in "dangerous" areas doing "dangerous" acts without risking anything because it is a game. It gives people the opportunity from all backgrounds to experience what we only see in movies.

You do have to keep in mind that in the game you are playing a very horrible person. When I played it, I used a third party skin to turn my character into the Joker from Batman, because I really felt that the Joker apperance matches the character's mentality perfectly.

This is such a good entry, it makes me really curious what the first entry would have been (since you double posted this one). You make some brilliant observations, both in the design of the game and in playing the game. It's a shame the first entry wasn't posted, since this entry is near-perfect otherwise. Also, next time please space out your paragraphs; it makes them easier to read.


- David Seagal (Grader)