Wednesday 1 October, 2008

It's been a while since I fired up San Andreas-- or a PS2 for that matter. Since I've been in school, there's never been much time to play games, so this assignment is welcome for me.

Since the subtitles were initially turned off, I didn't catch much of the initial narrative. However, I do remember that the story starts with a man coming home to Los Santos from Liberty City in order to help his siblings get things in order after his mother has died. Along the way he has to deal with corrupt cop Tenpenny, played by none other than Samuel L. Jackson.

However, this really is all there is to it as far as morality goes. CJ, the main character of the game, is faced with a world in which he must do anything to survive-- including invading Army bases. I personally did not face any ethical choices when playing, as it is just a game. Break into an airport by parking your car on the sidewalk next to the wall? Go for it. Unlike the real world, where this would provoke the DHS into overdrive, a game allows you to do just about anything.

I honestly don't understand where all this garbage comes from that games make kids violent. Honestly, sure, the games show people hurting each other. It can't be done in reality, that's why the game exists. When a kid can't understand that, and decides to emulate the game, that's just bad parenting.

An intelligent, reasonable person, when playing this game, would never be confronted with any ethical dilemma. Playing it, one does not constantly think about "what if I were to do this in the real world?". Rocket launchers don't grown on trees here in reality, and anyone who does think that was screwed up long before popping the disc in. The game is about doing what you can't do in reality, because otherwise it'd be boring. No one wants to PLAY life.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go find that list of cheatcodes that guy mentioned. I want my parachute and army jet.

Yes, playing life would not be to much fun and children should not be playing games like GTA, but the sad fact is that M rated games are easily accessed by the under aged, and children emulate what they see. They might not pick up a rocket launcher and level a city, but they might feel violence is a way to solve their problems, and in GTA most problems are solved through aggression. Its hard to believe that games have absolutely no affect on people.