Saturday 4 October, 2008

My second time playing San Andreas was a lot easier than the first time because I was able to learn how to break when I was driving, and I was a little more use to the violence. Although, the game seems somewhat pointless to a person who has little gaming skills who can barely drive a car while following a road map. I would try to finish missions but would usually get caught by the police and have to start over again. I would get frustrated with my playing skills, and resort to beating up police officers or starting a fight with civilians to amuse myself.
I found that beating up people was fun and amusing, and I think that that is what the game is all about. The game does not have any sense of moral values, and I think that is why the game is so popular. People love not having rules and restrictions, and they enjoy playing in a world where there are barely any consequences for their actions, and you are actually rewarded for hyper violent behavior. San Andreas makes it fun to beat up old men and women and have sex with prostitutes then kill them for your refund. I found myself laughing when I was participating in this violent behavior, and I did not know if it was because the behavior was so extreme that it was in a way humorous, or if I actually thought that it was funny seeing old people get beat up.
Morality is in no way a part of San Andreas, but I think that that is the whole point of the game. San Andreas teaches you that killing is fun, and police brutality is exciting. The idea is that we need to be able to separate fantasy from reality, and realize that violence in video games is different from violence in real life.

Yeah, I often wonder why people play games or want games in which they can kill innocent people and commit other various atrocities. Maybe that says something about society as a whole? Yes, its fun to break the rules, but when people enjoy games like this it makes wonder if people only follow rules because of consequences that exist in the real world or do we actually believe in the laws and rules we set as a society?