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Monday 6 October, 2008
As the game continues, you are given a number of missions that you must complete to progress through the game. You are usually given a choice as to what mission you would like to do next, but ultimately, you must complete all the missions (except those that are optional, which I haven't played long enough to get to). Each mission you complete, you gain respect and money as a reward and every mission involves some level of illegal activity. So the game follows this idea of rewarding bad deeds that are done. Now, from a strictly entertainment point of view, I find no problem with this. However, looking at it from a more critical angle, I feel that this game gives the impression that they only way to gain respect from fellow peers, is to do harm in society. A young kid playing this game, who has no sense of how the world works might view this as the correct way to interact with others. The flip side of that coin is very apparent with the 'M' logo on the front cover and the ESRB content rating on the back. But another problem arises when I think back to when I purchased the game, that the sales rep didn't ask to see my ID to verify my age. So it would seem that the rating system is only as affective if it is actually enforced.
GTA San Andreas seems to follow this idea of 'kill or be killed', which is no surprise since many video games on the market now days follow the same goal/objective. Now, I've never beaten this game before, but I have beaten the other GTA games in the past and I remember that by the end of the game, your character is 'on top of the world'. The baddest guy in the neighborhood that no one will mess with, but the only way to get there is to follow that same idea, 'kill or be killed'. Case in point, during the "Sweet's Girl" mission, CJ's brother is pined down at a hotel and it is up to you to get him out of this bind. You show up and there are 4 to 5 different ballers and you must kill every one of them to save CJ's brother. After you have saved him, you jump in a car and race back to your hood to avoid being killed by the backup ballers that come to the scene after you killed everyone.
None of the GTA games follow any kind of moral or ethical code. This is apparent on how the characters do not value life. Because they do not value life, a society like this could never survive. It remains of a passage in the reading we did when there was no consequences for killing others, then there would be no trust and no central form of society. Only when a small group of people agree not to harm one another will there be any sign of progress or structure of society.
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