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Monday 18 January, 2010
Game Day One
I am not a gamer by any means. My idea of a good video game to this day is still Super Mario Bros for Nintendo. But upon picking up GTA San Andreas from a friends house i found myself starting to get a little excited to be able to experience video games again in my 20's.
Upon starting the game you are introduced to CJ, your avatar for the duration of the game. I loved the idea that CJ has his own house which you can return to and found myself feeling like i was in a warped version of the SIMS games for your PC.
A few minutes into the game of aimless wandering around the city I called my friend and asked him for some advise on what to do. I have never played a game like this before and wasn't sure what the concept behind it is. He explained to me it's simple just wander around, cause trouble, steal cars, complete missions to earn rewards. I thought to myself, what a pointless game.
Game Day Two
Today i decided i was going to make and honest effort to make this game fun for me in some way. I discovered I liked driving around the cars yesterday and trying to see how long i can outrun the cops for. So while playing today I found myself purposely stealing cars, motorcycles, and helicopters and driving them around stupidly trying to get the cops attention. I treated the game like a racing game, and realized after about 30 minutes I was bored once again.
Game Day Three
Seeing as I couldn't grasp the concept of the game on my own I decided to watch a friend play today and realized men have a completely different approach to video games. In the hour that I watched my friend play I witnessed him killing people, crashing into things, causing destruction, stealing, and being involved in all sorts of different missions. After seeing how much a guy could get into the game I understood how some people find this game to be fun.
As I watched him play he explained to me the differences and similarities between San Andreas and other GTA games. I realized that this game has a way to some how entertain everyone. I found myself enjoying the racing aspect, other enjoy killing, and causing chaos.
Conclusion and Final Thoughts
Overall I found this game to be a little morally questionable. The game focuses on gang activity and law breaking in order to advance to other levels. This worries me because I wonder what it's teaching younger children to think about the law. I would hope that a parent would strongly discourage children in thinking that what happens in San Andreas is okay. The main source of entertainment in the game is destructing the city and breaking laws. Even I could only get excitement from the game by running away from cops when I got in trouble. Or else the game seemed worthless to me.
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