Saturday 21 January, 2012

I realized after turning on the game today, that I had forgotten to save my game. I started over from the beginning, but now that I knew what to do, things went smoother and much more quickly. I noticed something that I had not noticed in my first play through, however.

In one early mission, the player goes to go get a haircut, then rob a pizza parlor. The NPC accompanying the player on this mission makes a comment before the mission starts to the effect of "Look at this building. Its all clean and pretty - no respect for the hood." The implication here seems to be that minorities in economically disenfranchised neighborhoods wish to maintain a low standard of living and property values, cannot respect, and must actively destroy legitimate establishments that would help the situation of that area.

The mission ends in failure regardless of player action, and soon you are off to reclaim turf through graffiti. I attempted the mission once, but was arrested by a cop who came out of nowhere, drove back, attempted the mission again, and nearly completed it before accidentally driving off of a bridge due to the absolutely insufferable controls, and inadvertently killing the NPC in an explosion that I managed to escape from but he did not.

After this, I became so frustrated at having failed the same mission twice, that i decided to beat people up and collect money. I stole $2100, an ambulance and a few guns. This is where i left off

"The implication here seems to be that..."

Good point, at times it seems like the game implies or suggests things while simultaneously critiquing them. In this case, who is the character and what is he like? Does that matter?