The End of Thought

Ok, I give in…GTA IV is good.  Really good.

After making a post about how games don’t excite me anymore and how they aren’t keeping up with other media, here comes a brilliant beacon of violent and sexually explicit genius to cut though the fog.  Grand Theft Auto 4 is one of the best games I’ve played in a loooong time…and I’m not even a third of the way through it yet.

You know the deal already.  If you are reading this, you’ve probably at least seen a previous GTA game played before and know what you are getting into.  I’ve dabbled in the series prior to this, but I never became the obsessed fan boy that was so commonly seen around my college dorm.  Aside from the initial thrill of driving around and doling out mass amounts of destruction, the game never really hooked me.  The characters were always cookie cutter stereotypes, the action got repetitive, and if you actually played the missions, you realized they were boring seek-and-finds that frustrated more than thrilled.

Most of that has changed with this new GTA experience.  The most immediate improvement is the the work that has gone into making this version of Liberty City a real city.  If you did nothing but walk around observing, you would see computer controlled characters going about their daily life.  You would see garbage men making their rounds, cops busting criminals that aren’t you, fender benders on the highway and countless other mundane pictures of modern life made stunning by their realism in this created world.

The main characters are also given more humanity in this game.  I can’t even remember the characters from the previous games…there was nothing to remember.  GTA IV has characters that you actually like and care about.  Niko, the character you control, isn’t a faceless criminal with no emotion.  He’s just a regular guy caught up in the rat race of the American underground.

Which leads me to my next gushing accolade: GTA IV is also biting social commentary.  Just listening to the in game radio stations proves this point.  Many modern stereotypes are parodied from the constant “terror threat” warnings of the conservative talk radio station to the self indulgent tone of the NPR rip-off.  But it goes deeper than simple parody.  Many of the cut scenes paint a picture of a seedy world of crime created by the people in charge who claim they want to clean it up.  Immigrants lured by the the American Dream are left to rot not far from the boats they came in on.   Wars are declared by the rich and powerful, yet fought by the young and poor.  Yeah, there is lots of violence portrayed in the game, but the characters portraying the violence don’t all come off as evil people.  Most seem like average men and women hardened by an unfair system and losing at a game where the rules make it impossible to win.

What disturbs people about this series may not be the level of fictional violence portrayed, but the fact that actual problems that are much worse are being faced by real people every day.  Maybe instead of blushing, scoffing and getting all in a tiff about a game, we as a society should address the real problems this game is based on.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go steal a helicopter so that me and my Rastafarian friend can head to the strip club in style.

GTA IV

Pros: Story, presentation and design are all top notch.  You won’t be forgetting this game soon.  The in-game music is especially fantastic.

Cons:  Controls take a lot of time to get used to.  Driving is harder (but more realistic) than in previous games, and other tasks (shooting, camera control) are still a little cumbersome.   Missions do tend to stick to a few repetitive types (though the excellent story makes you care more about completing them).

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Other things to address this week:

- That Facade game I said I was going to try out last post…yeah, it’s crap.  I get where they want to go with it, but the technology isn’t there yet.  Not worth the lengthy download.

- Two exciting musical releases this week.  The first is the latest release by Portishead.  Third may not be as instantly gripping as their first two albums, but it is haunting in its own right.  The second album to check out is the debut of Santogold.  The easy way to describe her would be a Brooklyn M.I.A., but her sound is, for better or worse, more varied than M.I.A.’s.  She does the whole retro synth mixed with tribal beats, but she also throws in some indie guitars and 80’s pop/rock.  Not every track is perfect, but when she hits (like with the song Creator) she hits hard.