Grand Theft Auto Iv

MATT MAson

BROADSIDE
The trailer for this is dropping later today, you can watch it here in about 8 hours:

http://www.rockstargames.com/IV/

Are there any other GTA addicts on Dissensus? I've been disappointed with the last two PSP efforts, and am hoping this will restore my faith in the franchise before I dump it all together and concentrate on pining for the release of Spore.
 

Canada J Soup

Monkey Man
Cool. I had no idea this was forthcoming. I'm not much of a gamer, but the one occasion where I've become so immersed in a video game that I played it almost to the exclusion of all else was GTA III. Granted, I had more fun stealing buses and crashing them into impossible jumps or using cheats to go on rampages in the tank than anything else.

Now I just have to make friends with someone who has an Xbox 360 or a PS3...


Total aside: a quick Wikipedia search on GTA IV led me to an amusing afternoons work-avoidance reading about Christian anti-video game (and former anti-rap music and anti-Janet Reno) activist Jack Thompson. Some highlights...

Thompson has described the proliferation of games by Sony, a Japanese company, as "Pearl Harbor 2".

...

[Thompson] claims that the PlayStation 2's DualShock controller "gives you a pleasurable buzz back into your hands with each kill. This is operant conditioning, behavior modification right out of B. F. Skinner's laboratory."

...

Thompson was asked in an interview with a reporter if, by his standards, he would blame Christianity for the murders committed by Michael Hernandez, a fourteen year old who murdered two classmates in 2004, because Hernandez wrote a diary where he wrote constantly about praying to God. Thompson replied, "The Bible doesn't promote killing innocent people, Grand Theft Auto does. Islam does." Thompson then expanded his comments in the same interview by saying, "Islam promotes the killing of innocent people, The Quran requires the infidel, whether Jew or Christian, to be killed. ... That's a core essence of the religion. ... Muhammad was a pirate who killed infidels and who advocated the killing of infidels. Not a nice guy. Osama bin Laden is in keeping with his fine tradition."

...

In 2005, he wrote an open letter to Entertainment Software Association president Doug Lowenstein, making what he described as "a modest video game proposal" to the video game industry: Thompson said he would donate $10,000 to a charity designated by Take-Two CEO Paul Eibeler if any video game company would create a game including the scenario he described in the letter. The scenario called for the main character, whose son was killed by a boy who played violent video games, to murder a number of industry executives (including one modeled on Eibeler) and go on a killing spree at the Electronic Entertainment Expo. Video game fans promptly began working to take Thompson up on his offer, resulting in the game I'm O.K - A Murder Simulator. Afterwards, he claimed that his proposal was satire, and as of February 2007, he has not made his proposed donation.
...great stuff.
 

MATT MAson

BROADSIDE
Brilliant! People have said the same thing about every new form of culture from popular music to pulp fiction.

I'm the same with GTA - the fun of it is doing your own thing, not so much playing the game, which always has a terrible storyline. My favourite part of GTS San Andreas is still driving a sports car tricked out with NOS off the side of the half-a-mile high Mount Chilliad and landing it. If the game instructed me to go do it, it would be way less fun.

When The Face described GTA Vice City as 'art' a lot of people winced, but I think they were bang on the money. There is something incredible about a game where you don't have to do anything, but can do whatever you want.

GTA IV promises to be the biggest step up since the franchise went 3D. It will be interesting to see what they've come up with now sandbox worlds like Second life are all the rage. Only two hours until all is revealed...
 

don_quixote

Trent End
actually i always kind of liked the cheesy storylines; they didn't go on long enough. i could have quite happily cruised round town collecting protection money for hours and hours.
 
Top