I think when it comes to video games I think violent video games get bad rap, sure there are video games that are mindlessly violent, but ironically GTA is one of the icons of "mindlessly violent" games out there... when really it's up to the player whether or not they want to be mindless violent or not.
Sure you can go out, steal a car, and run over half of downtown, rack yourself up to six stars and probably get shot by a tank but you don't have to, you can just do the missions in the game and be objective.
Obviously 'being objective' doesn't mean you aren't going to soil your hands either, but the story isn't about people living normal lives.
I recently played the Lost and the Damned expansion (spoilers ahead), and one one of the biggest take aways from it was when your character (a biker gang Vice President) is talking with a butler/receptionist at a club for rich political figures and asked if he enjoyed having money waved around in his face that he himself will never obtain and if he was happy kissing up to rich people.
The butler says he's content with his life and asks your character if you were happy "sticking it to the man".
You respond that you're starting to learn that there is always a man, they only wear a different suit, which points back to the fact that you yourself are taking orders from an individual who is corrupted by the power of being president of some biker club.
So in the end it speaks to me about how people create positions of power, sometimes as a mass people create it and thus give birth to a politician, or a small group creates it, such as a leader of a club or website, but in the end it's the same effect. You'll end up with eventual corruption at the top. Which is probably why you character burns the clubhouse to the ground when all is said and done. What good is a club of people rebelling against human society when they themselves became the things they were originally against?
I think when it comes to video games I think violent video games get bad rap, sure there are video games that are mindlessly violent, but ironically GTA is one of the icons of "mindlessly violent" games out there... when really it's up to the player whether or not they want to be mindless violent or not.
Sure you can go out, steal a car, and run over half of downtown, rack yourself up to six stars and probably get shot by a tank but you don't have to, you can just do the missions in the game and be objective.
Obviously 'being objective' doesn't mean you aren't going to soil your hands either, but the story isn't about people living normal lives.
I recently played the Lost and the Damned expansion (spoilers ahead), and one one of the biggest take aways from it was when your character (a biker gang Vice President) is talking with a butler/receptionist at a club for rich political figures and asked if he enjoyed having money waved around in his face that he himself will never obtain and if he was happy kissing up to rich people.
The butler says he's content with his life and asks your character if you were happy "sticking it to the man".
You respond that you're starting to learn that there is always a man, they only wear a different suit, which points back to the fact that you yourself are taking orders from an individual who is corrupted by the power of being president of some biker club.
So in the end it speaks to me about how people create positions of power, sometimes as a mass people create it and thus give birth to a politician, or a small group creates it, such as a leader of a club or website, but in the end it's the same effect. You'll end up with eventual corruption at the top. Which is probably why you character burns the clubhouse to the ground when all is said and done. What good is a club of people rebelling against human society when they themselves became the things they were originally against?