GTA: San Andreas

You've probably heard quite a bit about the Hot Coffee controversy surrounding GTA: San Andreas. If you haven't, here's a recap: while developing the game the developers half-coded a sex mini-game which does not make an appearance in the game, but is accessible if the user applies a third-party patch (on the PC) or uses cheat tools (on the console versions). This was dubbed Hot Coffee, relating it to the fact that were the mini-game present in the game, it would be played after one of CJ's girlfriends invited him in for "coffee". The discovery stirred up quite a lot of commotion, prompting a re-rating of the game from M (mature) to AO (adult only) and subsequent recall of the original versions of the game. Of course when dealing with moral panic of any sort the blood-suckers and the general scum of the earth popped their heads up: Republicans used the scandal to try and push freedom-suppressing laws and Democrats jumped on the issue to gain some moderate, family-oriented, "moral" votes their own way.

The curious thing is that no one who criticized the game actually played it. If they had, they would have found a virtual treasure-chest of offensive material with which to attack the gaming industry. Luckily, neither you nor they have to play the game to see just what I am talking about.

I went ahead and made a little compilation of some "questionable" acts of wanton destruction one can perform in the game. I did this in part to enjoy the game, once again, and in part to ask the question: why didn't anyone say anything?

Click expand to see the entire post.



Mission 1 - The Train Job

Scouting out

Tracking down

Highjacking

Accelerating

Almost there...

Going off the tracks

There, off in the distance, are the cars

The locomotive is in the tunnel, sadly

This is just me exploding some C4 packs. For poops and giggles.

Mission 2 - The Tank Job

Taking the tank for a ride around the city

Running down a cop and several pedestrians

Actually using the huge cannon to explode a civillian car...

...and a cop car.

Mission 3 - The Helicopter Job

Getting in an Apache-like helicopter to viligante-ize

Tracking down criminals and blasting them with rockets or a Gatling gun

Mission 4 - Pedestrian Rampage

Attach sticky C4 packs to cops and detonate them, sending body parts flying

Mow down civilians with a minigun

Run down the slow ones with a motorcycle...

...and watch them fly.

Actually mow down people...

...and watch the grisly mess come out of the combine.

Finally, after much anticipation, the first pictures I took and the reason for this whole post, I bring to you "CJ's High-Skies Adventure".

There is a semi-hidden surprise in the San Fierro airport...

...your very own...

..."747".

Comes in a variety of colors!

Isn't she a beauty?
Taking off right over a residential area.

I've always loved the "Luxor" Pyramid of Las Venturas.

Coming up on a skyscraper in Los Santos...

...can you guess what's going to happen?

Yeah, you can actually do this in-game.

X
Hmm, seem to be missing the final shot. Oh well.

So, we've seen:

• grand-theft-train and derailment
• driving a tank around, smashing cars, driving over pedestrians and exploding everything in sight
• hunting disgustingly-outmatched criminals with a military helicopter
• killing computer-controlled characters in a variety of sick and disgusting ways
• virtual reproduction of the events of 9/11

... and all that the media could find to talk about is some badly animated sexually-suggestive motions?

Why do I bring this up? Why did I write a blog entry about something that I could have covered just as well a full year ago? Well, I haven't posted anything in a while and I haven't played San Andreas in a really long time, so this was a two-for-one deal.

That and the fact that recently I've seen video games come under more criticism and full-out attack, like the attempts in a number of states to pass violent games off as equal to pornography. While some might say that this blog entry illustrates the violence the laws mean to protect children from, my question is, as stated before, very simple: why didn't anyone mention this violence before? San Andreas has always been covered in the media as the have-sex-with-a-hooker-and-killer-her-afterwards game. Or the Hot Coffee game. I am making the point that the people who are screaming the loudest have no idea what they are screaming about. Sure, you can kill a hooker, but compared to everything else, that's a pretty tame way to spend your time in San Andreas. Did you know that you can actually play the role of a pimp in this game? That's just a side note. I didn't take any pictures of that, sorry.

Well, that's it for this entry, I guess. Good night.