Grand Theft Auto Vice City should not be legal. But I love it.
Yesterday my brother Peter arrived in town — I spent most of the morning waiting for him at the airport — and shortly thereafter our friend Mark, whom we’ve known for 17 years (hard to believe) since our parents were divorced and our Dad moved back to Marin, arrived with PlayStation 2 and bagfull of games. Mark was one of our early video game compadres, and last night we were reminiscing the old days when games were simple with titles like Soccer. Those were the days of the original Nintendo (released in 1985, the same year our parents were divorced). None of this fancy and way-too-realistic kill ’em all games of today.
Last night wasn’t the first I’d seen a game like Vice City. I had played Grand Theft Auto III, the game’s predecessor, at least once before when Tim brought his PS2 over to our place on TI way back when. But it never ceases to amaze me how fucked up and realistic this game is.
After we entered in a weapons cheat, I watched my brother control the game’s main character as he approached an innocent person on the street with a chainsaw and proceed to hack the person to pieces — with blood spouting everywhere. With realistic detail, he continued to drill into the person on the sidewalk after he had fallen. Later, I watched Mark play the game as he went on a special mission for a Haitian woman to snipe a gang of Cubans who had an ongoing turf war with the Haitian woman’s children. Eventually, we succeeded in the mission. And, of course, there’s the staple of the game — the ability to highjack anyone who drives by, steal the car (or truck or motorcycle or ambulance or police car or helicopter or tank), and proceed to drive around knocking over anything in your path, including people.
In the context of the game, all of this is absolutely hilarious. But then, I’m a mentally, emotionally, and psychologically stable 25-year-old who understands the difference between make-believe and reality. Not everyone does. And kids should certainly not be exposed to such realistic violence. Now I’m not saying that video games are responsible for violence in America, school shootings, etc. My point is simply that it’s pretty damn insane how realistic and fucked up games today are — especially when compared with games of 15 and 20 years ago. And that young kids should be closely monitored by their parents and not allowed to play such intensely violent games.
Happy Thanksgiving!
