I Just Don’t Get It: GTA IV
Friday, May 2nd, 2008
The media is so fricking excited about GTA IV (Grand Theft Auto IV). It’s metacritic.com score is 99 out of 100! How is that even possible? I have no desire to play this game at all.
It’s a game about crime. You can get and kill hookers in the game. You can shoot cops and steal fast cars…okay. I just don’t get the draw.
I love games. I have since I first played that old Atari 2600 that my dad (who I can see now was a tech geek just like me) brought home when I was very young. I think the Xbox 360 is an incredible platform and there is a lot of incredible content for it. In fact, just this last week my gamerscore reached 10,000. Now, if you are a 360 owner that might have a little significance. But otherwise, it’s an arbitrary number of false achievement. Let’s just leave it at I am a serious gamer. I am usually open to playing almost anything.
I am totally stumped by the GTA hype. I hear it has a great story. I hear it has the most realistic alternate reality city ever created. I even hear that the main character, Niko, has remorse for his hyper-violence. But what is the “why” of this game?
I like games about heroes battling the darkness. I like games that enliven and bring the magical realm to the world. Give me unicorns and faerie dust any day.
This game scares me just a little.