What Has Two Thumbs, Low Self-Esteem, And Played A Bunch Of Grand Theft Auto IV Last Night?
THIS GUY. I'm not going to go into the depth of sadness or the crushing weight of failure that accompanied my purchase of an X-Box last night. That's a whole other post for my new blog, suicidegum.com. Whatever, fuck you, I'm not 30 yet. I'll respect myself when I'm dead (on my 30th birthday.)
So, about this game. If you haven't heard of it, it's basically like Pong, except instead of hitting a glowing LED ball with a digital paddle, you steal LED cars and drive around an almost life-sized digital replica of New York City. The plotline, at least what I've seen of it so far, is a combination of The Wire: Season 2, Eastern Promises, and Coming to America. Imagine a country so free, one can throw glass on the streets!
Travis said that I should not write about this game, because of all the prostitute killing. I think that is a fair point. I'm hoping there is some kind of cheat where you can make the guy sign a contract promising not to shoot any prostitutes because he finds it to be a reprehensible and unnecessarily misogynistic facet of gameplay that adds nothing to the story or enjoyment of the experience other than a dark strain of hatred towards women, and particularly lower class women who have been forced by an unjust socioeconomic system into a bitter underground economy, selling the only resource they have easy access to, their bodies. Does anyone know that cheat? I know it's up-down-a-b-a-b-select-something.
But so far my favorite aspect of the game is the unintentional humor that comes when the plot is mixed with actual gameplay. Case in point: my character was supposed to pick up a girl and take her on a date (like, I said, i will kill myself on my 30th birthday and this will all be over, so relax.) We drove her car. But driving is hard, so I kept running into pedestrians and knocking down light poles. The hood of her car broke off and flew away. I drove up onto a boardwalk, killing ten more people. And the whole time, SHE IS JUST MAKING SMALL TALK about how SHE IS FROM THE MIDWEST. We went bowling (No we didn't. How long do I have to do this?) But after I took my turn and it was time for her turn, I got bored and stopped the game. She was like "that was fun, I guess you should take me home." Yes, that was so fun. Back at her place, I drove up onto the curb. She got out and said she would call me. Then I stole her car and drove home. I think the date went as well as it did because there are way more single women than single men in this videogame.
Between the date and the part of the game when it said "Go back to Roman's apartment and watch TV" I started to worry for the nerds more than I have in a long time. How will they be able to both play this game and keep up with Second Life? But I will grant them this: driving through the fake Dumbo, and around the fake Grand Army Plaza was hilarious. I'm so glad we never have to go back to those places in real life, right guys? I know Kung Fu.
Posted by Gabe at 11:33 AM
Tags: Grand Theft Auto IV | Loneliness | Nerds
Everyone knows you really bought a 360 to play the new Katamari game. LIAR.
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Dude, what you called "unintentional" humor is very, very intentional. Don't take credit away from these people; they know exactly what effects they create.
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Fair enough.
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