One of the really interesting things about the NPR story is that they talked about the fact that young kids will, inevitably, play this game... but the conclusion was that maybe that wasn't such a terrible thing -- that kids can tell right from wrong -- and that they really enjoyed the fact that the game series lets you be a good guy (and drive an ambulance or catch other bad guys) as well as bad. There was more to it than that -- you'll have to listen.
Anyway, I haven't read the NYT review but i'm not sure a reviewer has any responsibility to comment on the relative morality of their subject -- that's just such a huge problem to tackle, and probably outside the scope of a review! (The age thing is a more valid complaint though). And while i don't intend to play the game myself, someday (when we have a sufficiently advanced game system) i expect i'll watch mentalapse play. He's a fan of the games and i've watched him play GTA III. I wasn't really all that bothered by the violence or the misogeny -- sure, it's there, but even in GTA III (and i expect even more so in GTA IV) the violence and misogeny were both amusingly satirical but also had enough realism as to feel really tragic. Dark humor makes for great social criticism. Plus, there wasn't the same purely gleeful destruction that i get from bloody, un-nuanced shooter games -- those bother me a lot more.
(Sorry to ramble... I just think this is a really interesting topic!)
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cerridwynn.livejournal.com at 12:51pm on 30/04/2008![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
One of the really interesting things about the NPR story is that they talked about the fact that young kids will, inevitably, play this game... but the conclusion was that maybe that wasn't such a terrible thing -- that kids can tell right from wrong -- and that they really enjoyed the fact that the game series lets you be a good guy (and drive an ambulance or catch other bad guys) as well as bad. There was more to it than that -- you'll have to listen.
Anyway, I haven't read the NYT review but i'm not sure a reviewer has any responsibility to comment on the relative morality of their subject -- that's just such a huge problem to tackle, and probably outside the scope of a review! (The age thing is a more valid complaint though). And while i don't intend to play the game myself, someday (when we have a sufficiently advanced game system) i expect i'll watch mentalapse play. He's a fan of the games and i've watched him play GTA III. I wasn't really all that bothered by the violence or the misogeny -- sure, it's there, but even in GTA III (and i expect even more so in GTA IV) the violence and misogeny were both amusingly satirical but also had enough realism as to feel really tragic. Dark humor makes for great social criticism. Plus, there wasn't the same purely gleeful destruction that i get from bloody, un-nuanced shooter games -- those bother me a lot more.
(Sorry to ramble... I just think this is a really interesting topic!)