Selling out for violence - GTA4

I suppose this entry was as inevitable as the tides. It's kind of hard to ignore the behemoth that is Grand Theft Auto 4; there's massive posters all over the Tube in London, adverts all over the television (at least for the few seconds a day I bother with it's dross) and it even made front page news on Sky News. To have a blog on games and not write about GTA4 is like a Christian newsletter neglecting to mention the second coming of Jesus. Infact such an analogy isn't that far off the money; if every single reviewer is to be believed GTA4 is like some rapture of gaming, an utterly perfect creation from the colossal teet of God himself.

Which leaves me in quite a predicament because I don't have a copy of the game. I've never been that enamoured by the series as a whole; despite my liberal mindedness in regards to the artistic expression in games I find the wholesale recreation of street crime slightly wanting in personal motivation. I'm sure most people can get much joy out of driving over old ladies in the street or beating passers-by with baseball bats, but I personally need something a bit more to work with other than "LOL, U CAN SHUUT PPL!". Mindless violence is fun, but in short bursts and certainly not for the hours that GTA demands. Call me crazy, but there's little appeal to me about murdering innocents, virtual or not.

What I can report on is the reaction of my fellow gamers who have the bank accounts to support their addictions (I currently waste my time with WoW). So far the feedback has been a resounding "S'alright". While gamerankings and metacritic list GTA4 in the highest echelons of scoring everyone I talk to is no where near as glowing of the game as a whole. Most of the main gripes I've heard have been the driving, an experience delightfully described to me by a good friend as "like piloting a shit brick house on ice" and graphical glitches with the Xbox version. This got me to wondering; Is this yet another case of reviewing knee-jerk reaction? "It's a GTA game, therefore it must be good"?

It genuinely wouldn't surprise me. If there's nothing else I've learned about my tastes over the years it's that the consensus of the general populace is often misinformed and downright wrong. Final Fantasy 12, a game I previously deservedly ripped to shreds for it's boring gameplay, derivative story and tedious characters, was soundly cheered about from the highest mountains. Yet a quick peruse of personal review sites will reveal a decidedly mixed review about the game, the most prevalent example being the Gamefaqs review page, where the average hovers around the 6 or 7 mark taking the top reviews into account. So it seems then, if nothing else, GTA4 has proven just how tuned in many of us are to the apparent non-existent genius and worth of many games.

But the big question of course is why is GTA4, and indeed the series as a whole, put up on a pedestal in the first place? Well it's probably for a number of reasons, be it the sandbox environment, several missions to complete, the number of cars to knick etc. To me though the overwhelming appeal is the aforementioned mindless violence. Reading the testimonies of the few who adore the game, quite often the experiences they report are one's filled with various gruesome or nasty acts of violence. For example, one such anecdote recounted a player happily battering a prostitute he was hired to protected with a bat, before reloading the game just to crash a car into her. Granted prostitutes aren't the most respected or well-liked members of our society, but to me this sounded borderline psychotic. Inevitably for many people it comes down to unique experiences, but all of them are fixed into an ideal of slaughter, bloodshed and violence.

Which is of course all fine in my book. Don't get me wrong I'm not Jack Thompson. People should be entitled to their mindless violence. Because I can see what many naysayers of the games don't; that these violent tendencies aren't created by playing GTA, they are present long before a person picks up a copy of the game. Infact, the massive popularity is easily explained by the fact that it appeals to a large demographic; the frustrated male brimming over with pent-up angst and primal anger. In many ways it acts as a source of therapy, preventing a person from unleashing their rage against the general public and sedating the hypothalamus. It notably taps into the part of our brain that revels in seeing others destroyed. It gives the same thrills as hammering out an off-beat tune on a table with one's fists, engaging in some quality time with a punching bag or even taking a really massive crap. GTA doesn't encourage violence, the violence encourages others to play it.

That's not to say that only men play GTA or are playing GTA4 right now, but it wouldn't surprise me for a second if one were to draw up a demographic for the game and find a majority of males. In this sense the game poses a problem in terms of games in general, because whilst GTA4 is undoubtedly popular, weighed against the criteria of artistic worth in other forms of media it's notably skewed. GTA4 being the best-selling game is like the Transformers movie winning the Best Director/Actor/Actress Oscars, or a 'Lil Jon album being indoctrinated into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Many people looking at us gamers drolling over the mindless destruction of GTA4 and the like aren't going to see us than anything more than violence-obsessed creeps. Which is a shame, because there have been many games which are beautiful works of art as well as fun to play but will never reach the heady sales heights of the GTA4 series.

I won't be getting GTA4 anytime soon. Should the opportunity arise to play it I shall do so and report back my findings. Until then I see no reason to fall into the trap of blatant demographic targeting.