Grand Theft Auto
August 23rd, 2008
One of my goals for this sabbatical was to absorb some of the pop culture I missed out on while living in Tokyo for so long. I had planned on renting Heroes, watching the Sopranos through to the finale, and playing some video games. Manny’s pad in Covent Garden has all the important mod cons: 42″ plasma TV, Xbox, Wii and PS3. Why wait?
We bought Grand Theft Auto IV on Wednesday and it took until just after midnight to learn to drive, fight, shoot and take the Michelle character out on dates. On Thursday I played from about 2:00p until I had acquired a set of body armor, a knife, a pistol, a shotgun and a police car about six hours later. Then we were ready to really start playing.
Most days we’ve been up until around 1:00a playing, and that was exercising real discipline. I’m not sure that playing a violent game like GTA makes you more likely to commit violent acts in real life, but I know that after playing for three solid days it does affect your perception. In the game, if you beat up or run over a character, any cash he has falls out of his pockets and glows green. I was walking down Neal Street on Friday and saw a fluorescent green plastic spoon from the local gelato place glowing in the sun on the cobblestones. My first thought was, “Ooh, money.”