-----
|
|||
|
Here /home /archives /email Greg /email Folin /Why This Blog Will Not Be Censored There /Love Via Blog /Death Unto Earth /KmS /By Gatz /A Lot Like Alice /ToothpasteMan /Singing Potatoes Somewhere /Truth and Beauty Bombs Other Places /Penny Arcade /Megatokyo /VG Cats /MacHall /Sinfest /Girly /San and Fuzzy /G-Shack /Linux /H*R
|
11/07/2004 - YOU CAN HAVE ANYTHING YOU WANT
"If I kill him, do I get a badge?" "Shit, kill him and you'll get TWO badges!" You first hear these lines when you achieve a four star Wanted level after mowing down police officers with any number of weapons including a chainsaw and automatic pistol, and helicopters are chasing you all around the beautifully rendered streets of Los Santos in any number of vehicles, ranging from an enormous semi truck to a suprisingly speedy BMX bicycle. You are Carl "CJ" Johnson, a man coming back to his hometown of San Andreas for the first time in 5 years after hearing news of his mother's death. San Andreas is easily the single largest gaming environment ever put on a disc, even beating MMORPGs. I have been playing for nearly two days, and have seen maybe one-eigth of the map. And there aren't any "filler" areas. Every single inch of the map is there for a goddamned reason. It's like they figured "Well, we would've liked to had made it bigger, but the disc wouldn't FIT THE FUCKER! So we had to cram it down to only 5000000 BILLION FUCKING MILES OF ABSOLUTE PLEASURE!" The thing about Carl is, he isn't a hero. He isn't an antihero. He doesn't have a mysterious past. His life is an open book, albiet one filled with gang violence and premature deaths in the family. He's just a guy. A guy with a personality, something I believe is incredibly hard to do with the main character in video games. "If you're supposed to be the main character, then the main character cannot have a personality, because what if you wouldn'tve done that?" Flawed logic. Everyone shares the same feelings of compassion for thier loved ones, loyalty to those who have taken them in, and hatred for sworn enemies. Rockstar really draws upon these basic emotions to make CJ an enormously deep character, while still making him accessable to the player. The setting for San Andreas is the 90's, a decade I am incredibly partial to. It's my decade. I was there for it you assholes, don't touch it. Well, Rockstar touched it, but they left everything important just as it should be. The music fits perfectly (NWA - "Express Yourself" and Guns n Roses - "Welcome to the Jungle" are my personal favorites), the attitudes of the people, the cars, the environments, everything about it. An entire decade floods back on you, hitting you with enough nostalgia to drown a newborn goat. Not that you would want to. And the best part of it all is, it's still a GTA. It's still funny. The first lines of this post made me laugh with great volume, something no game has done before. The radio stations are still supremely funny, and one of my favorite people in the world, Lazlow, makes an appearace once again. Fernando Martinez is yet to be spotted, as is Reed Tucker. And with Samuel L. Jackson as the voice of a cop, you really can't go wrong. Game: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Final Rating: 10/10 so far away //Greg::1:10 AM EST\ # | |
Chatterbox 
Profile | Full Profile
|
|
web counter
The present was an egg laid by the past that had the future inside its shell.