Pastimes

[serenissima]

I am upstairs working on homework. Chris is downstairs, taking the opportunity to play Grand Theft Auto while I am out of the room, because this is approximately how I feel about the game:


(Gunnerkrigg Court, by the way, is an excellent webcomic, right up there at the top of my list together with Schlock Mercenary and Digger.)

Comments

[daisho.livejournal.com]

It's an entirely reasonable point to make about the game. People are generally cast as the good guy, so being what is in effect an ordinary thug is a real departure, even from games like Dungeon Keeper, where being the bad guy was played largely for laughs, a-la Dr Evil.

Is abstraction of morality sufficiently possible to play an entirely amoral game without revealing something of oneself? I can see why some would think not, although the other side of the coin is a sandbox where we can indulge the darker side of the psyche we all have in a safe way. Perhaps people get a parallel thrill in behaving appallingly in video games to the one they get from watching horror movies?

Interestingly, my regular RPG campaign has elements in common with this. Two or three of the players enjoy having amoral characters (one positively revels in it), so our campaigns tend to be fairly dark in tone. I can never quite get into the spirit of this, and have more often than not ended up as the Jiminy Cricket of the piece. Since firenightingale started playing with us, she's often done the same -- which may or may not be responsible for my playing my most self-absorbed and selfish (although still not outright evil) character to date in our current campaign.

[copperwolf.livejournal.com]

Yeah... I have a hard time doing mean things even to imaginary victims. I thought perhaps I would eventually learn to distance myself enough to play wicked characters, but maybe not. In "Planescape: Torment," did you ever kick the lim-lim?

[403.livejournal.com]

My response to GTA is typically "So what?". It's a pointless grind where you can't really play with the potentially fun bits of the game (like the physics engine), because you're always running from the law-enforcement NPCs. Defending yourself against them only makes the problem worse. Sure it's realistic, but that doesn't make it fun.